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“You should make the time for it again,” I say. “You loved it so much, and you were…god, you were so good at it. I remember this sketch you did of Leah one time. She was wearing a big coat or a blanket.”
“It was a sweater I knit for her,” Gabi says, her voice soft, and when I look her way, I see she’s watching me with surprise. “You remember that? That was like…ninth grade.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember a lot of the artwork you did back then. I have…” But my throat closes up, and I shake my head, deciding I’m not ready to admit to that. “I loved watching you draw. The way your hands moved, so fluid. It was beautiful. It’s the same way they move when you’re working with your clay.”
Also, she didn’t look like she wanted to burn everything to the ground when she was sketching. She seemed at ease, happy. Free.
She continues to watch me for a beat before looking away.
“Well, anyway,” I continue, “you should start lugging a sketchbook around with you again. You never know when inspiration might strike.”
“Maybe,” she says, looking back at me.
We watch each other for a long moment, and I can’t help it when my eyes dip to her lips, colored by that deep maroon lipstick she likes to wear. I haven’t thought about what it would be like to kiss Gabi in quite some time, but I can’t help the way the thoughts race through my mind. She was the first girl I ever kissed, and for a long time, I thought she’d be the last.
Suddenly, a ray of light smacks me in the face and I wince, holding up a hand to block it.
“Shit,” Gabi whispers.
“Bishop?” a familiar voice calls from below us. “Is that Bishop Mitchell?”
I try to see who it is, but I can’t tell with the light blasting me in the face.
“Who is that?” I ask Gabi, whispering.
“It’s Sheriff Perry,” she groans.
“Oh,” I say, my shoulders relaxing.
Then I remember we’re sitting on the roof of the school gymnasium, drinking beer, in the middle of the night.
“Oh,” I say again, this time with a little less ease.
“Yeah—oh” is all Gabi says back to me.
“And Gabriela Ventura?”
“Hi, Sheriff,” Gabi replies, her hand up, also trying to block the light from his flashlight.
“Don’t ‘Hi, Sheriff’ me. You two get your butts down here right now.”
I sigh, and then we’re scooting off the ledge, collecting our beers, and heading down the stairs. Apparently, I did push my luck too far tonight. It has officially run out.
chapter ten
Gabi
“Drinking on school property? Trespassing? Breaking and entering?” Sheriff Perry lists off our offenses as he drives us to the station, his voice gruff with irritation.
I wince. It didn’t seem so bad when it was ‘just a little rule-breaking.’ Now it sounds like a whole lot of trouble.
“I had to get in my car and come out here on a Sunday night because you two were…what? Reliving your glory days?” he continues.
“I’m sorry, Sheriff,” Bishop says. “I promise we had no intentions of causing any damage or doing anything illegal. And technically, we didn’t break in. We had keys.”
The sheriff glares at Bishop in the rearview mirror. “Did you not hear the list of illegal things I just rattled off to you? Just…sit back there and be quiet.”
He mumbles to himself, something about it being the middle of the night and paperwork and keys, but I can’t hear it all. We’re only in the back of the cop car for about fifteen minutes, but it’s still the back of a cop car. As much trouble as we got into when we were teens, we were kids and were given a bit more leeway, and we never did anything so bad that we got arrested.
