by Kendra Mase
“You ready?”
“Where are we going?”
“We will see.”
“So you don’t know?”
“I didn’t say that,” Jack said. “I’m just saying we’ll see.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“It has come to my attention that you have seen very little of all this city has to offer. Today, we are going to change that.” Jack started to walk, and as he planned, Kit followed a step behind.
Unlike everyone else, where he only felt extreme changes in emotion—maybe they were standing too close—Jack felt a sudden leap of interest up the back of his neck, sharp and pointed.
“That’s it? You want to show me around the city? I thought you said that you had plans before inviting me when Avril asked.”
“I do,” Jack admitted. “But consider this a continuation, or whatever comes back to the main event.”
“Warm-up?”
Not quite. Jack gave a turn to look at her when he thought of the word. “Preliminary.”
“Preliminary?” she asked. “So, what happens if I fail before the main event?”
“You can’t fail.”
Again, the eyebrow raised.
“It’s basically impossible. Fine though, if you can answer this one question, we will be set for the day.”
“Okay.”
“Truth or dare?”
Kit’s lips snapped closed with whatever answer she thought she was going to give to his question. Shit, this girl was about to fail the simplest of fifty-fifty answers.
“Gotcha. Good thing I already know where this day is starting.”
She nodded. “Where’s your car?”
“Jeep,” Jack corrected.
“Jeep?” Kit repeated. He was pretty sure he heard her give an eye roll. “My mistake.”
All his brothers and his father were truck people, and for some reason he could never get over calling his Jeep a car. When he said car, he pictured a grandma behind the wide wheel of a Nissan.
“No offense taken. Today, we are walking. You said you liked walking, didn’t you?”
“I used to walk everywhere back home. We lived in town, so nothing was too far out of the way. A good thing, considering we only had one car my dad was always in—” Cutting herself off, she realized she was rambling. “Yes, I like walking.”
“And there is no way better to see Ashton. So, I’ll ask again.” Jack extended his one hand out in front of them as if debuting a grand show. The city was their oyster. “Ready?”
With a single nod, before he dropped his hand, she slapped hers inside. “Lead the way.”
Keeping her hand tucked in his so she wouldn’t realize that wasn’t his intent to begin with, a few more turns down toward the river and the two of them passed the art institute complex. Her neck strained as she looked up into the shady trees arching over the sidewalk and academic buildings.
“Will you tell me where we are going now?” Kit asked.
“We’re here.”
Pausing, they stood in front of one of the many museums in Ashton, this one was, however, sponsored by donors of AIA. A mix of alum and excelling student work, anyone’s name inside was likely one you’d seen a good dozen other times before, headlining shows or gallery openings across the world.
“You haven’t been here, right?”
With a heavy sigh, Kit looked up at him from below as he mounted the wide marble steps to the entrance. “I haven’t been anywhere, Jack.”
Such disdain for him suddenly. He grinned with a tug on the hand she just seemed to note with wide eyes she was still holding. He gripped gently, but enough so that she wouldn’t let go now. He had a feeling awkwardly letting go now, for Kit was likely worse than holding his hand in public altogether.
Flashing his old residency ID at the front desk, the woman barely gave a second glance at the two of them as she waved them through. Up first, art.
Finally letting go of her hand, Jack extended his to either side.
“Truth or dare?”
She stared at him.
Fine. “Dare, then.”
“I didn’t say—”
“You hand over your stupid decisions when you decide not to make them. Dare,” Jack repeated, thinking of something just enough. “Let’s make art come alive, shall we?”
Her soft brown eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
They needed an example.
Gaze caught on the portrait on the other side of the square box they were in, Jack walked over and turned out. His face perfectly mimicked the utter scorn of the man in the portrait, however overexaggerated.
Covering her mouth, Kit popped a laugh. It echoed once before she stopped it.
“Yeah?”
She nodded, a shot of sweet joy as she tugged his arm once and ran to the other room. Inside was a take on a couple during what appeared to be the tango. Looking both ways to see if anyone was looking, she lifted her arms upward, a single leg shooting back.
Slipping into the man’s space, Jack paused before giving her a single twirl over the hardwood.
She beamed at him, looking for their next target.
Posing like the ballet dancer in the image, on her toes, Kit froze before moving on into a deep curtsy.
Jack barked a laugh, attracting the eyes of other visitors.
“Magnificent,” he said, the word striking a chord with him.
Magnificent, she described him as that night on the kitchen floor.
His turn, Jack slowly folded himself into a slight sitting position, mimicking the marble statue, a la The Thinker. Kit smiled with a light clap of her hands.
Pulling her with those hands to the next exhibit, they pointed out which outrageous haute couture added by design students they would be most likely to wear. Each of the original sketches appeared next to the model in oil pastel.
Kit stopped at each, looking back and forth from idea to conception.
Pointing to a gaudy purple suit with pointed lapels, she raised her eyebrows as she looked Jack over. “It definitely brings out your eyes.”
