“I can take you.” The offer came out before I could second-guess it.
She hesitated, her shoulders rising and falling on a deep breath.
“Take the ride, Zadie,” Chantel said through a mouthful of sandwich.
Zadie shot her another harsh look, then her gaze finally landed on me—resigned, reluctant, and utterly fucking stunning. “Fine. Let me grab my bag.”
Chantel bumped my shoulder as Zadie disappeared down the hall. “You really are Prince Charming, saving the day.” She smirked and then stuffed her face with the final bite of roast beef and rye.
I grabbed my keys and waited by the front door, trying to look like a man offering a friend a lift and not like a guy whose entire body had just lit up because she’d agreed to sit in his truck.
She didn’t say a word as we left the house. The silence stretched between us, thick and uncomfortable, all the way into the truck and halfway down the road.
And fuck, I couldn’t stand it. “What are you studying?”
“Business.” Her voice was flat, like she was reading it off a form. “It’s practical and should help me find a better paying job.”
“It’s practical…but is it what you want to do?”
“No.” She shifted in her seat, her tone softening. “What I want to do is paint. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been passionate about. But passion doesn’t cover rent or living expenses, and I’ve spent enough of my life broke. So, business it is.”
Passion doesn’t cover rent.
Her words hit deep. Not because I understood the money part. I’d grown up with a hell of a lot more financial security than most, and I’d walked away from a paid education without a second thought.
But the other part—choosing the practical thing over the thing that made you feel alive—I understood that down to my bones.
“You were sketching this morning. So you haven’t given up on art entirely.”
She turned toward me for the first time, and I had to force myself to keep my eyes on the road. “You were watching me?”
“Hard not to.” No point lying about it. “You had this look on your face like nothing else existed. Like you were doing something you love.”
Her fingers clasped together in her lap, and the air in the cab pressed in. “You know the painting in your room? The one on the wall?”
Strokes of blues, greens, and browns flashed through my mind—the image of a woman’s face partway underwater, like she was either surfacing or drowning.
My grip on the wheel tightened. “Yeah.”
“That’s my work. One of my favorites, actually.”
“It’s good.” A piece of her had been in my room this whole time, right above my bed. “It’s really good.”
“Thanks.” The word sounded strangled, and she looked away, color rising in her cheeks.
“I’d love to see the rest sometime.”
She didn’t reply. The wall between us might’ve been chipped, but she seemed determined to keep it standing.
I pulled into the campus lot and squeezed into a spot between a dented Honda and a pickup that had seen better decades. The engine ticked in the silence after I killed it.
“Zadie, listen?—”
“I know.” She gave me a sad half-smile that cracked something open in my chest. “I suck at this friend thing. My life’s kind of a mess right now. I promise we can hang out, and I’ll tell you about it. I just need some time. Okay?”
Fuck time. What was time going to do except let the distance harden into something permanent? I’d given her five days, and it already felt like five years.
“Okay.”