“What do you mean?” I try to recall seeing them, blocking out his presence and how he worked to avoid me while I was in there. The memory distracts me from the question at hand, making me shake my head slightly in an attempt to stop thinking about them.
“You didn’t like something about them.”
“No, no. They were great. Really.”
“But…”
“No buts. They were great.”
King’s eyes narrow again, brimming on accusation, but there’s too much confusion in his expression. “There was something. I saw the look on your face.”
“I’m sure it was just the shock of the stunts he was doing.”
“No, it wasn’t until the originals were up that your eyes focused like they do when you draw. But while you looked at them you had the expression you were making when you were shading here.” King’s finger hovers over his neck on my drawing, reawakening the frustration I felt while I was working on the simple structure. I kept picturing King’s face in several shades of light and never took the time to focus on any one, causing the shading to all be slightly awry. I hadn’t minded it until I got to his neck, and then the shadows seemed to make it appear too narrow, and then too wide, and then highlighting the errors on his face, making it seem less abstract and creative and more novice.
I press my lips together and think back to the pictures I stared at while in a reverse position to what I am in now with King. “Sometimes I think society depicts too much about what is beautiful. We remove details that are real and natural because we think they’re unforgiving and repulsive. We remove and alter stretch marks, cellulite, blemishes, an errant hair, all to make someone look like no one truly does. Perfect isn’t real. Some of the things that made Kash beautiful in those pictures were erased in an attempt to make him perfect. It made me focus on those spots because all I saw was what was missing. She created imperfections.” King’s eyebrows rise and the corners of his mouth tilt up. I pray he’s not baiting me and plans to use this to make Summer hate me again. Regardless, I continue, “By trying to make Kash perfect, she erased the indentations along his spine, and the scar along his side, and the sweat and dirt that was there because he was working his ass off. You didn’t see the tendons in his hands, or the expanded veins because of the adrenaline and tight grasp he had on the handlebars, or the focus and bliss that was written on his face with the way his brow was drawn, and his eyes were focused on something that you know only few can see.”
“You need to stop questioning yourself.”
I pull my head back with surprise. He doesn’t clarify my obvious confusion, or elaborate further; he simply looks at my drawing of him again and then steps into the kitchen.
I can feel a growl of frustration climb higher in my throat. I am so irritated by his brush-off that I want to throw my piece of charcoal at the back of his head.
“Ready to learn how to make an alfredo sauce?”
“I think my days of cooking are over,” I mutter, closing my notepad without dropping the particles of dust left behind by the charcoal into the trash. I know it will smear the picture, but I don’t care. I want to rip it out and shred it into teeny, tiny strips and then burn them. Simply distorting it means I’m being civil, an adult, though his eyes are laced with humor and accusing me of being anything but.
“Your problem is you stick to things you’re good at so you never know what it feels like to be uncomfortable.”
My spine feels like a rubber band being snapped. I glare at him, wishing to explode and tell him how uncomfortable I feel stepping through the door every single weekday and some weekends, knowing he might be on the opposite side. Or how uncomfortably I have slept all week because Kenzie continues to bring over her special “friends,” depriving me of not only my bed, but my easel, clothes, food, and solitude. Instead, I lift my hand and show the bright pink line that is a roadmap to my failed cooking attempts.
“You can’t stop just because you had one bad experience.”
I drop my chin, pursing my lips. The small smirk on his face tells me he knows I’m not referring to just this single incident.
“Think of cooking like art. The spices are your colors.”
I shake my head, baffled by his comparison. “They’re nothing alike.”
“Sure they are.”
“No. For me, art is … I don’t know, it just makes sense. I know without having to think about it how things go together.”
King’s lips turn up into an uneven grin that makes my eyes narrow into a glare. He laughs and moves to pull a pot and a couple of pans out. “You see the same things that everyone else sees, yet you see what makes them beautiful. Art’s instinctual to you, it comes easily. You’re going to have to learn how to cook.” My mind’s still stumbling over his last words about how I see things and what that means, if anything, as he continues. “So you’re really going to do the logo, huh?”
My head shakes as I wander farther into the kitchen, stopping when King smiles with triumph, making me briefly consider going back to the dining room table before I cross my arms over my chest and lean back against the furthest counter from where he stands. “I’m painting a picture on one of the walls in the shop, but as I’ve told Kash, I don’t expect him to choose it as his logo.”
“Do you know what you’re going to draw yet?”
“Not a clue.”
His grin is benevolent, friendly even, as he moves to the fridge and pulls several ingredients out. “You should come to the match next week, watch it all happen and see if that inspires you. You said you can’t draw what you don’t know.” King shrugs as he drops a stick of butter beside the stove. “Time to get acquainted.”
The fact that he’s right makes my nose scrunch. Even when it’s an obvious situation like this, I’ve never been great at accepting dictation.
“Come over here and grab the middle knife on the far right of the block.”
An immature desire to remain rooted and voice my protest crosses my mind before I quietly sigh and move to do as he’s instructed.
The knife feels heavy and awkward in my hand as I wait for further direction and watch as he fills a large pot with water.
“Grab that red cutting board and the package of chicken,” King says, nodding to the counter beside the fridge. I feel him watch my movements, making each of them feel painfully pronounced and awkward.
“You’re going to cut the chicken into small pieces, and then we’ll put some spices on them and sauté them.”
“How big is small?” I ask, unwrapping the paper from around the chicken and drawing out three breasts. I hate the feel of raw meat; it alone could easily convert me to a vegetarian.
“Bite-sized.”
“For a horse or a toddler?”
“Since we don’t have either of those, I think you’ve found your answer.”
“Asshole-sized, perfect.”
“Don’t start a war you won’t be able to finish,” King warns, his movements stalling, ensuring me his sole focus is on me. The action isn’t a taunt, it’s a threat, and it burns a sudden level of frustration through me that only King can evoke.
I raise my chin as I turn my head to face him. Slowly, I release my grip on the knife so that it rests against the cutting board, removing my temptation to throw it at the back wall. “Go ahead.” My shoulders roll, my knees bend, and my hip leans against the counter. My entire body is showing how little I care about what he has to say next. It’s a lie, of course, but one that is crucial to maintain.
“What? Is Charlie going to kick my ass?”
Charleigh? How is Charleigh a part of this?
“I know all about Charlie. I don’t know why you didn’t just tell me you were dating someone. It’s not like I was going to hold what happened over your head or something. It’s not a big deal.”
This is one of those moments where I so wish I had the capability to read minds. Clearly King thinks Charleigh is a guy, but that’s all I’m certain of. Why he’s bringing up the possibility that I have a boyfriend and the idea that I would pose a boyfriend as a warning against him makes me question if he’s threatened. Jealous? Merely curious? I need an extra hour to sit down and sketch the expression on his face so that I can fully decipher what all he isn’t telling me.