27. The All-Knowing Cheshire Cat
Chapter 27
The All-Knowing Cheshire Cat
Bonnie
I love it when Rafe paints at night. With his kitchen window propped open, we hear the sea breeze whistling at our backs, accented by the hums of the music from his laptop—an amalgamation of classic rock and modern indie punk on shuffle. Maybe there are sounds of random people talking outside or an errant car honk, but it only adds to the magic I can’t fully explain.
My painting is an embarrassing canvas on the floor, lying all sad-like in front of my pretzeled legs.
After the museum visit last night and my atrocious attempt at painting, I insisted we try a new method I called Bob Ross’ing , where Rafe paints, points out why he uses certain techniques, and then I copy it in my style but with the same theories applied.
I’m not sure how effective it is for teaching, but I enjoy sitting here with my knee bumping against his and watching his arms flex with each paint stroke.
“Pass the water cup?” Rafe asks.
I slide it to him, and he dips his brush in, swiping it on a damp paper towel, folded among the small pile of crumpled ones. That new ring on his finger, still left over from last night, reflects the low lamplight in the corner. I expected him to take it off today, but just like the onyx one on his opposite hand, this one seems here to stay.
“Okay, see this curve here?” His fingers ghost over the hip of a woman he’s drawing from memory.
I want it to be me, but I know it’s not. Her torso is longer and leaner. I’m too short, and my torso laughs in the face of traditional beauty.
“She’s gorgeous,” I admire.
He flicks through the anatomy book on the floor. “But see? It’s not correct.”
“But it looks great.”
“Thank you, but it’s technically wrong.” Rafe reaches for my chin and gently directs it toward the page instead of at his eyes. “I just want to point out that, sometimes, you can break the rules if you want. Michelangelo was notorious for terrible proportions. He had his own definition of anatomy, but it worked.”
“Are you comparing yourself to Michelangelo, Rafe?”
“No, I’m saying my anatomy is shit, and I’m hoping I can pass it off as genius.”
I laugh, and a grin slides over his gorgeous mouth. Rafe is honest. He’s not trying to impress anyone—even me. The rawness of his strengths and flaws could never come naturally to me. But when I’m around him, I want to have that same unapologetic honesty.
He hasn’t tried anything since the concert, and I still don’t understand why. But if I’m being honest like he wants me to be, then maybe I need to instigate. Maybe this is another lesson.
“Teach me something new,” I say.
He snorts. “We’re painting.”
“Okay … and I want to be touched by the big bad wolf,” I say, sliding his water cup out of my way so I can crawl to him.
His eyebrows rise to his forehead as I climb into his lap, facing him and extending my legs out on either side of his hips.
His palms grip my waist. “Big bad wolf, eh? What does that make you?”
“Little Red Riding Hood,” I say, squirming in his lap.
He hisses in a breath and lets it out in a laughing groan. He tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear and kisses my jawline. “Want me to eat you up, Little Red? Like it when I bite?”
Yes . This is what I need.
I lean back, exposing my neck to him as his fingers trail down the center of my chest.
“Yes,” I breathe.
Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door, and in less than a single second, Izzy strides in.
I scramble off Rafe’s lap, fumbling over both our limbs and quickly patting down my hair. My heart pounds. My face must be beet red. Heat is rising up my neck like a fever.
“Ever think to wait after you knock?” Rafe asks. His chest rises and falls as he, far more gracefully than me, adjusts his clothes.
How is he being so casual about this?
Izzy halts for a moment before shrugging. “No,” she says. She barely spares me a glance—sprawled on the floor and caught red-handed—as she says, “Hey, Davies.”
I shrink back, pulling my knees up to my chest, brushing my fingers through my hair. “Uh, hey.”
She knows. How does she know?
“Shouldn’t you be packing for the art show this weekend?” she asks Rafe, strolling into his kitchen and opening the cabinet. She pulls down a single glass and turns on the faucet, filling it with water. It’s almost like she lives here too.
I’m not jealous of her. I know their relationship is strictly platonic. But I am jealous of their natural intimacy. Is this type of intrusion normal for them? I didn’t know he’d already told her about us. I’m not sure how to interpret that either.
“I was gonna pack tomorrow,” Rafe says through gritted teeth.
“Got distracted?” she asks, leaning her back against the sink and sipping water. “Again?”
Again?
Rafe huffs out a breath, getting to his feet and holding out his palm to help me up too.
Is he about to kick me out?
I stand with his assistance, but instead of showing me the door, he grabs a high-backed metal stool from in front of his empty easel. It screeches across the wooden floor before stopping behind me. I take the memo to sit.
He crosses his arms. “Why are you here, Iz?”
She sets her glass on the counter, looks at me, then shrugs. “Bad day at work.”
Rafe’s eyebrows turn in. At first, he looks worried, but it quickly turns to irritation. There’s something unspoken between them, and I don’t know what.
“Bad enough you wanted to talk about it?” he asks.
“Talk about what?” I ask.
Both of their eyes swivel to me. I create an awkward silence.
