Page 98 of The Fine Art of Faking It
She looked around them in the dark, at the dormant vines, the frost tipped ground, and sighed. “New leaves?”
“I like that,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.
The shiver that worked its way up her spine had nothing to do with the cold.
“Can I show you something?” he asked.
* * *
Davis’s house was small,charming, and smelled of stale smoke. He shut the front door behind them, and her gaze went immediately to the stretch of plywood that blocked off the fire damage from the rest of his home.
“Davis, this is awful. I’m so sorry,” she breathed.
“Hmm? Oh, that.” He glanced in the direction of the mess formerly known as his kitchen and scratched the back of his head. He nudged the thermostat out of the fifties.
“It makes me angry all over again,” she told him. “Maybe this was a mistake? Maybe we should have gone to the police?”
He shook his head, took her hand. “No, you were right. What good would come from having half the town arrested for what was probably an accident?”
“An accident caused by a team of dumbasses.”
“No argument there,” Davis said wryly, tugging her toward the stairs.
“You’re not taking me to bed, are you?” she asked, stalling on the first step.
He looked at her over his shoulder. “Scared you can’t resist me?”
She scoffed. “Excuse me! Who resisted you for one and a half decades? That’s gold medaling in resistance.”
Davis opened a door off of the second-floor landing, his cocky expression daring her to enter. Eden breezed past him into the tiny bedroom. It had the musty smell of an empty house mixed with the scents of smoke and soot. She stopped when she saw the easel.
“Well, well. Unexplored depths,” she murmured. “You always were good in art class. May I?”
At his nod, she handed him the bottle and flipped through the canvases stacked against the wall and was pleasantly surprised by landscapes, still life, and even the occasional abstract. Bold colors, beautiful light. “These are great, Davis. Really great.”
He took a swig and crossed his arms, watching her. “It’s a hobby.”
“I didn’t think you had time for hobbies.” She paused on a painting of rolling grass of emerald green, her inn in the distance. Fanciful and vibrant. “I want this one by the way. If you say I can’t buy it, I’ll smuggle it out under my shirt.”
“It’s yours.”
Her heart leapt. She’d hang it in her quarters, in the bedroom. Davis studied his feet. “My father would prefer if I didn’t have time for hobbies.”
“Doesn’t he care about a well-rounded life?” Eden asked, holding out her hand for the bottle.
His laugh was short. “Definitely not. If there’s any room for anything besides business in your life, you’re not working hard enough.”
“Said the man who worked himself into two heart attacks.” She studied the bottle and took a drink.
He pointed at her and winked. “Bingo.”
“How’s he going to handle what we’re doing?” she asked. Eden wasn’t sure which part of “what they were doing” she was referring to. Banding together for revenge. Having sex. Being… friendly.
Davis gave a shrug that had the teenage rebel inside her swooning. She passed the bottle back to him.
“Cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.”
“Even if they don’t come home until we’re broken up,” Eden said, pulling the painting of the inn out of the stack and then flipping through the rest, “you’ll have a lot of explaining to do.”
