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When he returns, he sets a laundry basket down and pulls the ladder up behind him, shutting us off from the rest of the house. I can’t see what’s in the basket until he brings it over and sets it down in front of me.
A beginner’s watercolor set. Some plastic cups. Bottles of water. A small canvas.
“You don’t have to help me,” he says, unpacking everything. “But hang out with me?”
“Sure. Want an easel?”
He nods, so I get to my feet and dig around until I find one of my old ones in a corner. I set him up next to a small table, adjusting the angle so the colors won’t run. So I can see him, but not the canvas from my spot on the floor.
“What are you going to paint?” I ask, watching him carefully pull the plastic off the set of beginner watercolors.
Nic shrugs. “I don’t know. The lake? That can’t be too hard.”
“Oh, Nic. You sweet, innocent man.”
He grins. “No one expects me to paint anything good. All I have to do is put some paint on a canvas and someone will buy it for the signature in the corner.”
I sigh and stretch out on the rug, snatching the sketchbook again. The world is unfair. People are going to throw money at Nic—or this charity, more accurately—if all he does is paint a blob. But maybe it sucks that they don’t want him, or care about his talent or lack thereof. They just want a slice of him to bring home.
My head is as blank as the sketchbook still, so I watch Nic as he carefully pours some water into a cup.
“I watched a few YouTube videos on how to paint with watercolors this morning,” he says as he arranges everything on the little table next to him. He fusses over placement for a bit, then turns to the blank canvas on the easel and stares at it for a long minute.
“Go on,” I say, failing at my attempt to not smile. “Show me what you’ve got.”
“I’d rather show you what I’ve got than paint this picture.” He mumbles under his breath. I laugh. He picks up a brush, dips it in water, and wets some of the paint in the tray.
My hand aches with how badly I want to do that, so I grab the pencil and tap it lightly on the sketchbook as Nic starts painting.
He might not have a clue what he’s doing, but his body relaxes as he works, and the way he bites his lip and looks at the canvas like he’s not sure what to do is adorable.
“Do you remember the day, down by the tire swing?” Nic lifts his chin toward the only painting turned out to face us. “Timothy was in detention. We were walking home from the bus stop. You weren’t talking to me.”
I snort. “That could’ve been any day. He was always in detention and we never talked.”
Nic drops his paintbrush in the water, a grin on his face. “You wanted to stop and sketch some flowers to paint later. I stole your pencils and wouldn’t give them back.”
“That was a dick move.”
“Why do you likeSummer Camp?”
The abrupt subject change leaves me scrambling and I bite my lip to stop from saying something flippant about his dancing. There’s genuine curiosity in his voice. He’s open to the truth, and he deserves it, but this is hard. “You left. Suddenly, you were in these perfect photoshopped ads selling jeans or cologne or whatever. Timothy would talk about wild parties and women. You became this other person. I didn’t like it.”
Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly before I continue. “Summer Campcame out, and my friends dragged me to it and I could see you in the character. Quiet, a little awkward, but real. I missed you and that movie gave me a piece of you I thought I’d lost.”
Nic looks thoughtful as he picks up a different paintbrush and wets a new color. “You know that scene by the tire swing?”
His character shared a first kiss with his summer crush by an old tire swing, near the lake the summer camp was supposed to be situated on. I nod.
“It was supposed to take place on the dock, but there was a problem and they couldn’t do it. I suggested the tire swing.” He dabs some paint on his canvas, then looks up to meet my eyes. “That’s your favorite scene, isn’t it?”
My face goes hot. “No,” I say petulantly. “The skinny dipping scene is my favorite.”
Nic raises a brow. “Because of the vaguely blurry image of something that was not my cock?”
The scene that launched a hundred internet rumors about his dick. “In my fanfiction version, a snapping turtle bites it off.”
That earns me a laugh.
