“Okay, I’ll start paying attention. So, since I’m new to this art thing, why don’t you teach me how to mix paint for the perfect color?” he asked, taking out his stash of paints, which was much smaller than mine.
“All right. What are you wanting to paint?” I asked before grabbing my paint palette.
“I can’t just tell you. What if I’m no good at painting? Besides, an artist never reveals his secrets,” he said with a grin.
“That’s magicians. Now come here,” I said while putting a few colors on the palette. I decided I was going to mix up some lighter grays and blues for the portrait. “Okay, I want a light gray, try to make it for me.” I handed him the palette.
“Gray is easy,” he said, moving his paint brush to the black.
I grabbed his wrist and tried to ignore the electric current that our touch always caused.
“Never mix with your brush. You’ll have little pockets of unmixed color,” I said, handing him my palette knife. “Mix it with this. It makes a consistent color.”
He took the knife and scooped a little bit of black paint and pulled down a lot of white, which was good. Most people tried to add the white to black to make gray before they understood color; it would take tons of white to make the black go to light gray. His hands worked the paint delicately, folding it over and in on itself, just like waves cresting on the ocean.
“Well, it’s a light gray, but it’s sort of bland. I want to know how to make deep colors, you know, multihued,” he said, looking at the paint.
“That’s the great thing,” I said with excitement. “You can make the colors however complex you want, blue is traditionally added to gray to give it depth.” I pulled a bit of blue into the gray and blended it quickly. “I like adding a little splash of yellow to it too. Somehow it makes it feel warm, even though it’s still the color of stone.” I worked in some yellow and smiled at the color, it was exactly what the painting needed.
“That’s amazing,” Jaron said, breaking me out of my art mode.
I looked up at him and his eyes were bright with excitement.
“I’ve always thought so too,” I said, thinking of how much I had enjoyed making my own colors since Sylvia had taught me.
“No, not the technique… you are amazing,” he said, taking the palette from me and setting it on the table. Pulling both of my hands in his, he looked at me and shook his head. “You almost glow when you’re doing something that you love,” he observed and tucked a strand of fallen hair behind my ear.
“Compliments of glowing are usually reserved for pregnant ladies,” I teased.
Jaron laughed and hugged me with one arm, I wanted to close the small distance and crush into him, but a very small part of my brain reminded me that we were in a classroom surrounded by people. How could he make me want to melt into him, even here with dozens of eyes to see? Why didn’t I care that all of the students would probably be gossiping like crazy about how intimately he looked at me, and I him? Shaking my head to clear my mind, I intended to turn back to my work. Intentions are funny things, though; one second had my eyes back on my painting and the next… I was giving Jaron a quick peck on the cheek. I wasn’t embarrassed. I hadn't meant to do it, but I just wasn’t able to turn my attention away from him without at least a quick kiss.
“Now let me paint, I don’t want that gray to go to waste,” I said, leaving him looking happily stunned.
“Yes, ma’am, whatever you ask,” he said.
After a few minutes of staring at the canvas, I had decided where the highlights needed to be and started painting. “So, do you want to go out to lunch with me and Clarissa?” I asked and turned to him. His eyes widened. “Well, I just thought, you know, we could talk about the spring break trip…” I bit my lip.
He looked down and ran a hand over his face. “I can’t,” he whispered.
“Do you have other plans?” I asked, unsure of the reason behind his mood change.
“Yes, always. Unfortunately I have stuff to do at lunch hour,” he rubbed the back of his neck.
“What stuff?” I asked, studying him closely.
He shifted from foot to foot. Everything about his body language screamed discomfort, but I didn’t back down. “Um, I just have a… part-time job, that’s all.”
“Oh,” I said, completely surprised. “Uh, where do you work?”
“I don’t really like to talk about… When I told you that my life was messed up, out on the lake, I meant it,” he said, looking out the window. “I’ll find a way to fix everything. I just haven’t figured out how to yet.” He sighed. “Listen, let’s talk about something else. Do you want to do dinner tonight?”
