Page 102 of Gap Control

I stepped closer. "That they had footage of someone learning how to love their whole life, and they shouldn't cut that part."

"You said that?"

"I meant it."

He reached for me then, hands settling on my waist, pulling me close enough to smell a hint of a new cologne on me. "You ordered that bubblegum cologne we saw on the infomercial, didn't you?"

I smiled sheepishly. "Someone had to try it."

Mason leaned in and gave my neck a good sniff. "I've been disappearing all week."

"I know."

"I don't want to anymore." His lips brushed my cheek. "Not from this. Not from you."

I kissed him. Slow, certain. When we broke apart, he reached past me to turn off the burner.

"Fuck the pasta," he said. "I want to show you something."

He led me to the coffee table where his sketchbook sat—the one he didn't bring to practice. He flipped to a page near the back.

It was us. On his couch, my feet on the coffee table, and his toes tucked under my leg. Not idealized or cleaned up. Real.

"When did you draw this?"

"Last week. Before everything went sideways." He touched the edge of the page. "This is what I want them to see, if they're going to see anything. Not only the hockey. This."

Chapter twenty-two

Mason

The sketch wasn’t going anywhere.

I’d been staring at it for ten minutes, pencil hovering just above the page. The lines were clean enough—shoulder, cheekbone, the edge of a glove—but every time I tried to move forward, something made my fingers freeze like I didn’t have permission.

I wasn’t blocked. I was bracing.

The charcoal smudged anyway when I shifted my wrist. I wiped my hand on the side of my jeans and leaned back in the kitchen chair, staring at the ceiling.

My phone rang.

Not buzzed. Rang. It was a real phone call from a real person. The number wasn’t in my contacts, but it had a Portland area code, and for some reason, I answered.

“Hello?”

“Is this Mason Ryker?”

The voice was feminine, sharp-edged but warm.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“This is Elena Vasquez. I run the Cornerstone Gallery on Exchange Street, here in Portland. A piece of your work recently came across my desk, and I’d like to invite you to bring in a few more sketches for review.”

I stared at the sketchbook in front of me.

“Uh. Sorry, I think you might have the wrong person.”

There was a pause, long enough for me to think I’d dodged a weird scam.

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