by Lark O'Neal
“Scrubbed them before I came out to meet you,” he admits, and I laugh. “However—” From his back pocket, he takes a flat metal case, somewhat battered and bent, and opens it to show an array of charcoals. “I have started keeping these with me all the time.” He settles it on the table, holds up one finger, and slides out of the booth to go to the bar and comes back with a stack of square white napkins. “The thing is, there’s always paper,” he says, taking one from the top. He chooses a charcoal from the dark end and makes some quick marks, a rectangle and then a few more strokes, a squiggle here, another there, and it’s a very fast representation of what’s in front of him. The window, the table, the pint glasses with different levels of beer, and my hands, resting on the table. “And this is right now.” He gives it to me, pulls another napkin over, sketches my hands in more detail.
“That’s amazing,” I say.
He passes me the one of my hands and starts another, this one of my face. “I haven’t drawn you from life for awhile,” he says, looking at me, then the napkin, then my face again. “I kept wanting to check the angle of things, like—” He uses his pinky to trace the distance between my nose and mouth. “Like exactly how long is this space? And—” he touches the shape of my chin with his fingernail “—how sharp is this curve, exactly?”
I forgot how it feels when he looks at me like this, both strange and arousing, so intense. He finishes quickly, passes the last one over.
“Can I keep these?”
He gives a soft laugh. “Sure.”
“Will you sign them, Mr. Smith? Because you’re going to be famous, you know.”
“Right.” He humors me, making two bold letters on the corners of the napkins, TS.
Then he picks up the battered tin and offers it to me. “Choose one.”
“I really can’t draw, Tyler.”
He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. It’s not about drawing.”
“Okay.” I pluck out a soft dark grey. He passes a napkin toward me, but it catches the moisture on the table and soaks it up, so he wipes the space down and grabs the last napkin. “What do you want me to do?”
“Look,” he says. “Look at everything for a minute.”
So I do—at the bar and the people and the television. Then out the window to the gathering darkness and the lights coming on across the street, and then to Tyler himself with his too-long streaky hair and snowboarder goatee and that straight, bold nose that looks like everything patrician somehow.
But I don’t know how to draw any of it. The charcoal sits in my fingers, limp.
“Now go back and look at the shapes of everything. The TV is square, right? And the bottles are barrels and the men are potatoes.”
I laugh softly, but I see what he means.
He turns back my way. “The window is a rectangle, easy. And the tops of the glasses are circles. And my face—”
I interrupt him, “—is triangles.”
“Is it?” He points to the paper. “Draw them. It doesn’t matter if it’s right. Just try it.”
So I look at him and I see there is more than triangles. There is the rectangle of his brow, broken by the scatters of hair. There is the sharp long angle of his jaw and the long oval of his eyes. Feeling shy and hot, I start with the brow, then add the oval eyes, triangle nose, and two clean lines for his chin and jawline.
He smiles. “See? That’s great, Jess. It’s all in how you see.”
I look at the sketch and it’s true that I can see Tyler in it, just slightly. With a couple of strokes, I make some hair on the brow, falling into his eyes, and that’s better. He laughs. “Very good.”
“I want to keep this.”
“You should,” he says quietly. “Because when you look at it, you’ll come right back here to this very second, when we were together.”
It comes to me that he’s going to be flying back in just under two hours and I won’t seem him again for who knows how long. I lean in, take his face in my hands, and kiss him with all that feeling in my chest. He just lets me, his hands coming up to my arms, but not doing anything else, and when I pull back, there’s both sweetness and sadness in his expression. “Sure we can’t go find a room for a little while?”
I shake my head, then settle in beside him, close. “I got so mixed up over the summer that I really felt terrible about myself, Tyler.” The hem of his sleeve is right in front of my gaze, and I pinch it between my finger and thumb, making a tiny crease. “When I talked to Electra, I realized that I have a lot of chemistry with you. It’s really intense, right?”
