Chapter 14 #6
A drawling voice interrupted Isabel before she could articulate her reasons why they should keep their distance, now that they were out of Wes’s siblings’ view and liberated from the need to showcase the false brightness of their romance.
It was a show that Wes had managed with smiling ease, even hampered by her deadweight.
But he could have been off riding the roller coaster with Erin and Adrian.
Could have been laughing with adrenaline and vertigo and lemonade. Instead, he had her and. . .
“You don’t want a photo with some crappy social-media filter. Not in Santa Cruz, dudes.” The caricaturist they’d passed earlier pushed up his bucket hat. “I’ll do you a solid. A two-person sketch. Since it’s a weekday, I’ll even make it a discount.”
“Oh.” Wes paused, cocked his head. “Well. . . multimedia’s good, right? Not just another photograph.”
Having a portrait to display as more evidence during their interview was a good idea.
“Cool call.” The artist ushered them onto a pair of stools under an umbrella. He propped his sketch pad on an easel. “Closer. Yeah, like that. Arm around her. Cheese it.”
For the interview.
Despite every misgiving, Isabel complied. Swallowing thickly, she settled herself into the sun-gilded burn of Wes’s chest and tilted up her chin. Yes, for the visa. His slight smile was blinding, a whisper of his breath teasing her hair, salty and sweet on her lips.
But—no. Don’t feel. Don’t think. Don’t want.
It’s not real and you can’t have it, so you can’t want—
“You want to be riding dolphins?” A pencil danced over the caricaturist’s page.
“Sure.” Wes shrugged, his arms shielding her from the wind.
Shield or not, their—his—warmth was dangerous.
This shelter, this safety was dangerous.
She closed her eyes against the sea glare, against the wanting.
Just breathe.
It could have been five minutes or an hour later that the artist cleared a wad of weedy phlegm from his throat and sat back from his canvas, dusting his hands together in a universal signal of satisfaction.
He pinched his fingers for payment. Then he handed the portrait to Wes. “Good, right? You like it?”
“Uh.” Wes squinted for a quick moment, before tucking the canvas under his arm and flashing an even faster thumbs-up. “It’s great, thanks.”
Isabel dropped a tip into the caricaturist’s hat. She trailed Wes back to the seaward railing, where he continued to squint: not at their portrait, but down along the beach, scanning for Ethan and Bunsen.
Squinting or frowning?
Again, she asked him, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” immediately, with another blinding smile.
“May I see it?”
“I. . . Christ. All right.” She knew he hadn’t forgotten his sunscreen; the tips of his ears were definitely red.
He flipped the canvas over and balanced it between them.
“Right, so it’s—fine. Good, actually. Having an impartial observer draw something like this?
For our interview portfolio? Multimedia, like we agreed.
But he was only angling for a bigger tip by rendering it this way, so it’s not—uh. ”
As he’d either promised or threatened, the caricaturist had drawn them straddling a dolphin beneath an improbable rainbow sunset.
Isabel’s figure wore a bikini top and a tie-dye sarong that matched Wes’s kaleidoscopic shirt.
He’d exaggerated Wes’s eyebrow scar to pirate-like dimensions above a crazy grin, while giving Isabel a kiss-pouting mouth, plus a chin so sharp that she could have used it to cut up mackerel.
And he’d sketched pink hearts in their eyes.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. But like I said, it’s just. . .”
A glint off a pair of aviators was their only warning. Then Adrian was back. Barely tousled from the Giant Dipper or his race along the boardwalk against Erin, who was coming up fast in his wake, he evaluated their questionable acquisition with interest.
“You got a portrait done, Wes? For decorating your boat? Classy. . . Yeah, really good taste. If you wanted to make some extra change, I bet you could sell this to Soho Mod Art—”
“It’s not for sale.” Wes pulled back the canvas. One step interposed him between Adrian and Isabel.
“No, definitely not. Not this masterpiece.” Adrian’s mouth ticked in a smirk.
He crossed his arms. He didn’t try to grab the drawing, and didn’t glance away at Erin joining their group.
Neither did Wes, holding his gaze, defiant.
“It’s interesting, though. Funny. These things are supposed to be caricatures, aren’t they?
Jokes. Ethan would know. . . except—I see it now.
I didn’t before, with the churros and the lemonade and the timeline.
But here’s what I think the joke actually is: there isn’t one.
Because the artist got you exactly right. They really saw how you—”
“God, why do you keep—Shut up, Adrian!” Erin tackled him.
“Ooof—”
Dangerous as it was, while Erin and Adrian wrestled under a flock of shrieking gulls, while Wes relaxed his grip on the canvas and made feints to either separate his siblings or push them into a spill of ketchup, shaking his head before bursting into laughter, Isabel couldn’t help smiling.