by Ellie Hall
Waterfall, huh? “Fine, but if I win, you have to …” Kiss me again? Like that, but for an hour? Or five? I wasn’t in a position to demand such favors. “Eat shrimp.”
“Ew. Can it be something else? Anything else?”
“Fine, but it’s something of my choosing.” And it would involve kissing. Hey, I’d given her another option, and she’d rejected it. The only remaining option was a make-out, right?
Man, my archery skills had better not have atrophied from my high school days. I wanted that prize.
Next morning, we stood on the grassy expanse of the archery range, a dozen of us holding bows, quivers slung over our shoulders. I was loaded for bear. Or, targets.
Amanda had promised to meet me at the range, and when she stalked in wearing a full warrior elf-ette costume, I dropped the arrow in my hand.
If my imagination for her Riders of Rohan black leather ensemble had been vivid, this was exponentially hotter. Her long blonde curls hung down her back, and every contour of her curves made my tongue roll out like I was a cartoon character. “Amanda,” I breathed.
“Calvin.” She sashayed past me, killing me with every hip sway. “Are you ready to compete? Can you hit the target?”
Uh-huh. Every time. “I’ve got extremely good aim.” I bent over and picked up my dropped arrow, stealing another glance at her insanely hot figure. I’ll never complain about another hobbit thing again as long as I live. This moment made all the other costume weirdness worthwhile.
“Everyone take your places.” The archery range official set us all up at our stations.
Then, Archery Dude took an extra long time helping Amanda with her gear and explaining aim. She looked up at him with those green eyes that were, in fact, my favorite color like she’d pointed out last night.
A little fire raged inside me. Move off, dude. The warrior goddess belongs to me! My ears buzzed.
Which was stupid. She didn’t want me. This was all, as she’d said, an act. One I’d demanded of her.
I lifted my bow and nocked the arrow, my teeth on edge.
“Ready? Aim!” range-worker-dude hollered as my fingers trembled like traitors. “Fire!”
My arrow flew toward the target. Bull’s-eye! “Yes!” I’d nicked the very edge of it, if not dead-center. “Right on!” I turned to Amanda to revel in my victory.
She hadn’t shot her arrow yet. Her face went white as her ankle turned. She toppled sideways, and her arrow flew—at me.
7
Amanda
“Yes, doctor. It was a total accident.” Bless Calvin for insisting on my innocence. “She lost her footing. We were having an archery contest, using field-tip arrows. No, I don’t want to press charges.”
Press charges! My knees bumped together, buckling—again. I grabbed at the wall, but it wasn’t near enough, and I toppled, landing on my backside in this leatherette costume. Humiliating. I must’ve yanked a tube attached to Calvin’s arm as an IV because his arm rose up and he winced.
“See, doctor?” Calvin was mocking me. “I make her very unsteady. I think it’s my good looks and charm.”
The doctor, a woman, was obviously charmed as well. While I righted myself, she was busy grinning and fawning over the hunky patient.
A burning sensation started in my cheeks and flowed down over my whole head and neck.
That’s my arrow-shot victim. Back off.
Totally irrational! Calvin wasn’t mine, and it was all an act. Now that his buddies were out of sight, he was back to his lady-killer ways.
“There. Three stitches.” The doctor replaced his hospital gown. “You got off easy, considering it could’ve been much worse if it had been with a real arrow point and not a practice tip. No more horsing around with arrows, okay?”
Horsing! My gut sank. “And”—I croaked, speaking for the first time since bringing him in—“no horseback riding, I assume?”
The doctor laughed, a merry bloom in her cheek. “Hardly. At least not for a week.”
No horseback riding? I flopped into a chair when the doctor left.
Calvin must have seen my face. “You really wanted to wear that Rohan costume, eh?”
Uh, no. “I wanted to ride. It’s been years. As a kid, I’d go with my parents to Massey Falls to some stables. There was a dappled roan that was my favorite.”
“What was her name?”
