Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 128742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
He says it with such gravitas that I’m compelled to burst his bubble just for fun. “I met Elton once. My dad opened for him a few times during the Asian leg of his tour back in the day. He was huge in Korea.”
Lee huffs. “Am I really the only gay man in England who doesn’t know Elton John?”
At home that evening, I take my haul up to my room. The painting goes atop the dresser, and I sit back on my bed watching it watch me. Lee wasn’t entirely wrong about her eyes. They’re intelligent and perceptive. She knows you’re there, wondering who she is, asking questions she won’t answer. Who is she, and how did she end up an anonymous figure inside a frame, forgotten and discarded?
The grim thought sends an odd shiver running up my spine. I think that’s what my dad feared most of all, what propelled him through his career: a persuasive phobia of obscurity. And it’s what made him give it all up too. Fear of never knowing his daughter, of her not recognizing him. Memory controls us more than we realize.
“Souvenir?”
I jerk at the sound of his voice.
Jack leans against my doorframe in a pair of plaid pants. His hair’s wet, and beads of water still cling to his bare chest. He smells like man soap. The scent fills my room in an instant—thick and humid—like I’m standing with him in the shower. A thought that runs rampant through my brain until he nods at the painting like snapping his fingers in my face to see if anyone’s home.
“Who’s the lass?”
“Yeah, uh, I don’t know.” I recover myself, hoping he doesn’t pick up that every time he wanders half-naked into my field of view, I lose track of time and space. “We stopped at an estate sale. I picked it up more out of curiosity.”
Jack bobs and weaves his head as he enters, examining the painting from different angles. “The eyes. I swear they’re following me.”
“Lee doesn’t like her.” I grin. “He thinks she’s going to crawl out of there and end up standing over his bed with a butcher knife.”
Jack shudders. “Thanks for the nightmares.”
“I’m supposed to come up with a research project for one of my classes. Solve a mystery of sorts. I figure this qualifies.”
He approaches the painting again. “She’s a stunner, that one.”
How absolutely typical that Hot Jack would have a crush on a painting I bring home. Eliza will love this.
“I want to find out who she is, but I’m not sure where to start.”
With a shrug, he taps the corner of the painting. “Start with the artist.”
I go to take a closer look. The signature is so subtle I hadn’t noticed it before.
“What does that say?” I ask, squinting at the right-hand corner. “Dyce?”
“Looks like.”
“What are the chances of locating one World War II–era painter named Dyce in the whole of England?”
“Guess you’re about to find out.” He steps back, still studying my new treasure. “Bizarre, isn’t it? To put a portrait out on the front lawn and not say anything about who they are?”
“Part of her charm.” Excitement begins building inside me, that same nerdy glee I feel every time I’m about to delve into a period of unknown history. “What could possibly have gotten her blackballed by a family like the Tulleys? Was she a misfit? A rebel? I don’t know. And there’s something about her expression. It’s like she’d just swallowed a smirk, you know? She was up to something.”
I glance at Jack to realize he’s no longer contemplating the painting but transfixed on me.
“What?” I say self-consciously.
“Really turns you on, does it? This history stuff.”
Oh boy. Somebody this good-looking isn’t allowed to say the words turned on in my vicinity.
“It’s kind of my passion,” I confess.
He chuckles. “My ego would be massive if chicks were talking about me with that kind of passion.”
For my own sanity, I turn the subject on him. “Aren’t you passionate about something?”
“Rugby” is the instant reply.
I snort.
“—and sex.”
My snort turns into a startled cough.
“Big fan of that,” he adds with a faint smile.
I gulp. Is he flirting?
I busy myself by adjusting my side braid, which is coming undone after a long day out. Then I look up and swallow harder, because when my gaze was averted, he sort of snuck up on me and crept close enough that I can feel the heat from his skin on my cheek.
Like the girl in the painting, he has magnetic eyes too. Gaze-into-them-and-fall-in-his-arms eyes. Trip-over-my-own-two-feet eyes. I wonder what he’s seeing in me, staring so intently.
“How about you, Abbs?” His voice has gone a bit raspy, almost mocking.
“How about me what?”
“What are your thoughts on sex?”
My breath catches.
Is he seriously standing here all nonchalant, asking me for my sex thoughts in clear defiance of house rules one through infinity?