Etching Our Way (Broken Tracks 1)

I walk out, hearing her stomping footsteps behind me as I walk down the stairs and out of the door, hearing Clay’s snicker behind me when he sees her. I shoot him a warning look to not say anything and he covers his mouth, hiding his grin.

I tap my fingers on the edge of the steering wheel as we make our way to the studio, getting stuck in the Saturday morning traffic which causes an already irate Izzie to start panicking.

“We’re going to be late, Daddy.”

“No, we’re not,” I singsong back, grinning at her when I turn around briefly in my seat.

She huffs, shaking her head and folding her arms over her chest, showing how unimpressed she is at my statement.

As soon as I put the car in park, she’s undoing her belt and bouncing around, waiting to get out of the car and inside the studio.

We’re right on time, but she’s acting as if we’ve missed half of the session as I get out and open her door.

“Isabel,” I reprimand when she begins to run off. “Wait until we’re all out of the car so I can watch you. You know you shouldn’t run off.”

“Sorry,” she whispers, looking down at her shoes and then back up as Clay and I get closer to her.

Once we’re on the cobblestone path, I nod and tell her, “You can go now.”

She smiles up at me and skips off through the open studio door.

“Girls,” Clay says, rolling his eyes and looking at me as if to say, “am I right?”

I chuckle, shaking my head at him as we walk inside.

“Close the door behind you, please,” Tilly says as soon as she sees me, although I can tell by her eyes she’s not happy that I’m here.

I nod in reply and close the door, spinning around and seeing that Clay is already sitting in his seat in the main part of the room.

I stand awkwardly as Harmony speaks to the whole class before Tilly comes to stand next to me.

“You can sit over there.” She points to a chair that is sitting outside a closed door and I smile at her, stepping toward it quietly, trying not to disturb Harmony as she tells them what they’re going to be doing in today’s class.

“Up until today, I’ve let you pretty much use whatever you want, when you wanted. So, we’re going to learn about mixing colors. We’re going to be drawing a primary triangle.” Her gaze flits over to me and she stutters. “Can… Can anyone tell me what the primary colors are?”

I sit down as Clay puts his hand up into the air, his cheeks puffing out as he waves it about frantically. Once Harmony points to him, he rushes out, “Blue and red.”

She chuckles. “Very good, but there’s one more that you’re missing.”

She walks over to Izzie, her brows drawn down into a frown as she pulls the two hair ties out of her hair and starts to braid both sides. I watch the simple gesture with wide eyes, not knowing how to feel about it as Izzie smiles.

Another child shouts out “Green,” and Harmony shakes her head, putting her hand up in the air and signaling that he should as well. When he does what she says, she nods at him and he shouts it out again.

She shakes her head. “Not quite, does anybody else know?”

She ties the braid off in Izzie’s hair and taps her shoulder, smiling down at her and whispering something before she turns back toward everyone else.

They all start shouting out colors and must go through every color of the rainbow before I lean forward in my chair.

“Yellow.”

Harmony slowly turns her head, her gaze meeting mine, her brow raised as she says, “Hand, Mr. Carter.” I roll my eyes and put up my hand. “Yes?”

“The last primary color is yellow.” I smirk, my eyes flitting to Clay who’s shaking his head, not pleased that I got the last color and he didn’t.

“Yes, well done, you know more about colors than a bunch of kids,” she quips sarcastically, her eyes burning into mine. “It is in fact yellow.” Turning back to face all the kids, she then says, “So, can anyone tell me the secondary colors that we can get from mixing these three colors?”

She cuts her gaze to me, warning me without a single word to stay out of it. I make a zipping motion in front of my lips before turning an imaginary key and throwing it away as I lean back in the chair. Her lips twitch but she doesn’t let the smile break free.