My head popped up at the question I hadn’t expected from the likes of Calvin Turner. “Pocket. But I also liked Molly, a bay, and One Sock.” I was gushing now, like someone who trusted him with my heart’s dearest nostalgia.
Very dangerous move.
“I’m guessing One Sock had a single white foot.”
“Exactly.” We talked horses for a minute. He liked them, too. His parents had kept a stallion who’d raced in the Torrey Stakes one year when he was a kid.
“Navron.” He inhaled sharply. “Quite the racer.”
Huh. Never would’ve expected to share that common love. “What happened to Navron?”
Calvin’s countenance dimmed. “Same thing as everything else in my life. He went away when my parents split up.”
Ooh. The pain coming off him was palpable. I didn’t say anything, just watched the faraway look in his eye—the one that offered a hint of the real Calvin.
“Dad wasn’t around too much after that. Too busy keeping up with his revolving door of girlfriends, to use your terminology.” He didn’t flinch or move when I set my hand on his. “I kept wishing he’d pick one of them, settle down, but he couldn’t. Just like with Mom, he couldn’t stick to anything even when it was the best he’d ever dream of.”
My heart squeezed for young Calvin. And for nowadays Calvin. That was the kind of pain that didn’t ever fully subside.
Before I could say anything more, a nurse came in and took his vitals—and acted like she wanted to give him her phone number, if only a woman in skintight costume hadn’t been sitting at his bedside. I lost count of the number of dirty looks she shot my direction.
She should watch out. I was a terrible return shot.
“I guess I lost the archery contest,” I said when Nurse Flirt left. “Unless you count yourself the bigger loser.”
“Don’t call me a loser.” He managed a jovial air.
“What’s your prize?” I leaned closer.
“Oh, I can think of the perfect prize.” His eyes hooded.
“Or should we say my punishment?”
He shut down, looking away.
What had I said to cause that? Because it was definitely on me.
“Uh, I’ll get back to you on that.” He closed his eyes. “Meanwhile, tomorrow let me make it up to you about not getting to ride horses.” His tone was light again.
“Oh, how are you going to do that? It’s a pretty tough thing to match. Unless it’s a waterfall.”
“Waterfall was if you won. Which you didn’t.”
Somehow I knew Calvin could make even a consolation prize feel fun. It’d been a long time since I’d allowed fun in my life. I’d been working like a pack mule for SolutionX, silently begging them to notice me for the creative team. I’d mostly forgotten fun. Calvin Turner embodied it.
“So, if not a waterfall, what is it?”
“You’ll see.”
In spite of myself, I could hardly wait.
8
Calvin
We pulled into a parking spot in the shopping area of town. It was a risk, taking Amanda here, but I’d already bared some of my soul to her by telling her about Dad. I might as well throw it all out there.
What was it about being in another hemisphere that made me feel like I was living a different life, one where I could slash myself open for a woman to see and examine?
Maybe, it wasn’t the location but the woman herself.
“Do you like thrift shops?” I shut off the rental car in front of a large shop called All in the Attic. “They don’t creep you out, do they?”
Amanda laughed. “Are you kidd
ing me right now? Thrifting is the ultimate weekend pastime.”
“I’d agree, except that I’d be lying.”
“Right. Hockey.” She heaved a sigh that said I tolerate you. Barely.
I’d be wearing a Viking hat to all the home matches unless Parley came to be fully convinced. So far I estimated we were only about fifty percent there. “But when I’m not watching hockey, I do love a good trip to Second Handers.”
“That’s the best shop in Reedsville! Even better than Cheap But Classy.” Amanda drew a cute little circle in the air. “They have the wackiest things somehow. Especially their art.”
“Right?” Now she had me buzzing in a way that wasn’t just the physical connection I usually got with women. “Art in thrift stores is the best.”
Her voice lowered as we entered the store. “And the worst.”
Now my heart clanged like a bell at a prize fight. Did she—could she—be talking about what I thought she might be talking about? The secret, underground community of thrift-store prowlers who sniffed out the ugliest paintings and artworks and then posted the photographic evidence in the chat group online for each other’s entertainment? I’d never told anyone my screen-name, and I’d never dream of doing so. My fandom there was my deepest contemporary secret.
