Page 16 of Set the Moment
Further down, there were more paintings of landscapes and people, but that ballerina always stuck out to me.
As I scroll to the bottom, I stop as my eyes land on a painting that hadn’t been there last week.
It’s me.
As a young girl, probably around twelve or thirteen, smiling as I look off to the distance. My messy array of curls are carefully painted to show the one time I’d allowed myself to not care about my appearance as a kid.
Jace had told me he wanted to paint me, and I agreed after my parents missed yet another one of my recitals in Summerfield. I did summer classes here to spend time with Cleo and her friends before going back to California for school. When I’d realized my parents hadn’t shown up, I couldn’t leave my room at uncle Clef’s for days.
It wasn’t until the scrawny, blond kid from next door with hair like Hercules and a smile that could kill stumbled into my room, grinning like the Cheshire cat, that I realized life wasn’t that bad.
Jace spent that entire day trying to brighten my spirits by giving me snacks I wasn’t allowed to eat at home, watching TV with me, and just being there for me.
It wasn’t until he’d suggested painting me that I smiled.
He did everything to make me laugh that day…and now he’s grown up to be an annoying douchebag.
Earlier today, he and that girl were all over one another, and now he has the nerve to go to my place of work and demand changes in my schedule to suit him?
What a narcissistic pig.
I’m about to let out my fourth sigh when the wind chimes of the room go off.
My head whips to the door, an unnatural feeling boils in my gut as I look at it.
Did he follow me here? Is going to apologize?
Instead, Aric stares back at me. My shoulders drop at the sight of him and the feeling in my stomach dies as he makes his way over.
“Hey! I didn’t know you liked this place,” he says, smiling brightly at me.
The sight unsettles me after receiving an even brighter one from a man that I loathe just twenty minutes ago.
I curl my lips in, biting them slightly before plastering on a smile.
“Of course! Who doesn’t love a bakery?” I ask, but my voice sounds scratchy and unnatural.
“Right…so I was thinking about our date—”
Date? When did I…Shit.
I forgot I even agreed to that, and it was only this morning that I had. How can I get out of—
“So, yeah… are you allergic to anything? I have a few restaurants in mind—”
“Only strawberries.”
Hello, three foot hole, allow me to dig an additional three feet because what the fuck was that? I was supposed to say, “Oh, I’m sorry…I have to walk my pet fish, Melinda,” or something along those lines.
Instead, I’m stuck going on a date with a man.
A man.
Eugh.
Could you see my shoulders quiver?
I don’t know if it’s just me or the fact that I’m awkward as hell, but the idea of going on a date with a random man gives me the creeps.
