Etching Our Way (Broken Tracks 1)
The man shrugs. “Well, someone needed to teach him some manners. I’m glad it wasn’t me.”
I blow out a relieved breath that they don’t hold it against me as we all laugh along with him.
“Now that the dick has gone, let’s get our art on,” Tristan says, stepping around me and walking back to where he was painting, leaving me standing staring into space. He picks up his brush and swirls it in some paint before looking back at me. “What do you think?”
I walk over to him, my jaw tensing as I pick up a paintbrush and dip it into a royal blue paint before pulling my arm back and splattering it onto the paper backdrop, relieving my frustration and confusion.
“What are you…” I turn around to face Tristan, smirking at the confused look on his face.
“Expressing myself… obviously.”
I feel his eyes on me for several seconds before rustling gains my attention. “I want to express myself too,” he says when I raise a brow at him.
He takes his own art down and puts up another piece of paper, picking up his paintbrush and flicking his hand forward, splattering paint on the paper. Only he misses it slightly and I flinch as the cold splatters land on my face.
Standing there with my eyes closed and my mouth screwed up, I wipe at my face. “You did that on purpose!”
“I… I…” He snorts when he tries not to laugh but he can’t hold it in and his deep, baritone laughter rings loud, making me open my eyes. “I’m sorry,” he tries again, but the grin on his face and the twinkle in his eyes tells me that he’s the furthest from sorry that he could be.
I stare him down as I wipe at my face. “You need to be more careful next time.”
He raises his brow at me. “I thought there were no mistakes with art?”
“No, there isn’t. That’s why I love it so much, you can’t make…” My gaze rakes up and down him. “Bad choices.”
His expression changes from playful to something serious as he places his paintbrush down and turns to face me. “Made a lot of bad choices recently?” he asks with a raised brow.
Clearing my throat and turning toward the piece of paper in front of me, I sweep the paintbrush back and forth. “Not recently, no.”
His eyes burn through my skin, but I don’t turn back around to face him, instead I concentrate on the paper in front of me, releasing all of the built-up tension. My breath stutters as I feel him move closer, but I don’t move a muscle. Why is he so close?
“I know all about bad choices,” he whispers in my ear, his hot breath skating along the skin of my neck. “Like when I wore those sneakers without socks.” He chuckles.
My mind wanders back to the past but I quickly shake it off. “You never did listen much, I told you that you’d get blisters.”
I step aside as he throws his head back laughing, his chest rising and falling. “I always wear socks now.” I chance a glance up at him, and when I do, I see the grin that is spreading across his face and that twinkle in his gray eyes that used to capture every ounce of my attention.
He continues to stare at me, his eyes filling with something serious that I can’t quite decipher, and I want nothing more than to ask him what’s wrong. But I don’t, I let him have a couple of seconds before he looks back down at me, but I can’t look into those eyes, remembering the last time that I truly looked into them and saw betrayal.
He clears his throat, tearing his gaze away from me. “You always wanted an art studio.” He looks around, turning in a full circle. “It screams you.”
I look around with him. “Yep.”
“Clay and Izzie love coming to art class.” I can hear the slight hitch in his voice but ignore it.
A small smile breaks out onto my face at the mention of their names. “They’re amazing kids; Clayton has really come out of his shell these last nine weeks.”
“He has.” He nods, turning away from me briefly. “Things haven’t been easy for him and the art class has…” He shakes his head. “Sorry, you don’t want to hear about this.”
“I… I know he feels deeply and needs time to process things. It’s why I had a shelf put in over by the beanbags for when he needs to take a timeout,” I mumble
He looks over at the shelf lined with books and moves his gaze back to me, an unreadable look in his eyes.
He turns around slowly, walking over to where I pointed and crouches down in front of the shelf, reading the titles that line the spines. “Wow,” he whispers. “You really thought this through.”
He swings
his head back up to me, his gaze capturing mine.