“Yeah,” he says quietly, listening.
“What I don’t know is if there is anything else, anything real.”
“Does this feel real, Jess?” His hand curls over my hair, my ear. “The way we talk, the things we have in common?”
“Yes. But the chemistry is here, too, right—it’s so hot.”
“Chemistry is part of attraction. It’s not a bad thing.”
“No, of course not. But it can be if the chemistry is stronger than good sense.”
His mouth tightens. “There’s an Electra phrase.”
I nod. “Yep. She’s wise. I trust her.”
“So how do you know? Is there chemistry between you and Kaleb, too?”
Without flinching, I raise my gaze. “Why do you think they cast us in this movie?”
“Right.” He weaves his fingers through a lock of my hair, working his way down the length of it, the hair sliding over the index finger, under the middle finger, over the ring finger. His gaze is focused there instead of my face. “He’s going to have the advantage, then, since you’ll be together, on set for—months, right?”
“I guess. They have to finish before the snow melts.”
“You haven’t exactly drawn equal lines.”
For a minute, I have to think about that. It’s true that I have spent more time with Kaleb, and the chemistry between us is as hot, or even hotter than between Tyler and me, which is why the screen thing works so well. But the truth is, there is less risk involved in loving Kaleb. Tyler is volatile and intense. He doesn’t really think of me as his equal, while Kaleb is steady and we are equals. That makes Kaleb sound boring, but he is not at all.
But I don’t know how to articulate all of that without hurting Tyler’s feelings, without making it sound like the deck is stacked against him. I just say, “You are more dangerous to me than Kaleb.”
Because he’s Tyler, because he’s the guy who wants to jump off the side of a mountain and fly on a snowboard through the air even if it means it might kill him, he smiles. It’s a sleepy, lazy, dangerous smile. “I can live with that.” He picks up his beer and drains it, then cocks his head. “Let’s go for a walk. I have to get on a plane in a couple of hours.”
He pays and we wander into the mild night, looking into shop windows, closed for the night. Tyler says, “Is there a bookstore around?”
“There are lots of them. It’s one of the best things about New Zealand, all the little bookstores that are still around.”
“Can we stop in one, find a book?”
I shake my head. “Oh, no. They’re closed at a civilized hour.” I grin. “None of that staying open until all hours around here.”
“Too bad.” He takes my hand and we pass a clothing store and a hardware store, a chocolate shop, all closed. “This is a great little town.”
“The saying is that the world wants to retire to New Zealand and New Zealanders all want to retire to Nelson.”
“Sweet.”
A bookstore window comes up on my right side, titles displayed in a low light. Tyler pauses, scanning the titles. “Anything good here that you’ve read lately? I don’t know all these authors.”
I point at a Kate Morton, a big and hefty book. “She’s Australian, writes these wonderful big, ghosty sagas connected to old houses in England.”
His eyebrow lifts. “Hmm.”
Shoving him lightly with my elbow, I say, “You are such a snob.�
�
“Afraid so.” He points to a David Foster Wallace book. “That’s a good one.”
“No thanks. The world is dark enough without adding some dreary lit-fic.”
He laughs. “How do you even know what that book is? Have you read it?”
“Have you read Morton?”
“Touche. I’ll trade you. Read him and I’ll read her.”
For a moment, I consider the deal, but shake my head. “I never want to read a book I don’t like. I don’t have time enough to read the books I want to read.”
At the bottom of the window is a small paperback with a girl sprawled in a red-covered bed. The title is stark and simple: Torches. My heart squeezes in that way you feel when you see a book you loved insanely, and then I remember that I get to dive into this book and live it. Bring it to life. It brings a thickness to my throat.
“Look! There’s the book we’re filming.”
He nods, looking at the cover. His face shows nothing.
