Nice day for a stroll in the rain …
The breeze is just right for flying.
There was a time I hated hearing their fuzzy, buzzy greetings so much I would trap them and smother them. Now the white noise is comforting. The bugs and flowers have become my sidekicks … charming reminders of a secret part of me.
A part of me even my boyfriend is unaware of.
I see him across the parking lot. He leans against his souped-up vintage Honda CT70, chatting with Corbin, the starting quarterback and Jenara’s new main squeeze. Jeb’s sister and Corbin make an odd match. Jenara has pink hair and the fashion sense of a princess gone punk rocker—the antithesis of a typical Texas jock’s girlfriend. But Corbin’s mother is an interior designer who’s known for her eccentric style, so he’s accustomed to offbeat artistic personalities. At the beginning of the year the two of them were lab partners in biology. They clicked, and now they’re inseparable.
Jeb glances in my direction. He straightens as he sees me, his body language as loud as a shout. Even at this distance, the heat of his mossy-green eyes warms my skin under my lacy shirt and plaid corset.
He gestures good-bye to Corbin, who shoves a strand of reddish blond hair from his eyes and waves in my direction before joining a group of football players and cheerleaders.
Jeb shrugs out of his jacket on his way over, revealing muscular arms. His black combat boots clomp across the shimmery asphalt, and his olive skin glistens in the mist. He’s wearing a navy T-shirt with his worn jeans. A picture of My Chemical Romance is air-brushed in white with a red slash streaked diagonally across their faces. It reminds me of my blood art, and I shiver.
“Are you cold?” he asks, wrapping his jacket around me, the leather still warm from his body. For that fleeting second, I can almost taste his cologne: a mix between chocolate and musk.
“I’m just happy you’re home,” I answer, palms flat against his chest, enjoying his strength and solidity.
“Me, too.” He looks down at me, caressing me with his gaze but holding back. He cut his hair while he was gone. Wind ruffles the dark, collar-length strands. It’s still long enough at the crown and top to be wavy and is a mess from being under his helmet. It’s unkempt and wild, just the way I like it.
I want to leap into his arms for a hug or, even better, kiss his soft lips. The ache to make up for lost time winds tight around me until I’m a top ready to spin, but my shyness is even stronger. I glance over his shoulder to where four junior girls gathered around a silver PT Cruiser watch our every move. I recognize them from art class.
Jeb follows my line of sight and lifts my hand to kiss each knuckle, the scrape of his labret igniting a tingle that races all the way to the tips of my toes. “Let’s get out of here.”
“You read my mind.”
He smirks. The butterflies in my belly clash at the appearance of his dimples.
We walk hand in hand to his bike as the parking lot starts to clear. “So … looks like your mom won this morning.” He gestures to my skirt, and I roll my eyes.
Grinning, he helps me with my helmet, smooths my hair across my lower back, and separates the red strand from the blond ones. Wrapping it around his finger, he asks, “Were you working on a mosaic when I texted?”
I nod and buckle the helmet’s strap under my chin, not wanting the conversation to go this direction. Not sure how to tell him what’s been happening during my art sessions while he’s been gone.
He cups my elbow as I climb into place on the back of the seat, leaving a space for him in front. “When do I get to see this new series of yours, huh?”
“When it’s done,” I mumble. What I really mean is, when I’m ready to let him watch me make one.
He has no memory of our trip to Wonderland, but he’s noticed the changes in me, including the key I wear around my neck and never take off, and the nodules along my shoulder blades that I attribute to a Liddell family oddity.
An understatement.
For a year, I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to tell him the truth without him thinking I’m crazy. If anything can convince him we took a wild ride into Lewis Carroll’s imagination, then stepped backward in time to return as if we’d never left, it’s my blood-and-magic artwork. I just have to be brave enough to show him.
“When it’s done,” he says, repeating my cryptic answer. “Okay, then.” He gives his head a shake before tugging his helmet on. “Artists. So high maintenance.”
“Pot … kettle. While we’re on the subject, have you heard from your newest number one fan?”