Chapter 4 #2
With his eyes off me, I was very aware of myself.
My neck and face had become so warm, I was tempted to fan myself with my hand.
Not wanting to bring attention to how affected I was, I set my pencil down before clasping my hands in my lap to focus on calming down and regaining control.
As I reeled myself back to who I was supposed to be and how I was supposed to act, I became afraid.
We didn’t live in a small town, but our city was small enough that running into someone you knew was common.
I quickly glanced around the very busy café.
What if someone sees me talking to Monroe and reports it back to Mother? She hated anything to do with the Haven’s Rebels, and if she found out I was hanging out with him, a son of a member, she’d lose it.
I didn’t see anyone I knew and that instantly put me at ease.
“Embarrassed to be seen with me, Lottie?” Using my name pulled my attention back to him. He had called me that at the party, too. It felt odd after years of nicknames.
I frowned. “I’m not embarrassed of you, Monroe.”
I’m just afraid of the cost to be around you, I thought to myself.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “You can just call me Roe.”
“Roe.” I had meant to say it in my head to get a feel for it privately, but my mouth didn’t seem to get the memo.
A slow, almost too-handsome smile spread across Roe’s face. That smile…I surprisingly enjoyed the sight of it. So much so, I knew I’d want to see it again as soon as it faded.
I mentally shook my head. I needed to be careful. His smile was not something I could let myself enjoy. I’d learned too many times that joy didn’t last as long as pain could.
“Did you find a table?” someone asked as they came to stand next to Roe.
I immediately recognized the stranger’s face and blond hair with dark roots.
Since it wasn’t dark out, I was finally able to make out his eyes.
They were different colors. The moment one green eye and one blue noticed me, recognition lit them up. “Hey, it’s the joint thief!”
Before I could compute what he meant, he set two to-go cups of coffee and a plate holding two pastries on my table. Then he pulled out the chair across from me and took a seat. He slid one of the coffees in front of Roe, who looked from the coffee to me to his friend.
“Wyatt…” Roe started to say.
His friend—Wyatt—wasn’t listening. He was taking in the rest of the table, where my stuff was sprawled out. His eyes caught on my notebook. “You draw?” He held out his hand. “Can I see?”
I was a little surprised he’d asked. Seeing how he had no problem inviting himself to sit at my table, I’d expected him to just grab my notebook. Because he’d asked, I handed it over.
While his friend stared at the half-drawn motorcycle, Roe pulled out the chair he had been standing by and sat. He scooped up the coffee Wyatt had brought him and took a sip.
“Damn,” Wyatt said with his eyes still glued to my notebook. “You’re fucking talented.”
The compliment made the side of my neck itch. “Thank you.”
He finally looked up. “Do you normally draw with pencil?”
“When I don’t have charcoal on hand.”
His brows rose as if I’d piqued his interest even more.
“I saw this charcoal drawing of a motorcycle once at Stewart’s.
It was a beast of a piece of artwork.” He held out his hands wide in front of him.
“It was damn near the size of a real motorcycle. It was gorgeous, and the realism…” He shook his head as if in disbelief and stared back down at my unfinished drawing.
“Your detail reminds me of that massive one.”
“Charcoal and graphite,” I mumbled.
Wyatt’s eyes met mine in a question.
“The media used to draw that motorcycle at Stewart’s were charcoal and graphite,” I said.
He nodded with understanding. “You saw it, too? Not surprised. Everyone was talking about it. Especially the club.” Wyatt glanced at Roe. “Weren’t you the one who told me and Reid about it?”
Reid? Was that their other friend who’d been with them at the party?
Roe reached for one of the pastries on the plate between them. It was a chocolate-chip muffin. I was so transfixed as he began to peel off the muffin’s wrapper with his tattooed fingers that I almost didn’t hear him say, “Wyatt draws, too.”
My gaze shifted back to Wyatt with interest lifting my own brows.
Wyatt shrugged and seemed extra focused on my drawing. “I’m nowhere near as good as this.”
“You’ve got talent,” Roe insisted. His eyes finally left his muffin to meet mine. “He draws comics.”
I rested folded arms on the table as I leaned a little bit closer. “Fascinating. Do you draw by hand or digitally?”
My question seemed to pull Wyatt out of his shyness a little.
“Only by hand for now.” He pushed up the sleeves of his plain gray shirt before grabbing the remaining pastry on the plate.
It was a cheese Danish that looked like it tasted heavenly.
“One day, I’ll save up enough to get myself a good tablet. ”
“You will when you stop pouring all your money into that cage you should have left in the junkyard,” Roe said, making Wyatt roll his eyes just before he took a bite of his Danish.
I frowned, feeling completely lost. “Cage?”
They both stared at me and boyish grins lifted the corners of their mouths.
“He’s talking about my car,” Wyatt said.
“It’s an MC term for cars and trucks,” Roe explained.
Wyatt leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his dyed blond locks, brushing them away from his forehead. “I guess when you grow up around the club, you pick up the slang without even realizing it.” As soon as his hand dropped from his head, his hair fell right back into place.
As if reading my next question on my face, Wyatt shook his head. “Hell no. We’re not members and we don’t plan to be.”
I wanted to ask why, but it felt too personal.