Nervousness makes me babble. “The author is a twenty-year-old girl in L.A. She grew up in foster homes and emancipated herself when she was fifteen, and started writing, pretending that she was older. When she sold this book, she only got a small advance, but the bloggers got hold of it and it went crazy, all over the world. Like, there are translations in a ton of countries.”
Tyler raises his head, sharply focused all at once. “I think I heard this story. I can’t think where—” His face clears. “I remember. It’s Kaitlin, one of the girls on the team.”
“Kaitlin?”
“Yeah. She’s the kid sister of one of my buddies, actually. We grew up together—their house was close to ours in Maine.”
A ripple of distance moves through me as I imagine summer suppers on the beach, lit by candles, everyone in casual, worn but expensive clothes, kids running around tanned and full of ease. “And she’s on the Olympic team?”
“Yep. She’s the one to beat this year. You should check her out during the next round of trials. She took the World Cup this year. You’ll like her. Girl power and all that.”
I nod.
“She really loved this book.” He looks back at the window, and pulls my hand against his belly. “I didn’t realize the part you got was so huge.” His face turns toward me, his eyes catching light from the window. “Are you ready?”
“For what?”
His lips quirk and he gestures with his free hand toward the window. “Your life is about to change in ways you can’t even imagine right now.”
I glare at him, irritated. “You don’t know that.”
His hand presses me into his belly even closer. “Oh, but I do.” He sounds kind of sad as he reaches for a lock of my hair, studying my face. “By this time next year, you won’t be walking around anonymously, even in a little town like this one.”
Lightly, I say, “Maybe I’ll have as many Instagram followers as you do.”
“Way more than that.”
A small shock passes through me. Is he right?
“Is that what you want, Jess? Fame and fortune?” His fingers trail over my cheekbone. “I thought you wanted to grow things, have a greenhouse and all that.”
I push his hand away. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“No, I—”
“You’re the most clueless guy I’ve ever met. Who wants to be poor, Tyler? Who wants to scrape along if they can have a shot at more?”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“No? What did you mean?”
He bows his head. Light catches on the glossy fall of his streaky hair, inviting my touch, but that’s the incantation of Tyler. I feel it like a wizard’s spell, sliding with green light down my spine, pooling in my hips, softening them.
I resist, forcing myself to stand up straight, take a slight step backward.
He catches my wrist. “I guess I did mean that maybe fame is going to change everything.”
“You’re famous.”
“Not really. Not like that. Like you will be.”
A thousand responses crowd into my mind, and my heart aches. “I’m not doing it to get rich or be famous, Tyler. I love the story and I’m so, so, so excited that I get a chance to bring it to life.” I shake my head. “I’ve never been really good at anything, but I think I might be really good at this. I have so much to learn, and sometimes I really suck, but sometimes I’m really, really good.” My free hand falls across my upper chest, and I feel the barrel of his necklace against my palm. I don’t clasp it, I just let it lie there against my skin. “I want you to be happy for me.”
He reaches for me, but I step back, aching, my guard up. Halting, hands up, he says, “I am, Jess. I am.” One hand touches his chest. “I swear.”
But again, I don’t know if I can trust him, not with the true heart of me. He’s so careless sometimes.
“Jess,” he whispers, and the word is airless. He extends a hand. “Please don’t shut me out. I’m trying so hard to do everything exactly right.”
And suddenly, I see Tyler, the man who has been trying to get it right from the very first moment we met. Whatever else I know, I do know he’s in love with me, deeply, painfully, and maybe it’s the first time that’s ever really happened to him. He loves me and he wants to get it right and he just flew 29 hours to spend one day with me.
Who’s being a crazy person now?
“I’m sorry.” I step forward and let him take me into his embrace, feeling his hard arms and taut belly and hard shoulders all melt into me. “I’m a little freaked out, too. Don’t make it worse.”
“I know. I’m a dick. I just want you for myself.” He lets go of a breath and it soughs over the skin of my neck. His embrace is fierce and soft at once. He buries his face in my hair. “I’ve never felt like this in my life, Jess. I don’t think of anyone but you.”