Why couldn’t he just answer a simple question? What could have been more straight forward than asking where he worked? I still wanted to go out with him, but I didn’t want to be alone with him. It was far too easy to lose my voice of reason when it was just us, and if he couldn’t tell me one thing about himself, I needed to listen to Clarissa and be careful. “Okay… do you want to come over to my house for dinner? Dylan is an amazing cook.”
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Your place?” he asked as the bell rang.
“Yeah, I’ll text you the time…” I picked up my books and headed to the door.
Jaron hurried after me. “Wait, can I walk you to your next class?”
I shrugged. “If you want to.”
“Why are you upset?” he asked as I quickly wove through the crowd of students.
“Really?” I huffed and pulled him into a less busy hallway. “Jaron, I like you. Probably more than I should. But I don’t know anything about you, and you seem to want to keep it that way.”
“I don’t know everything about you, and it isn’t the end of the world.”
“Okay, Jaron, I live with my aunt and uncle because my parents are dead, I never even knew them. I love reading, swimming, and salty snacks. Let’s see, what else… oh, my hairs grows like really really fast.” Jaron’s eyes were wide. “Now tell me something about you, anything!” I begged.
He met my gaze and took a shaky breath. “My parents are dead too. I don’t have any aunts or uncles, and you are the only person in years who has made me feel happy.” His dark eyes tried to hide the fear behind them, but I could see it. He was afraid that I would turn him away, leave him to his messed up life. “Is that enough for now?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling terrible for pressing him. We stood a few feet apart studying each other before he took a step forward and drew me into his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into my hair.
“No, don’t be. I shouldn’t have. I should let you do stuff on your own time. It’s just not normal for me to feel the way I do about you when I don’t know you.”
He drew back and walked down the hallway, pulling me along after him. “Who wants to be normal?”
10
I RAN AROUND THE kitchen island and turned down the stove, which had a pot about to boil over. “Dylan!”
He laughed behind me. “Calm down, Mari, it’s fine. Dinner will be great and me and Sylvia will do our very best not to go all Spanish inquisition on him… well I will any way, I can’t speak for Sylvia. I like Jaron,” Dylan said.
“Sylvia doesn’t?” I asked, turning the knob back into the position he had it.
“Oh, it’s not that she doesn’t like him. She’s just a know-it-all and she doesn’t know it all about him.”
“Please don’t press him. I told you both about his parents. I don’t want to make him talk about his past. I just want a nice dinner,” I said for the third time.
“I know and I will do everything I can to make that happen. Just relax,” he said. “I remember the first time I had a girl over for dinner with my folks… I’m sure this will go much better than that did.”
“Are you trying to make me even more worried? Because if you are… it’s working.” The doorbell rang and I jumped. “What should I do? Are you supposed to answer the door, sho
uld I go upstairs and make him wait a few minutes before I come down?” I ran all of the chick flicks that I had ever seen through my mind. “Okay, you answer the door. I’m going to go upstairs to make sure I look okay.” I turned to run up the stairs. I could hear Dylan laughing as he made his way to the door.
I made it to my room before Jaron was shown in and hurried over to my bathroom vanity to look in the mirror. I was wearing my hair down because he had told me I needed to let it down more often, and because I had told him about my fast growing hair anomaly already, so I didn’t need to try to hide its length in front of him anymore. I loved my chocolate colored wavy hair. It was probably the only thing I was a bit vain about, so I was glad that I could let him see it. The rest of me looked a mess; my face was tight with worry and I had spilled some oil on my blouse when I was trying to help Dylan cook, a thing that I had never even tried to attempt before this evening. I took off the shirt that I had spent a solid hour picking out and threw it on the vanity, right where I had set my bracelet the night before. Running my fingers over my wrist, I played with the beads, still having no memory of putting the thing back on.
“Maribel!” Dylan called from downstairs.
