Page 48 of Fall Hard

I nodded as I sketched a melting ice-cream into younger-Kit’s hand. “Yeah, well, Bryn’s nice and nice people deserve good things.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” he said, but the words were clipped in spite of his calm expression.

I dropped the pencil and sighed as I turned to him. “What?”

“You kissed her.”

God damn it, Bryn.Why did she have to tell her brother everything? “Wekissed. I didn’t kiss her, or it–I—” I frowned. “It’s none of your business.”

His head jerked up as a muscle in his jaw ticked. “None of my business? I’m her brother.”

“And I’m her—Liv,” I said awkwardly before turning back to the drawing. It looked awful, Bryn’s head was completely misshapen. I reached for a fresh piece of paper as Kit watched me.

“You actually like her,” he said, a small grin breaking free across his wide mouth and making his arrow-lip piercing wiggle. “Oh, well this changes things.”

“I never said I liked her.”

“You didn’t have to.” He looked far too smug as he leaned back in his chair, slipping his hands onto the back of his head as his blue hair flopped messily onto his forehead.

I studiously ignored him as I sketched another two vague figures before adding in some smaller details like the shape of Bryn’s mouth and the length of her hair—

My eyes slipped closed. “So what if I like her? What do I do?”

Kit’s eyes softened as he leaned in close. “Exactly what you’re already doing. Be her friend, be there for her, and, so help me, if you ever hurt her I’ll—” He frowned, failing to come up with something suitably threatening. “I don’t know, but it’ll be bad.”

I bit my lip against a smile. Kit was probably one of the least intimidating people I knew—he was like a ball of sunshine, or a hit of pure positive energy.

“I’ll bear that in mind,” I said dryly and he nodded, clearly pleased he’d done his brotherly duty. “So what’s going on with you and Leo?” His mouth dropped open and it was my turn to smirk. “What, you think Bryn only gossips to you?”

“There’s nothing going on between me and Leo,” Kit said quickly.

“Oh, so he’s available then? I was thinking about setting him up with—”

“No,” he growled and I smirked. “No, he’s not available.”

“Interesting,” I said, stretching the word out and laughing when Kit grumbled under his breath.

“Ugh, fine. Give that here, watching you struggle is hurting my inner artist.”

I happily handed the paper off to him and watched with awe as he shaped the mini versions of younger him and Bryn, smiling with their arms around each other as they ate ice cream. I made grabby hands and he stopped me as I reached for the watercolors.

“I don’t want to re-draw that a million times, let me photocopy it and you can practice on the copies. Okay?”

He had a point. “Sounds good.”

Kit grabbed the paper and headed over to a chunky white machine in the corner of the room while I waited semi-patiently. Up until that point, I’d never been into any of the art rooms on campus, but they were surprisingly well-stocked and spacious. One or two other students had been in and out fetching supplies while we’d been in there, but for the most part we had the square table to ourselves.

The machine spat out several pieces of paper and Kit brought them over to me before arranging the paints and starting to mix some with a pot of water he’d collected when we’d first sat down.

“Now, you don’t want to oversaturate the paper too much. A little bit of bleed is fine and part of the style, but if you soak it too much it’ll break or go crispy.” I nodded as he demonstrated on a small square of paper. “You know, I’m probably not even the best person to show you this stuff. It’s been ages since I did this kind of art, I study graphics.”

“Well you know more than me,” I pointed out and he snorted.

“I don’t think either of us will be winning any fine art awards.”

I picked up the brush and immediately splotched paint where I didn’t want it. “Ah.”

“Yeah, that can happen too.”

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