Lahoma’s Resident Artist
Ashton
It’s both a brilliant plan to get Jordy out on the water—and a near disaster.
Why?
That fucking bikini.
I’ve never seen a woman look that good in so little clothing. The way my swim trunks do absolutely nothing to hide my reaction is almost comical, and by the way she glances down toward my cock, she definitely notices.
But come on, a woman like Jordy has to know how hot she is. And a guy would have to be dead not to look.
Still, if I have any chance of keeping my dignity, I need to get her out of the water and into a few more layers.
Unfortunately, I’m not ready to be done with her yet.
“Where are we going?” she asks as we climb the ramp back up from the dock.
“You wanted to see Lahoma,” I say, “so I’m showing you Lahoma.”
“But what does that mean, exactly?”
She grins at me—those long lashes, those brown eyes, that smirk—and I feel like I’ve just stepped into a puddle of mush.
“You’ll have to wait and see.”
She swats at me playfully as we cross the bridge to the parking lot. Her hand swings close to her hip, and every muscle in me tenses with the effort not to reach for it. Holding her hand on the river already felt bold enough.
Truth is, I’m not used to this.
Before Sasha, if I liked a girl, I made a move. No hesitation. Just said it like it was; I like you. You’re hot. Want to fuck?
Sasha flipped that script. She came on fast, took control, and I didn’t mind.
But with Jordy, everything feels different. Holding her hand felt huge. Like I’m back in high school, trying not to screw up the one shot I might get.
We change at the truck, pulling sweats over our swimsuits. The sky starts to cloud over again, stealing what little warmth we snagged earlier. I catch the last glimpse of her smooth, perfect stomach as she tugs on her sweatshirt and nearly lose the ability to speak.
Perv.
“Okay,” she says, hopping into the passenger seat. “Now can you tell me?”
I shake my head, barely hiding a smile. This giddiness is new. My life is usually made up of three things: my daughter, the farm, and the handful of people in my circle. Everything else is black and white.
But with Jordy, it all feels like color. Like maybe there’s room for more.
We stop at the corner business on the same street as The Till, or rather, Timeless. On the opposite end is one of my favorite places in town: The Painted Nest, our local art gallery.
“Lahoma Springs isn’t just tractors and livestock,” I say, stopping her at the door. “We’ve got a growing community of artists. This place showcases a lot of them.”
I open the door.
Jordy steps inside, takes one breath, and freezes. “Oh. Wow.”
Her hand brushes my bicep as we enter, and I have to actively focus on not reacting to the warmth of her fingers.
In the center of the gallery stands a life-size elephant sculpture made entirely of broken porcelain plates. The thing is stunning—realistic in form, but impossibly intricate in detail. I watch Jordy walk around it, hands behind her back like she’s in a museum.
“It’s okay to touch,” a woman calls from the front desk. She’s all red—dress, lips, even her shoes—and her short, dark curls framed her face like a retro painting. “It’s part of the experience. A tactile display.”
Jordy hesitates, then lifts one finger to brush the tiles. Her palm follows, soft and reverent. I copy her—not because I care about the sculpture, but because watching her touch it makes me wonder what it would feel like if she touched me the same way.
We wander the gallery slowly. At each piece, Jordy leans in, quiet and focused, like the wrong breath might disturb the art. Her wonder is contagious. I’ve seen these pieces several times this past month, but everything feels new through her eyes.
She pauses extra-long at one painting. It’s of a young monk in a red robe, standing alone in a narrow boat, drifting across still water while surrounded by the blue of twilight.
“This one’s my favorite,” I say quietly.
She steps back to take it all in. “The red. The water. The gold in the boat. It’s like a meditation.”
“How so?” I ask, though I can’t stop watching her instead of the canvas.
She turns to me, and her eyes lock on mine.
“Because it reminds me to breathe—even as it takes my breath away.”
For a beat, I can’t speak. Her face, flushed from the sun. Her lips, parted just slightly. I feel my hand twitch, the need to touch her almost overpowering. I reach for her—
Just as she breaks eye contact and moves on to the next painting, my hand hovering in air with nothing to grasp.
“Jordy!”
We round the corner to see Grace hurrying toward us, her arms wide. She pulls Jordy into a hug, though Jordy’s return is stiff at best.