“Maybe you should,” I whisper. “Maybe this—”
“No. Don’t talk.”
I close my eyes and let myself accept this moment. The dizzying smell of his skin, that spice and scent of night, the feeling of his arms around me, his body against mine. A dozen memories flood into me, flashes of kissing in the car in the rain, of posing for him in the studio of that little house in Manitou, the water rushing below us. I don’t have any words to articulate that, however, so I just let my body relax into his and let him hold me in the night, in the street in Nelson. He doesn’t ask for more. We just hold each other, speaking in an entirely different language than words, or even sex. Under my thumb I can feel the blood rushing through a vein in his arm, and feel the tiniest of movements, his index finger against my nape, his lips across the edge of my ear.
Eventually he sighs. “I have to go to the airport. Let’s get you back to your ride.”
We wander toward the square, and there’s my driver, waiting. He waves and lifts a mobile phone to his ear. A taxi rolls up behind him.
“That’s me,” Tyler says, and I hear the roughness in his voice. The sadness. All at once, I feel that sense of the lost, unloved child he was, and I reach for his hand. “You’re amazing, Tyler,” I say.
He bends to kiss me, but I put my hand on his chest and meet his eyes, fiercely. “No. I need you to hear me. Listen.”
He straightens, focuses on my face. He puts a hand over mine on his chest, connecting us.
“You. Are. Amazing,” I say. “Your family is not you. Your past is not you. You are Tyler Smith, one of the best snowboarders in the world and a wildly talented painter and—” I lower my voice a little “—a wonderful lover and a good person. Okay?”
He bends in close, too moved too speak, and presses his forehead into mine, his hand in my hair.
I say, “Whatever happens between us, I want you to know that as long as I’m on the earth, you always have someone who is in your corner, okay? I will always want you to be okay. And if you ever have an hour of need, you can count on me. Okay?”
“Hour of need,” he repeats quietly.
“Dark night of the soul.�
��
He looks at me, hands gripping my neck. “Don’t give up on me yet.”
“I won’t.” I lift my face for his kiss, and he meets it with a tenderness that nearly makes me cry. I step back. “Email me when you’re back in Denver.”
For a moment, he hesitates, then he raises a hand and tosses his pack into the backseat of the taxi and with a wave, he’s gone.
I watch the lights until they’re out of sight, hands wrapped around my waist. My throat is filled with shards of glass.
“Ready, miss?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready.”
Chapter FIVE
I’m sitting in the sunny kitchen nook a few days later, eating my breakfast of muesli and honey yoghurt, just staring out the window at the sunshine, waking up. My dad and Katie got home yesterday afternoon, sunburned and relaxed after almost a week at a beachy wine conference. They danced me around the living room and gave me giant celebratory hugs over the film deal, then we opened some champagne and toasted and drank a lot and Katie even produced some caviar, which I have to say I did not love.
I asked, “Shouldn’t we wait for Kaleb?”
My dad laughed. “We’ll do it again when he gets home. We are so proud of you, love!”
So I’m a little slow, but happy. Today, my dad and I are going down the coast to surf before the big Christmas holiday rush. Kaleb will be home in the morning and Darcy should be here later in the day. Her friends are dropping her off.
This is the first Christmas I haven’t had cold and snow, and I kind of miss Henry, but I’m also excited to do things the Kiwi way—a barbecue.
Katie is humming to herself in the other room, and she calls out, “Why don’t you come help me decorate, Jess?”
“I will when I’m done,” I say, and phone rings.
It’s Kaleb. My heart lifts. “Hi!”
“Turn on SkyeTV.”
“What’s going on?” I head into the other room and grab the remote off the coffee table and click it on.
And there, full screen, is Kaleb’s head shot, and then mine, side by side. “Wow.” I say into the phone. “National news.”