“No,” Izzy finally says matter-of-factly. “No, just … needed a drink, I guess.” Then looks at her glass. “Of water. Stiff drink of water.”
They’re both so vague, and my chest aches at the thought that maybe I’m the odd one out here.
I hop off the stool and pick up my phone from the ground. “Sorry, I should get going.”
“Sit, Shiv.”
“No, really?—”
Rafe grabs my hips from behind and drags me back to the stool, where I stumble into the seat.
He runs a hand through his hair. “Want to hang out with us, Iz?”
Her eyes swivel to land on me, and I give a weak smile. I’ve never had an issue with Izzy. She’s always hung around our house like an extended family member. Ma still likes to adopt strays, even now.
With Izzy being so involved in Peter’s life, I think Ma views her as yet another child. When I was sixteen, we would get coffee together sometimes, but we haven’t had one-on-ones in a while.
Izzy finally shrugs. “Eh, why not? I’ll help pack or something. Since you’re so distracted .” She strides up the small stairwell to Rafe’s lofted bed—a place I still haven’t gone myself—and pulls back a sliding compartment in the corner. She takes out a leather duffel bag.
“You don’t have to make yourself useful to be here, y’know,” Rafe calls up to her.
“Well, if I’m not gonna be the most fun company in the room, I gotta find some way to contribute,” she says, descending the stairs. I stiffen, but she gives a good-natured smile. “So, when are ya gonna tell your family, Bon?”
I freeze. “Oh … uh …”
“Never?” she finishes. “Good call. Your brothers would kill him. At least Pete might.”
Rafe snorts. “He’s the least of my worries.”
“Pete wouldn’t do that,” I assure him. “He’s a good guy.”
“You’re biased,” Rafe says, pinching my waist.
“He is,” Izzy insists.
“You’re definitely biased.” Rafe points a finger at her.
I look between the two of them. “What do you mean?”
“We don’t talk about it,” Izzy says.
“You don’t?” I ask.
Izzy crosses her arms. “It’s best we don’t.”
“But why?—”
“Bonnie likes to talk about everything, in case you haven’t noticed,” Rafe says.
“Hey!”
He grins. “I like it.”
I can’t help but smile. “Well, sure, I do like to talk,” I admit because if he can be unapologetically honest, so can I. I attempt a smile, and my heart swells when he returns it.
“Are you going to the art show with him?” Izzy asks.
I point at myself. “Who, me?”
Rafe’s smile fades. “It’s in Mourning, Iz.”
“Is that a bad thing?” I ask.
He narrows his eyes at Izzy, and she smiles back. I wonder if they’re now in an unspoken battle of bringing up touchy subjects.
“Uh-oh,” I tease, “Is this another thing we don’t talk about?”
“My mom is in Mourning,” he explains. “I was gonna visit her.”
“Oh … that’s right,” I say. “You’re kinda protective, huh? Makes sense.”
He pats my knee. I think it’s a silent thank you for understanding .
On the steel drawers near the window, Rafe’s phone vibrates. Once, then twice. It’s a call. He looks at the screen, eyes wide, as if surprised she’s calling at all.
“Her ears must be burning,” he says. “I’ll be back.”
Rafe strides to the back door before shutting it behind him. But through the open kitchen window, we still hear him say, “Hey, Mom. I was just about to call … yeah, it’s this weekend.”
Izzy and I stand in silence alone. I roll the paintbrushes on the ground back and forth with my socked feet. Izzy paces from the kitchen to the living room before winding her way to me, all in a path that pretends to be nonchalant but totally isn’t.
“He doesn’t even talk about his mom to me,” she whispers.
Shivers run down my spine. “He doesn’t talk about her to me either.”
Izzy gives a pitying smile. “Bon, if you already know he’s protective of her, then he’s said more to you than he has to me in seven years. He likes you.”
I swallow, but don’t respond. I wouldn’t know how. Does he already trust me like that? I’d tell him anything if he asked me, but I know who he is to me. I don’t know who I am to him—but it sure isn’t who I thought.
Outside, Rafe runs a palm through his hair—the one with the ring I gave him last night—and mumbles, “You’re working? Okay. Yeah, not a big deal. I can drop off something, if you—no, that’s all right … yeah, next time.”
My heart aches at the conversation. I don’t need to hear the other side to know what’s happening.
Rafe walks back in, carefully shutting the door behind him in a way that says, without the effort, it might have been louder. I don’t have to be close to notice how he clenches and unclenches his fist with whitened knuckles.
He crosses his arms. “Hey, Shiv.”
I sit taller on the stool, like a soldier at attention. “Hmm?”
“Wanna come to an art show with me?”
I gasp, way too loud and obvious. Izzy laughs at me, shaking her head.
“Told you,” she whispers.
I nudge her elbow. She nudges back with a snicker.
“Of course,” I answer. “Love to.”
“Good,” he says, and despite the irritation in his tensely folded forearms, despite the way Izzy is grinning at us like some all-knowing Cheshire cat, and despite how I push Izzy’s elbow again so she stops being so freaking weird, Rafe smiles.
He smiles at me .