“Well, hello you two!” Grace grins, looking to me, then back at Jordy. “Are you on a date?”
Jordy glances at me. I glance back. Her mouth opens, but no sound comes.
“No,” I say. “I’m just showing her the town.”
“I’m at a standstill until the construction crew starts on the shop,” Jordy adds. “Ashton offered to take me on a tour.”
Grace leans in conspiratorially. “Between you and me, Bernie was kind of a bitch about the whole reservation thing.”
“Between me and the whole world, Bernie was a total bitch.” Jordy grins. “Not just kind of.”
Grace’s eyes go wide, but then she cracks up. “Don’t let her hear you say that.”
“Why? She going to blackball me? Already been there. I’ve got the t-shirt to prove it. Actually, Sasha does. That girl had the weirdest sense of style.”
“Oh my god. Her t-shirts ?” Grace laughs. “My favorite one of hers is Thicculous Cage.”
Jordy blinks at me. I sigh. “It’s a thick Nicholas Cage next to a literal cage. You had to be there.”
Jordy doubles over laughing. “Okay, that’s amazing. I’m officially a fan.”
Grace points to a small corner of the gallery. “Anyway, that’s why I’m here. Those are my pieces.”
“Grace, you paint?” Jordy’s eyes widen as she steps closer. “These are incredible.”
And they are. I’ve seen her sketch in her notebook at Lock & Key, and occasionally in ceramics class. But these? These are next level.
Each of the four paintings are unique: a strangely elegant frog with an umbrella, a girl floating in a pond, an old woman with a storm of stories in her eyes, and a yellow umbrella abandoned on a rainy sidewalk.
They’re vibrant. Emotional. Alive.
“Why aren’t you doing this full time?” Jordy asks. “Why work for Bernie?”
“And go to school,” Grace adds. “I’m one semester away from a business degree.”
Jordy stares at her. “You should be doing an art internship. These belong in a New York gallery.”
Grace laughs. “Yeah, and make what, a hundred dollars a month? These took forever to paint. It’s not sustainable.”
Jordy looks at the price tags. “You have them listed for seventy-five dollars?”
Grace shrugs. “And they haven’t sold.”
“Wrong.”
Before either of us can react, Jordy marches to the front desk. “I’d like to purchase all four of the Grace Dalton paintings,” she says. “But I’d like to negotiate the price.”
The woman at the desk blinks. “Uh, the listed prices are final.”
“I’d like to pay a thousand dollars each, ” Jordy says, pulling out her wallet.
Grace rushes forward. “Jordy, no—”
Jordy holds up a hand. “You’re not my charity case. You’re my artist.”
The gallery woman looks flustered. “We could … arrange that.”
Jordy doesn’t budge. “And if Grace’s work ever shows up here again, it doesn’t go in a dark corner, and it doesn’t get listed for less than five hundred dollars—or I’ll have her pull every piece and we’ll go straight to a private collector.”
The woman nods, nervously ringing her up.
Jordy turns back to Grace and grins. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
Back in the truck, I can’t stop hearing how she rattled off her New York address to the gallery manager. It shouldn’t have hit me so hard, but it did.
I brush it off though, and give her a side glance.
“So, Miss I-Don’t-Have-Any-Friends,” I tease. “That was pretty damn friendly, and a hell of a lot of money to shell out on art.”
Jordy shrugs. “I have an inheritance from my late grandmother. Most of it is tied up in stocks and savings, but occasionally I use it if it seems like a worthy investment.” She gives me a pointed look.
“Besides, that wasn’t me being friendly, that was me making an investment.
Grace Dalton is an untapped talent. Once she’s discovered, those paintings will be worth ten times what I just paid. ”
I nod slowly. “You really believe that?”
“I know that. Galleries in New York would kill for work like this. She’s just too big for this town. No one here sees it.”
I don’t argue. But it doesn’t sit right with me either. Yeah, small towns have their limits. Boxes people can’t escape. Labels that stick longer than they should. But no one gets lost here. People belong to each other, even if they don’t always see it.
And while Jordy may be right about Grace and this small town, New York isn’t some magic fix either.
Some people are just too big for small towns.
But Jordy? She hasn’t just outgrown the box. She’s redesigned the whole damn room.
And me? I’m just the guy watching her walk through it, knowing the door is already halfway closed.