16. Thinking Ink
SIXTEEN
Avery slouchedover the low table, elbows on her knees, chin in her hands as she stared at her music theory workbook like she’d never seen a treble clef before. “This is ridiculous,” she mumbled to the empty lounge. What should have been a ten-minute assignment had already taken thirty, and was only half complete. She knew her major and minor scales inside and out, so plucking intervals from them shouldn’t be difficult.
After opening her tablet to her piano app, she rearranged her workspace and tried to clear her mind to run down a mental checklist. She tapped out an F-sharp major scale as she thought.
It would not affect her financial aid package.
Five weeks into the semester, she had six more days to drop theory and small ensemble without penalty.
She could drop classes online and not see her advisor. No one had to declare a minor, so she didn’t have to visit her advisor and un-declare it. Whatever Justin said, she was not barging back into Professor Scheer’s office until they figured a few things out.
No one back home would be disappointed or concerned. She only started a minor because everyone said they had a minor, so it seemed like the right thing to do.
She didn’t know if Justin would be supportive, or lecture, or even care. He might tell her never to give up, or he might tell her to focus on the classes that paid the bills and met the requirements—art, and the mandatory general education courses.
Practical big brother.
Playful, silly sister with her crayons and her flute.
The choice was plain, but as she tried to slow her thoughts and quit rushing every change, decisions seemed weightier and worth more attention. Even in her exasperation with major and minor intervals, she squirmed at the idea that giving up felt so easy and obvious when it never had before.
But she’d waited long enough.
She closed the piano app and opened a browser window to review the procedure for dropping her classes. Halfway down the page warning her of all the dire consequences of missing a deadline, she glanced up.
“You stole my couch.” Cam pouted his lower lip. “Scoot.”
Avery slid a notebook off one cushion. “Finders keepers, and you’re late. I’ll share, or you can borrow mine.”
“I was on the phone with my least-favorite person,” he said, stretching as far as Avery’s backpack between them allowed. “Not the kind of call I want overheard. No offense.”
“None taken, but are you going to leave me hanging about who your least-favorite person is? Captain of the Ohio defense?”
He smiled. “It’s the P.R. Chief, but thank you for that. Thank you for being my one non-football person who understands how stupid quarterback rivalries are.”
“You know I was born and raised on defense. Of course, I had to pretend to be the quarterback plenty of times. I’d throw the ball and run around to escape tackles.”
“I bet your brothers tossed you around.”
“I got them good one time.” She leaned toward him, eyes shining. “My mom had these baby oil wipes, and they were super slippery. One night, when I was about eight—so Justin would have been ten and Isaac would have been twelve—I stuck a couple of those in the pocket of my shorts and swiped down my arms and legs while they weren’t looking.”
“Oh no.”
“Justin slipped when he tried to grab my ankles. He landed on a rock or a root or something and split his chin.” Avery snorted. “He’s still got a little-bitty scar. I didn’t get in trouble. They weren’t supposed to really tackle me, anyway.”
“If I ask about his battle wounds, will he fess up to his sister evading tackles?”
Avery opened her mouth to say yes, and her breath caught in her throat. She lowered her head.
“You still haven’t talked to him, have you?” Cam asked.
“I haven’t. I didn’t even go to the game on Saturday. I just wasn’t feeling it.”
“I missed—I noticed you didn’t come out afterward. Isaac said you guys were staying in.”
“I stayed in. He did something with Jase and Marcus, I think. My roommate and I watched movies. I am sorry I missed the game, though.” She lifted her gaze to his. “I watched the highlights. You were incredible. That comeback was unreal.”
“The team was incredible,” he said.
“Collective ‘you,’ then. Y’all were incredible.”
Cam choked out a laugh. “Did he tell you that? He must have.”
“Did he tell me what?”
His face went red with restrained laughter. “I was pretty fired up that second half, obviously. After the game, Isaac informed me that in my hype haze, I was yelling things like ‘Y’all fellas gonna fix this!’ and other Tennesseean motivational speeches.”
“You’re joking.” Avery pressed her palms to her cheeks. “Oh my goodness, say it again.”
“I will not.”
“He didn’t tell me. Oh, now I really regret not going. Look at you right now, cracking yourself up. You really keep that accent under wraps, don’t you? I’ve only heard it that strong when you were grumbling.”
“When was I grumbling around you?”
She arched a brow at him. “First two weeks of class, right here, most days. A few very artistic strings of curses you must have thought I couldn’t hear.”
“I’m sorry about all that. There’s no excuse.”
“I’m glad you talk to me now,” she said, brushing the subject aside with a quick flick of her wrist. “Glad to be one of the good guys.”
“You’re absolutely one of the good guys.” Cam squinted and re-situated his glasses as he looked at her. “What’s that?” He pointed at her left arm.
She uncapped a fine-point black pen and poked the swirls she’d drawn all over her left hand. “Thinking ink,” she said. “I’ve drawn on myself since I was little, but around junior high I got pretty good at patterns. I could copy some henna designs, and my friends used to have me do their hands at lunch. It always washed right off. When I started real drawing classes and got the good pens, my mother would get so mad about me for wasting them. That ink really stuck.”
“What were you thinking about here?”
He stopped just short of touching her. If she moved her arm one inch, his fingertip would touch the top of her hand. His hand might meet hers in a moment that was just as sexless and platonic as the times Isaac touched her. Or, if the heat of his breath and the twist in her stomach were any indication, they might end up kissing and gasping, desperate bodies entangled and demanding release. Avery gritted her teeth and remembered the promise she offered Justin that was a promise to Cam more than anything: she wouldn’t put him in a terrible position by coming on to him.
She could let go of flute and piano if they were in the way of her art program, and they were. She wasn’t ready to let go of the dream with Cam before she had a chance to do it right.
Pulling her hand away, she gestured to her mess on the table. “Music theory homework. I was going to do a music minor, but I’m pretty sure that’s a thing of the past.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want my other work to suffer. I’m not even sad about it, but I wanted to be sure I gave it plenty of thought before pulling the trigger. So it looks like I was thinking of scales and intervals while I was ruminating on a decision I already made. My art is more important, and that’s that.”
“You’re good,” he said, and whistled as he inspected five-line staff twirling up her wrist and over a small section of her forearm, dotted with notes. “You shrank all those lines down and kept the distance between them perfectly.” He smiled when he looked up. “And on your own arm. That’s hard enough on paper.”
“We’ll do another perspective exercise for you sometime.” She pressed her hands together, eyes wide. “Oh, this would be fun. Well, fun for me, maybe for you. How do you feel about tattoos? Real ones, I mean.”
“Well, like every big, tough guy, I’m a chicken about needles, but I think some designs are really badass. Do you know Trevon Stevenson from the O-line? He’s got a full sleeve, and it’s got a million little pictures woven together. He said it’s taken the better part of four years for him to get it done the way he wanted.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Tattoos are a two-dimensional design on a three-dimensional surface. I don’t know your friend, but those sleeves can be so impressive. It blows my mind how good some tattoo artists are with just this one tool on one medium and so many limitations.” She lifted her pen. “You’re going to draw your tattoo.”
Cam squinted. “I’m pretty sure you’re going to draw my tattoo, and I will dictate.”
“You’ll design it, then,” she countered, poking the pen at him. “I’ll do the real drawing, but you have to lay it out, and we’ll talk design principles and relative size based on how important each element is to you, all right?”
He accepted the pen and twirled it in his hands, rolling it over calluses and cuts as Avery’s eyes darted between his hands and face. His eyes already said yes to her plan.
“Elements,” he mused. “I’ll make a list of what I like, and we’ll go from there?”
“We’ll go from there.”