I ran to my closet and grabbed a gold silk blouse and threw it on. Pausing in front of my full-length mirror, I grumbled. It wasn’t as good as the shirt I'd had on before. Oh well. Leaving my room, I descended the steps as gracefully as I could manage, trying to replicate the way that Sylvia moved. As soon as I came into sight, Jaron smiled. He was standing alone in the entryway. After a moment of checking me out, he ran up the stairs to meet me.
“Hello, gorgeous,” he whispered.
“Back at yeah,” I said breathlessly.
Jaron was wearing black slacks and a black collared shirt that was tailored to perfection. I could just make out the lines of his muscles through the shirt. The only time I had seen him more sinfully gorgeous was when he was dripping wet on my dock with jeans riding low… I shook my head.
“Let’s get to the kitchen,” I suggested.
“Are you sure you want to?” he asked, looking around, pointing out how unsupervised we were. My knees felt weak and I leaned against the railing. “Careful,” he said, straightening me up. When we were alone, I felt his touch more intensely. Just having his hand on my arm filled me with a fiery want that I needed to extinguish quickly.
“Yes, I think the kitchen would be a good idea,” I said, half hoping he would disagree and add kindle to the fire in my chest, but he nodded in agreement.
“Yes, I need to busy my hands with something,” he said, bringing his warm hand to my cheek. His thumb caressed slow circles down my neck to my shoulder, making me quiver. “Besides you.”
I was afraid of what might pass my lips if I tried to speak, so I just did what I needed to do to get a clearer head. Placing his hand in mine, I brought it to my lips and kissed it softly then walked down the stairs pulling him behind me. The bright light of the kitchen did wonders to calm me back down, and I thought I had myself composed by the time we made it to the dining table, but the stunned look on Sylvia’s face told me otherwise.
“So,” I cleared my throat. “Is dinner ready?”
“Yep, have a seat, you two.” Dylan gestured to our chairs. “Now I don’t know if you’ve ever eaten seafood family style, but it’s the best way.” He put a tube of white paper at his end of the table and rolled it down to ours, where I tore it off. “You have any seafood favorites?” he asked Jaron while draining the boiler pot.
“Scallops, they're easy and delicious.”
Dylan’s face fell. “Dang, that's pretty much the only thing not in the pot.”
He brought the still steaming pot over and tipped it upside down, letting the delicious contents spread out evenly on the table. The pot had crab, shrimp, lobster, muscles, sausage, and some corn on the cob. My mouth watered.
“I’ll go sear you some up really quick, we have some in the fridge,” he said, wiping off his hands.
“No, no you don’t have to do that. This is more than enough food and it looks amazing,” Jaron assured, but I knew it was pointless.
“No trouble at all, I’ll be back in a few minutes, you guys dig in,” Dylan said, making his way to the kitchen, leaving us at the table with my even more uptight than usual aunt.
Jaron looked at me, pleading for me to make my uncle just sit down.
“Sorry, I can’t stop him, so we might as well enjoy this while it’s hot.” I grabbed some shrimp to eat while I tried to open up some crab. “Oh, Dylan always cooks seafood perfectly,” I gushed. “Almost every restaurant around likes to overcook it like crazy.”
Jaron grabbed a lobster tail and sliced it open; he pulled out the perfectly fluffy white meat with a small fork and popped it into his mouth. “That is perfect. You can definitely out cook me, Dylan,” Jaron hollered into the kitchen.
“Is it hard to out cook you?” I asked, hoping to find out something more about him.
“I barely know my way around a kitchen. I'm a particularly pathetic baker, so don’t expect me to make you cookies. But I could make you something eatable if you really wanted me to,” he said with confidence.
Dylan walked into the room with a plate full of perfectly seared scallops. “To spoiling our girls with this and future meals,” he said, holding up his glass.