“My eyes?”
She smiled widely, still taking in all the small details. “They are the first thing I ever noticed about you. Or second—Do you see the way this dress is cut here? I could never be so precise with my scissors. Unless it is the type of fabric…”
“What was the first, then?”
“First what?”
Jack felt a little embarrassed he had to ask, luckily, she was still charging ahead, stopped before a peach-colored evening gown. It shimmered under the enclosed glass lights. Like a conductor, Jack watched Kit’s hand almost trace the structure of the ensemble, sweeping up where it gathered at the one hip.
“What was the first thing you noticed about me?”
Pausing her trance, Kit blinked a few times before she looked at him. The expression that crossed her face appeared as if it was somehow obvious. His eyes, for one—he’d never heard that before.
Usually, the attention was focused on well, other places.
Biting his lip, he leered at his own thought.
“Your smile—or smirk. Yes! Just like that,” she whispered instead of yelling. “It’s so smug, always about to pop out. When I first saw you on stage at DuCain, you were stalking with that grin right across the stage to Miranda. I think that was what her name was?”
Mel. Jack remembered the last time they were on stage together a few months ago before she left. They were good partners. She moved to LA to finally pursue an acting career with the cash she managed to save up.
He tried to remember clearly how play was set up between them. What was the mass reaction? The night only came back in bits and pieces, mixing with all the rest. Only Kit was out in the back of that crowd.
“Your smile.” Kit assented with a nod, though a hint of sourness snuck through. “That’s the first thing I noticed about you.”
“You look disappointed.”
“I’m not. It’s just…”
> Just. He stared at her, waiting. “Just what?”
“I’m not used to smiles. So, when you smile at me and invite me out like today, it makes me feel special.”
Jack still waited for her, seeing something else forming on the tip of her tongue she was debating.
“But you smile at everyone.”
“I guess.”
“So how does someone know it means something different when you smile at them?” Kit asked.
“Like what?” He wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
“Like we’re friends.”
Jack’s brow furrowed. “We are friends, Kit.”
Even if he just realized it himself. That sharp understanding dawned on him, sudden and sure.
He nodded once. It might as well have been set in stone.
“Come on, there is one more exhibit here to see.”
Walking out of the darkness setting the bright-colored fashions apart, the bright lights against black and white walls felt stark in comparison. Various types of frames throughout the eclectic corner of the museum’s photography collection greeted them through another hall.
Before, when he first got to Ashton, Jack would spend hours in this space alone. All of his old favorites were still there. The picture of a couple, openmouthed, screaming as they splashed one another with the Ash waters. You could see how the droplets were uncharacteristically dark in gradient compared to the average stream. There was also a picture of a backpacker, arms open wide under the bright sun that reflected off his glasses on a mountain, likely not nearby or even in the country.
He always told himself he’d find that mountain one day.
For now, Jack shook his head at the reminders and smiled toward where Katherine was drifting across from him, easiness in her step. Only a tinge of torment still lingered between the strange string connecting them, as if waiting in the wings for its time to shine again. For how he thought the day might’ve gone, Jack was having…fun.
“Jack.” Kit’s voice dipped as she said his name, and he could see why. Pointing a finger toward one of the dark frames, Jack shut his eyes, knowing exactly which photograph Kit was looking at, lips parted in sudden awe.
A dark sky filled with stars. A face was upturned to stare at them just as the sun went in, framing them in brilliant reds.
Chapter Nine
“That’s your name,” Katherine said, as if it wasn’t obvious.
Shutting his eyes, Jack shifted from one foot to the other. “Yeah.”
“What do you mean, yeah?” Katherine suddenly couldn’t contain herself. “This photo is amazing. You’re in a museum!”
His one eye peeked open, mouth skewing to the side as if suddenly amused by her reaction rather than the hint of embarrassment she almost swore she detected—though that couldn’t be true.
She never pictured Jack to be someone who got embarrassed.
“You’re a photographer.”
“Sort of.”
“I wouldn’t call this sort of!”
One of the security guards in the corner leaned forward with a finger to his lips.
Jack mimicked the movement as he took a few steps closer to Katherine. She turned back to the photo to stare at it again in admiration. It was beautiful. So beautiful that she let herself look over the name, shocked at the one she saw.
Jack Carver.
That was him. Right next to her.
“When I was back in the institute. It might’ve been one of my only great photos, and everyone had to put something into the pot at the end of the year to show to the board. Though I was gone, my professor submitted this with my name attached.”
“But you took this?” She still couldn’t believe it, pointing an inch away from the print again before dropping her hand.
Jack smiled, bashful. “I did.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do too. Did you want to see if I would notice?”
“It was another life.”
Katherine raised her eyebrows. Both, since she could never do just one, however ridiculous it made her look. For a while there, she didn’t care how she looked. She smiled, thinking about the past hour, running room to room, and standing beside Jack with a grin of her own.
