“I paint. Not as much as I used to. But after…you know…after the accident? I painted a lot. It was sort of therapeutic,” I say.

“Why don’t you study art?” she asks.

“Oh no. That would ruin it. It’s a hobby. I never want it to be a job. And it’s really hard to make money at it. My mom, she’s one of the lucky few able to make it a career. And I like money, so…hence the business degree,” I say, caressing my thumb over the lead lines that shade Cass’s breasts. I’m touching the paper with the same reverence I use on her.

“Can I see it?” she asks, pushing herself up a little, trying to sneak a view.

I tilt the notebook quickly and throw my pencil at her. She throws it back. “No peeking. Patience, young grasshopper.”

“Grasshopper?” Nose crinkle and sour face follows.

“Do you, like, have any pop culture references? Like…at all?” I continue shading her legs, and then begin filling in her hair.

“Not from the seventies, old man,” she fires back.

“Oh, ha ha. I’m four years older than you; I’m not a senior citizen. I watched a lot of Nick at Nite, and I appreciate the classics. Plus seriously, that’s like saying you don’t know Elvis.”

“Grasshopper is nothing like Elvis,” she says with a little sigh.

“Valid point. Nevertheless, now you’re watching Kung Fu DVDs too,” I say, putting the final touches on her sketch.

“Oh…goody,” her tone completely lacks excitement.

“Just wait, you’ll like them,” I say as I move closer to her, the notebook held to my chest.

“You’re done? Lemme see!” she reaches for it, but I hold it tight, for some reason nervous to show this to her.

“Hold on. Before you look at it, remember, I did it fast, on notebook paper, and I haven’t done this in a while,” I say, but she interrupts with a tsk sound and yanks the pages from my hand. When her eyes hit the paper, and soften, and her bottom lip gets sucked up under her teeth, I finally breathe.

Cass

I wish I really looked like this girl in the drawing. What Ty has done on a spiral notebook in ten minutes is one of the most beautiful and heart-melting creations I have ever seen.

“Well?” he asks. His face looks nervous. It's cute that he's nervous, wants to please me.

“Ty…it’s beautiful. I mean, I don’t look anything like this, but what you drew…it’s beautiful,” I say, letting my eyes wash over the softness in pencil sketched in front of me.

“Yes, you do,” he says, pulling himself closer to me. “I really need paints to do you justice. But yes, this is what you look like—how I see you.”

I think I love him. I know it sounds ludicrous, and yeah, maybe I’m easy, because he just said a full string of magic words that pretty much just flushed the air from my lungs, and wrapped all of him around my heart. But I don’t care. I would risk it all to have him say something like that about me, just one more time.

“Ty,” I say…the rest of what I want to say hung on my tongue, my nerves keeping my feelings on hold, but my will fighting, wanting to push them out. Maybe it’s reason working against me. I know most of what I’m feeling right now is complete and utter swoon from the fact that this older, sexy man has just made me feel beautiful—truly beautiful. But screw reason. I want to jump in with both feet, arms in the air.

He runs the back of his hand along my cheek, grazing my arm and breast until he hits my hand, and he brings it to his lips to kiss softly. I love you, Tyson Preeter. I practice the phrase over and over in my head while he looks at me, touches me softly, and seduces me until I’m ready for anything. Then—there is a chime on my phone, and one on his.

Ignore it, Ty. Ignore it. We’re both frozen, having a silent conversation about how whatever that is, can wait—it isn’t important. And then our phones chime again.

Ty breaks first. And it burns a little that he does.

“It’s Nate. He said he and Rowe—” He doesn’t finish, because I’m reading my phone now. It’s a text from Rowe. She needs to come home, to our room. She and Nate had a fight.

“We could pretend we didn’t hear—” Ty starts, his mouth twisted into a half smile full of equal parts hope and disappointment.

“We could. But we’re not assholes,” I say.

“Well, I’m an asshole. But…no…you’re not an asshole,” he says, taking a deep breath. “All right, you better get dressed. I’m going to go try and console my needy brother and knock some sense into him.”