Sylvia had yet to say a word and was beginning to annoy me with how rude she was being. She hadn’t even said hello to Jaron or acknowledged him in anyway. But she picked up her glass and participated in Dylan’s toast. We lifted our glasses filled with a sweet juice in turn. Sylvia eyed Jaron over the top of her wine glass critically. It wasn’t a friendly look, but at least she wasn’t pretended that he wasn’t there. When we set our cups down, she kept her eyes on Jaron and smiled while nodding.
“All right, Jaron, so what are your interests, besides our Maribel, of course,” she said with a genuine smile. Some switch had been thrown in her head, and she was my sweet aunt again. Maybe he had good table manners that had won her over. I didn’t know what it was, but something had made her feel like he was okay.
“Well, the nerd in me loves school, any class with literature, really. And like Maribel, I love swimming.” He pursed his lips, trying to think of what he did and didn’t want to say, I was sure. “Oh, and metal sculpting. I do a lot of that.”
“Metal sculpting, really?” Dylan asked thoughtfully. “Such an unmoving material.”
“You’d be surprised how much it moves when it gets hot. Even something as stubborn as metal can be molded and changed as easily as moving paint across a canvas, if you know the tricks of the trade.” He picked up the tongs and moved three scallops to his plate. Jaron and Sylvia and Dylan fell into easy conversation, and he had barely eaten anything. He’d go to take a bite of food and they would start talking to him again. Seafood was one of those things that lost its heat fast and I felt bad that he was going to have to eat a cold dinner.
“Oh, Sylvia, Clarissa’s dress came in today,” I interjected, trying to take the focus off of Jaron. I looked at the three stone cold Scallop medallions on his plate and sighed. Too late. “She wanted to know if you‘re going to go up to her house to do the fitting.” I shifted in my chair to face her. “Or if you wanted her to bring the dress down here.”
“Either way works for me. Just let our little debutant know it’s up to her,” she said, winking at me. Sylvia thought as much about the debutant tradition as I did. “Are you going to Clarissa’s ball?” she asked, turning her attention back to Jaron.
My distraction hadn’t lasted very long, but I was too curious about his answer to be miffed that they wouldn‘t leave him alone. I looked over in time to see Jaron place a piece of scallop in his mouth. There was one medallion left, it sat lonely on his plate, sending little tendrils of steam curling upward. I picked up the tongs and set a scallop on my plate. I cut it in half with my fork and popped it into my mouth, it was delicious, but cold. Confused, I looked back at his pl
ate where his last one was steaming like it was fresh out of the pan. Maybe it was the last one to be cooked or something, I guessed as I ate the other half.
After dinner, Sylvia and Dylan helped me walk Jaron to the door.
“You come over whenever you like. Maybe give Dylan a night off and show us your hand at cooking,” Sylvia said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jaron said. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, Maribel.” He flashed me a shy smile that matched mine. I wanted to give him a goodnight kiss, but that wasn’t the best thing to do in front of my guardians.
“Yeah, see you then.”
“Actually, we’ve discussed it… and Jaron can drive you to school as long as he tries to make you on time,” Dylan said with a laugh. “Although I won’t blame you for Mari’s terrible tardiness.”
“Really?” I squeaked. He must have really made a good impression.
“Great, then I will see you here bright and early,” Jaron said with a sly wink.
“Okay, drive safe!” I called out of the door as he walked to his car. I turned to go clear the table.
“It’s okay, Mari. You go up to make sure your homework is done. We’ll clean up,” Dylan said, turning me to go back upstairs and headed into the kitchen behind Sylvia.
Halfway up the stairs, I realized that I left my backpack in the entryway and walked back down to get it, feeling like I was walking on clouds. The dinner couldn’t have gone better, my aunt and uncle liked him so much they were actually willing to let him drive me to school. I knew that he was charming, but I really hadn’t thought that Sylvia would change her mind.
The tinkling of forks and plates being moved came from the kitchen along with my aunt and uncle’s voices. “Look at this,” Sylvia said. “His cup is empty!”
“I still don’t see why you of all people had to stoop to spiking his cup,” Dylan said.
What did he just say? I inched closer to the opening to the kitchen to listen.
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