“Let’s change the subject,” Roe grumbled.
Wyatt got this serious expression as he and Roe stared at each other.
It was as if they were talking telepathically.
Unsure what to do, I grabbed my coffee and took a sip as I watched.
Whatever was exchanged between them, Roe seemed to win.
Wyatt let out a sigh that seemed to release the tightness in his face.
He took another bite of his Danish as he returned his attention to my notebook.
When he had opened his mouth to take that bite, I could have sworn I’d seen something on his tongue. A piercing, maybe?
Wyatt flipped to another page in the notebook. Then another. “There’s nothing else in here.”
I set down my coffee. “I was supposed to use it for notes or jotting down ideas.”
Wyatt slid the notebook back to my side of the table. “There aren’t any of those in there, either.” His eyes landed on my open laptop. He reached for it. “What are you researching?”
I remembered what I’d pathetically typed in the search engine as he turned my laptop to look at the screen.
“’What is love?’ Why are you looking up song lyrics?” he asked.
I winced. “I have to draw love for my final. I was looking at other art that depicts it, hoping to get inspired.”
Wyatt seemed to accept my explanation, but Roe appeared perplexed. “Why did you search it up like you didn’t know what it was?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but immediately closed it. Their gazes on me felt heavy. It made me very aware that I was ignorant about something everyone else seemed to automatically understand.
“Haven’t you ever been in love before?” Wyatt asked.
“Have you?” I shot back.
He put his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his fist. Slowly, a very charming grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. “I fall in love all the time.”
I frowned, feeling weirdly disappointed. “I didn’t know love could be so fickle.”
Roe snorted. “He doesn’t fall in love. He falls in lust.”
“That makes more sense,” I said, then winced. That comment was supposed to stay inside my head.
Wyatt looked from Roe to me and back to Roe with an overly dramatic offended expression. “I’m pretty sure you haven’t been in love, either.”
Roe paused with his to-go cup inches from his mouth. He seemed to think about it, then shook his head. “I haven’t, but I still know what it is.”
“Well, I don’t,” I grumbled as I dragged my laptop back to my side of the table and closed it. Clearly Ms. Clark also knew I didn’t know, which made me wonder yet again why she’d assigned it to me.
“Do you really have to experience love to be able to draw it?” Wyatt asked. “Just watch a couple of romantic movies or read some romance novels.”
I bit my lip as I tried to think of a way to help them understand why I was struggling. “For me, love is like a penis. I know what it is, I know what they look like, but I don’t know what it’s like to have one. I’m afraid my lack of understanding will show.”
By their stunned faces, I knew it wasn’t the most appropriate analogy despite being a good one.
Wyatt snorted before they both started laughing. Like real belly-laughing, loud enough to turn heads in the café.
Unsure what to do, I waited for them to stop.
“I’m sorry,” Wyatt said between quieter laughs.
“The first time we met, you talked about orgasms and sitting on assistants’ faces, and the second time we meet, it’s penises.
You look so—I don’t know—prim and proper.
It’s a shock to hear those sort of things come out of your mouth.
I wonder what you’ll bring up next time we see each other. ”
I glanced down, taking in my white skinny jeans, soft pale pink sweater, and strappy gold sandals. My jewelry was gold encrusted with diamonds. My hair was pinned up with a handful of curled tendrils hanging loosely, and my makeup was light. I didn’t have any doubts that I looked perfect.
Taking in their ripped jeans and casual shirts, it made me wonder how I appeared in their eyes. Probably just some spoiled and entitled rich girl who Roe went to school with.
When their laughter settled, Roe said, “Can you draw something that shows love between family?”
I knew he was trying to help, but that suggestion upset me. I stared down at my nearly empty coffee cup. “Yeah. I guess I can do that.”
My phone chimed from among my things on the table. I had to fight the urge to outwardly cringe when I saw that it was a text from Brandon. I didn’t bother opening the text, but I did note the time. “I have to go.” I pushed back my chair and stood.
As I began to collect my things, Wyatt said, “Going to meet up with the boyfriend?”
That time I couldn’t hide the cringe.
“He’s the one you were talking about at the party?” Wyatt asked with a softer tone.
I nodded. “Our parents—” I shut my mouth, knowing that it wasn’t something I should explain because it would only conjure questions I didn’t have time for and probably couldn’t answer. “It’s complicated.”
“That’s too bad,” Wyatt said.
I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but I couldn’t stick around any longer.
After grabbing the last of my things, I looked at them.
Wyatt was wearing a forced smile while Roe stared down at his coffee with a clenched jaw.
I wondered if I had done something to upset him.
It was so easy to be careless around him.
I’d probably talked more to them in the last few days than I’d talked in the past month to anyone else.
“Thanks for inviting yourselves to sit at my table.” There I went again.
I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t help but be myself. “It was nice.”
Wyatt’s smile turned real. “I hope we run into each other again.”
As I walked away, Roe’s voice reached me over the loud café. “See you around.”
I slowed to glance back and found him staring at me. He didn’t look upset anymore. Instead, I could have sworn he had this look like he wanted me to stay.
It was a silly assumption. I was probably just seeing what I wanted to see because it was me who wished I could have stayed a little longer.