“Ooh, look at this one.” Amanda left my side like a shot. “It’s glorious.” She lifted a framed oil painting from the display rack.
“How did you even spot that?” It had been buried behind old knitting magazines. “Whoa.” I recoiled deliciously. “That is something memorable.” The painting featured two of the ugliest-faced creatures ever painted, a human and his pet snake. “The red eyes are unique.”
“Yeah, but I would’ve saved red paint for the reptile’s eyes instead of the snout-nosed kid’s.” Her nose wrinkled and she pushed up the tip. “Can you see the resemblance between me and my long-lost demon cousin?”
No other woman I’d dated had ever once pushed her nose into pig nose.
It was marvelous. And it crumbled something inside me. One of my defenses.
“Just a second.” I held up a hand to stop her from putting it back on the rack. “I need a photo of it for my collection.”
Her hand shot out and rested on my forearm. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop—you have a collection? Of …?”
Moment of truth. Should I tell her? This is New Zealand. Tell the woman your nerd secret. “I have a collection of photos of terrible art from thrift shops.” Art I posted in specialty groups online.
Her face a stone, Amanda took a backward step away from me. She bumped into a shelf full of stuffed animals and used plastic dishes. “I don’t believe you.”
I was already this far in. “Believe it.” I swatted at my phone. “Check them out and weep for joy that you didn’t paint any of them.” I angled the screen for her to see.
Gingerly, she stepped toward me. Which was weird, considering. But soon, she was glued to my side, gaping at my exquisite finds.
“Three years’ work.” I swiped through photo after photo in my Bad Art folder. “Here’s my favorite.” I tapped on the rhinoceros in the Minnie Mouse costume. “For obvious reasons.”
“Doesn’t this dishonor your Rhino fandom?” She was chortling at every one—and selecting all my best ones to comment on. “What’s this one, a skateboard? Or is it a fruit basket still-life?” She snort-laughed.
I loved her for it.
Her laughter stopped cold. “Wait a second. I’ve seen this before.” She pointed to my best, most-liked find, the one that more or less made my name and fame on the social media site where we terrible-art-finders posted our best discoveries. “Did you actually find this yourself, or did you get this off a fan site like Awful Art in Thrift Shops?” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not faking this and downloading other people’s finds, are you?”
“Hey. It’s not a screenshot.” I pulled my phone back. “I actually bought that one. It’s under my bed to protect the world from the grotesqueness of the clown’s hernia.”
Amanda placed a hand at the side of her head and closed her eyes. After a sharp intake of breath, she pulled out her own phone, pressed a few times, and then pushed it at me.
The screen glowed, almost exploding like fireworks as familiar picture after familiar picture swept past my view. She couldn’t be. No! Now I was the one putting a hand to the side of my head. Our eyes met. “Amanda, you’re …”
She nodded, her eyes widening. “I’m PokerDogs. And you’re …”
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling then looked back at her. “Yep. VelvetElvis.”
My arm dropped, and we stood staring at each other for a long moment before she did one of those two-lip raspberry laughs, a splutter followed by a cackle. In a second, she fell against my chest, her forehead on my clavicle. I pulled her to me and sped her out of the store, since we were drawing dirty looks from the proprietor.
We headed down the board sidewalk, and I couldn’t even speak. Amanda Starkey was PokerDogs? This beautiful, staid, blonde-curls-in-a-tight-bun woman who back in Reedsville never stopped working and could’ve won an audition for stand-in as an ice sculpture was PokerDogs? Poster of all my top favorite terrible art pieces?
“It’s like we’re guest-starring in an episode of Scooby Doo.” She accepted the ice cream cone I bought her from the street vendor. “We’ve taken off the rubber masks and we’re both the culprits.”
“Have you posted all your finds? Do you pop them up there immediately?” Personally, I held some back so I could share a steady trickle. “Or do you ration like me?”