She shook her finger at the photograph again, captured in its sleek black frame.
“What?”
Following him back away from the photo out into another section of the gallery, she couldn’t get that image out of her mind. “Truth or dare?”
“I already know what you want me to say.”
“So?” Say it. She dared him.
He rolled his eyes. “Truth.”
“Tell me about it.”
“About the photo?” Jack asked, answering before Katherine could agree along with adding the few other dozen questions she had. “I took it at a party. All my pictures I took for school usually came back on Monday from parties. I was warned about it a few times but…”
He just kept taking them.
“But you went to the institute?”
“For a short period of time.” That hand went back up to his hair as they continued to walk back the way they came. They took a short detour through a printmaking exhibit. He huffed. “It was why I came to Ashton. I wanted to be a photographer. I walked into the institute and landed myself a last-minute spot, banking on any scholarships they would give me after saying I was basically off the streets. At that point I had a backpack and a portfolio of pictures I took with an old camera from home.”
“That’s amazing.” To think she thought she came to Ashton with little to nothing.
Jack did come with nothing and acted like he had nothing to lose. Everything to gain.
“But what happened?”
“Why am I not a world-famous photographer?” Jack joked, though it came out a tad strained.
She glanced behind her toward where they came from.
Jack looked ahead, talking softly. “My professor, as I mentioned before, didn’t appreciate the fact of how each Monday I would turn in photos from the party I crashed the night before, however well formatted. He told me I knew how to work a camera, which I did, but that I had to do the assignments or else, well. It wasn’t my finest hour.
“I ended up liking Ashton and the parties a lot more than I liked college. I dropped out. They kicked me out. Either way, that photo was my legacy of this place. I always wondered if they regretted losing out on me when I left after that.”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you regret leaving?” Katherine asked gently, realizing exactly the sort of question she was asking when Jack bit his lip in thought.
“Yes and no. Looking back, sure, I started a degree I didn’t finish, doing something I knew I always wanted, but honestly, I don’t know. Who would I have been if I’d stayed? Would I have met Avril and started working at DuCain? Met you?” He nudged her with his shoulder as he waved to the front desk on their way out. Sunlight greeted them as he held open the door for her.
“I ended up working at Keys, sleeping in the stacks for a while before Marley found me out, as well as all the other ways I was trying to pay back the student loans I’d already racked up and they were interested in getting back. Not long after then, I met Queen and started my other vocation.”
“You didn’t give it up though.”
“What makes you so sure?”
She shook her head. “I just can’t see it. You, giving up your dream. Photography.”
His eyes lit up with another string of amusement. “Maybe you’re right. Or, maybe not.”
Katherine rolled her eyes.
“That’s our last stop of the day. We are crashing a wedding tonight.”
“You’re kidding.”
He laughed, noting her lack of enthusiasm. “I am. At least mostly, this is my photography gig these days. I guess you’re right, I don’t want to get too rusty. I take pictures of drunken grooms and women wea
ring different shades of white, and tonight before we head to Rosin for Queen, you’re coming with me.”
“They won’t care if I show up?”
“They barely ever notice the photographer. You’ll be fine. Now, onward.” He extended his hand out when he hit the bottom step.
“There’s more?”
“You think an hour and a half constitutes the whole day?” Jack looked at her. “Hell no. Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“Boring.” He scrunched his nose.
Katherine only smiled as they continued to walk, her following each careful turn along the water’s edge as they got closer to the upper side bridge. The structure was bound on each side with swirling metal. It looked more like an art piece than a working bridge, cars and cabs honking at one another as they sped over top.
Underneath the bridge, vendors with large covered pop-up tents littered either side of the paved bank walkways.
“Another farmer’s market?”
“Tea or coffee?” Jack suddenly asked.
That was an easy question. “Tea.”
“Perfect.”
It was only then that Katherine smelled why. Another farmer’s market of sorts, yes, but along with traditional wears, spices and powerful flavors hung in the air. Moving toward one of the vendors, glass containers lined tables filled with dried flowers and herbs.
Tea leaves.
Katherine glanced back in pleasant surprise.
Lifting each of the lids, Katherine dipped her nose down to smell the different aromas. Herbal teas were at one end, black and breakfast at another. Each fought for her attention as she took her time, glancing at Jack, who did the same as he looked around.
Pausing, Katherine nodded, pointing to the large jar of May Day tea. Emilie would like it. Rose, chamomile flowers, cornflowers, orange peel, wafted over her senses like a gentle caress. Handing over the cash from her tiny pouch at the bottom of her tote bag, the woman behind the counter smiled at her, filling a colorful canister.
Carefully taking it from her, Katherine moved to the side to look in her tote, trying to find a corner where it wouldn’t be knocked over.
“Here.” Jack extended another small container to her, this one white with colorful specks on the outside. It looked like sprinkles.