“Francesca.”He held out his hand like he expected me to give my picture to him.
Crap.
I was going to have to do this.
“Fine,” I said with an annoyed shake of my head.And then I unrolled my picture and set it on top of Stefan's.
And.
The.
Crowd.
Howled.
And I mean, they laughed.
Loudly.
And for a long time.
Stefan just stood there—his eyes taking in the picture.
Yeah.
I knew I was in trouble.
And so was my behind.
But somehow—for some reason—I didn't really mind.Not too much, anyway.
“I think it's a decent likeness.Don't you?”I asked him, further poking the bear.I mean, I might as well, right?I was in it this deep.Might as well go the whole way down.
“Well, it's good to know how you really see me, Francesca.I'm not allergic to feathers, or this might be a problem.”He pointed to the many, many, many feathers I'd drawn on his chicken body.“I'll have to add in more leg days, too.I didn't realize how thin they were.”
I bit my bottom lip when he touched the thin chicken legs and feet I'd drawn.
“But I have to say,” he tapped a finger on the basket of eggs hanging from his wing, “you did a wonderful job on the basket.Very realistic.”
I nodded and thanked him.“Not my best work.I could have done better with more time.”I blinked my eyes innocently.
He—finally—laughed.
Gosh.
I loved that sound.So much.
I quickly rolled up our pictures together.“Okay, where to next?”
When I turned my head, I saw Stefan speaking to the artist and handing him a large tip.
You didn't have to speak Italian to see how appreciative the artist was.At first, he stuck his hands out, refusing Stefan's offer.But Stefan spoke to him and nodded at me.Finally, the artist accepted the tip and said, “Grazie, grazie,” over and over again.
My belly did a little squeezy flip.
After that, Stefan turned and grabbed my hand.When we walked out into the crowd, they parted for us—
And clapped.
