Bittersweet (Book #1 Evening Wings Trilogy)

Chapter 8

8

Thursday was muggy, almost hot even though a sinister sort of chill loomed in the air.

I sat outside on a picnic bench with my sketchbook and a can of soda, alternating between shading my latest creation with my colored charcoal pencils and taking a sip of the syrupy, effervescent, canned fluid.

I took a sip from my can, looking down at my sketchbook, when a pale hand shot forward and took it away.

“Hey!” my eyes widened in shock, because up until now, I had only been sketching portraits of Xander, forfeiting my nature sketches for just his likeness. It contented me.

I looked up to find Xander, the real Dr. Death of my obsessed sketches, flipping through my sketchbook, probably horrified to see his face, copied on all the pages in charcoal or 6B pencil.

“Hey! Give it back!” I yelped, trying to snatch the book back from him before he saw something else that might embarrass me, but he pushed me back every time I lunged at him.

Giving up, I sat down and crossed my arms, feeling my cheeks tingle in embarrassment.

I am such a strange person. He must probably think I’m a stalker, I thought to myself, shortly embarrassed beyond any comparison. I kept my eyes on the golden brown color of my skin and the hemp bracelets that clothed my arm. My thumb traced a mole on the underside of my palm and I tapped my foot inconsistently against a large stone under the picnic table.

For a while I didn’t look up, I just sat at the table with my head down, listening to the pages turn in my sketchbook as Xander silently flipped through my work, which was now, mostly of him.

Suddenly he was beside me. My beat up, leather covered sketchbook was back in front of me. I tried to control my temper, but I was finicky when it came to my sketchbook. I drew emotions I felt, people I saw, nature at its best. It was a piece of me that didn’t have to see the world. And I’d tried to keep it that way.

“Are you done rummaging through my things? Or do you want to look in my satchel too? Perhaps see what other things you can find out about me?” I snapped.

Xander’s eyes swirled in an angry vortex that wasn’t hypnotic or warm.

“I see you don’t like it when people take an interest in your work.” He growled, brushing his black hair out of his eyes.

“If you want to take interest in my work, ask for my school pad, or observe the walls in the Art room. There’s enough of my work in there to stock a museum.” I snapped back.

I pushed my sketchbook into my satchel and was about to leave, when his finger dragged out a curl that had been caught under my shoulder strap.

His eyes were mesmerized, no longer angry, and his fingers still held my springy curl in his hand.

I hadn’t brushed my hair out that morning because my mom was in a rush. She was late to a convention with the socially elite of Allenstown. This meant brunch on the golf course that was miles away.

“I like your hair when it’s curly.” He smiled almost absently, almost as if he was somewhere else, somewhere better.

He was daydreaming.

Hesitantly, I raised my left hand to brush his already messy fringe out of his gorgeous eyes.

“I like it when I can actually make out your eyes through your chaotic hair.” I smiled and looked down at my hand.

He laughed. “You and Lorelei think alike.”

My eyes probed.

He didn’t really talk about the others who were so engrossed in their own situations that the rest of the world didn’t matter. Only until I’d persuaded him to leave Heidi out of the equation that the tall, slender, girl, Lorelei, who was as lithe and poised as a ballerina was, acknowledged me with a smile whenever she saw me.