He glanced up. “You did?”
She nodded.
He let out a little puff of air and smiled. Her heart hitched.
“I thought maybe you thought I was a freak or something,” he said under his breath.
“No. Not at all. I’m sorry if I didn’t handle things well . . . That is . . .” Awkwardness swamped her, but she forced herself to meet his stare. “I’m just sorry.”
“I hope not. I thought it was amazing.”
Her cheeks blazed hot. A loud female hoot of laughter emanated from her classroom. She glanced back anxiously.
“I should probably go back in or they’ll be hanging from the rafters soon.”
He nodded. “I understand. I’m glad I caught you, even if was just for a few seconds.”
Her bewilderment mounted. Was he here to say good-bye to a particularly pleasant but irrelevant fling before he left the city like a brilliant sunset?
“I’m glad you did, too,” she said, searching his face and finding no answers to the dozens of questions buzzing like furious bees in her brain.
He nodded toward her classroom door. “What were you doing out here, anyway?”
Joy blinked. What had she been doing in the hallway? She stared blankly at her cell phone and got her clue.
“Oh. The male model I hired for the class’s final drawing project blew me off. I’m going to have to try to find someone else for tomorrow. The Art Institute and pizza field trip I planned for the last day will have to be canceled.”
He glanced toward the door, straining to see through the small rectangular window.
“You don’t use nude models, do you?”
She smiled. “No. I’m afraid the school board won’t allow it. We’re just focusing on the torso and face.”
“I’ll do it for you, then, if it doesn’t take much more than an hour. I left early for the airport.”
Joy gave a soft bark of incredulous laughter. He’d sounded so matter-of-fact, like it was the simplest thing in the world for him to drop everything in his schedule and pose for a bunch of sixteen- and seventeen-year-old high school art students.
“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“I don’t have the build you’re looking for or something?”
“No, of course not,” she said. His expression was impassive, but she sensed he was entirely serious. “I wanted someone who is lean and has good muscle definition. We’ve been focusing on accurate human anatomy. You’d be perfect, but surely—”
“I’d be happy to do it, if you think it’d be okay with my time limit.”
She laughed again. He really was priceless. “Everett, it’s a class full of teenage girls, save one. If you walked in that room, I’d probably have to reschedule their final project anyway, because they’d all faint from shock.”
“They’d get over it. I get old pretty quick. Besides, artists are practical types.”
She saw the tilt of his mouth and shook her head. “You clearly don’t know that many artists. Especially of the teenage variety,” she murmured, reaching for the door. “Are you really serious?”
“Yeah.”
She inhaled deeply, trying to ground herself. “Okay, but I can’t guarantee you’ll come out unscathed.”
“I like an adventure,” she heard him say softly from behind her, his deep voice sounding just inches away from her right ear.
This was lunacy. All of it.