“I ration.” She took a big lick of the side of her cone, a mesmerizing event. “I’m dying to see what else you have. Are you willing to let me have a sneak peek?”
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
She swatted my shoulder. “No dirty talk. I’m not that type of girl.”
Truly, she wasn’t. Which was yet another thing that made her unattainable and impossible to ignore. “Here.” I handed over my phone and accepted hers. “They’re all in my folder called Classicism and High Renaissance Art.”
She snickered. It was a bad joke, but the courtesy laugh felt good because it came from PokerDogs.
“Oh, my goodness.” She sat down beside me on a park bench. We’d wandered into a lovely park with tall eucalyptus trees and pines near the base of Ben Lomond. “I’m in love with this one. Oh, and this one’s a classic. You got quite the comment thread for that—something about grilled cheese sandwiches for the queen.”
She remembered that? Every little outburst from her sent my insides off to ride the Gravity Experience plane. “I liked this one of the King Charles Spaniel with vampire fangs.” I flipped through her pictures. They were almost all familiar. “And here’s a winner.” I paused on the painting of the haystacks with disembodied arms sticking out.
Her phone screen did a little jump, a glitch. Suddenly, I wasn’t looking at terrible art but good art. Very good art. Fantasy-like waterfalls mostly, but some were of sparkling crystal palaces or snow-capped mountains with glaciers juxtaposed against green.
My eyes misted, as if I’d just seen my first Rhinos goal. “Whoa. These were in Second Handers? Downtown Reedsville? No way.”
Amanda looked over, and then whipped the phone out of my hand. “Oh!” She dropped her ice cream cone ice-cream-side-down onto my thigh, smearing my jeans with cold vanilla soft serve. “No one has seen those.”
“What are they?” I swabbed the vanilla smear with a paper napkin. “Do you know the artist? You’re sworn to secrecy?” Then it hit me. “Wait. Those are yours.”
Her face was as red as her sweater. Happily today she’d ditched the cosplay and worn a simple sweater and skirt. “I don’t really show them to anyone.”
“Why not? They’re good.” I meant it. “Do you have more?”
Slowly, she relinquished her phone. “I like to try different styles.”
Su
re enough, there was everything from fantasy to Art Deco, from modernism and cubism to puffy computer-generated-imagery, from Japanese animation style to Renaissance religious. “These are all your work?”
Curling in on herself she nodded. “I dabble.”
“I like how you dabble. Like a consummate professional.”
“I copy what I see. In Paris I spent a little time in the Louvre and liked the triptychs of the Holy Family and all the bishops, so that’s where these came from.” She took her phone back and tapped on another Renaissance-style piece. “I’m a mimic. A shameless parrot.”
“It looks to me like you can do anything.” And then the dawn broke. “You want to be on the creative team.”
Slowly, she met my eyes and gave the shallowest nod. “I’ve loved Amzaz brand candy forever. My grandma bought it for me anytime we went to the gas station together. I have so many ideas. Starting when you mentioned it, I drew up a design concept for them.” She rolled her eyes. “But it’s just as well I’m stuck in formatting. My ideas for Amzaz are all probably derivative like everything else I do.”
Not a chance. “Do you have them with you?”
She pressed the phone screen to her chest.
I huffed. “It’s not like I’m going to steal them. Or worse—post them on Awful Art in Thrift Shops.” I gurgled a stupid laugh. My jokes were as bad as Parley’s.
“The files are pretty big. It’ll use up my data to send them. Can I email them to you when we get back to the hotel?”
“Sure. I’d love to show the other execs.”
“For real?”
“For real.” In fact, all of this was feeling like it was for real. Whether or not Amanda had declared herself an actress last night, everything today had been a hundred percent real. At least for me, and if I weren’t blind, she’d felt real things, too.
A red bird landed on a tree branch beside us. When it chirped a little song, it was like permission to put my arm around her. She rested her head on my shoulder, the scent of her florist-shop shampoo rising and catching my thoughts and turning them into a shooting arrow with precise aim—pointing toward one thing: I had to kiss this woman.