“Fun to draw. All the curves.” She got her hand up in the air to demonstrate. “Their big balloony pants and curvy shoes and... and... their... foofy hair and...”
She faltered when she risked a look up and saw his expression.
His face was peculiarly brilliant and tense, and his eyes appeared to be watering, as if he was holding in a sneeze.
“And?” he prompted on a hush. Like some hybrid of a prosecutor in court and a child hearing the best bedtime story ever.
“And... I love animals. But I hate clowns.”
She confessed this in the shamed, whispered monotone she recognized from that part in crime dramas when the perp breaks down and confesses.
There was a silence.
“Britt.” He sounded as though he was strangling. “I’m going to step off the porch a moment so I don’t hurt your head.”
A few moments later from a distance away, she heard him smack the oak tree with his hand as he roared with laughter. She heard flapping as he frightened off a few roosting birds.
Flapping, she recalled, was one of his favorite sounds.
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” she murmured. “You’re so thoughtful.”
He really was. The bastard really was.
He was a nice person. A nice person who had canoodled with his ex at a wedding in photos the whole effing world could see.
He returned a moment later, apparently having got all of that out of his system.
“I guess you decided you were ready to show your artwork to the world. You sure did it with a bang.”
“Guess so,” she said, with faint irony since she didn’t have the energy or brain cells to debate that.
“The one with the zit. That was pure evil genius.”
“I know. Her skin is so pretty.”
She covered her eyes with her arm and heaved a sigh. She would make a terrible criminal if this was how easily she confessed to things.
Her new credo, she decided, was, “Margaritas are not the answer.”
She should get that printed up for Casey to hang on her living-room wall.
“Could you stand right there and block the sun again, J.T.? It’s not my friend this morning.”
He shifted to the right obligingly.
And they were quiet again. That blue jay who liked to harass Phillip let fly with a series of squawks.
“I’m not proud of it, J. T.,” she said finally. “It just kind of... happened.”
“Well, we all do things we’re not necessarily proud of.”
“You’re the expert,” she muttered.
He didn’t rise to that bait.
He was just quiet, but it was the sort of quiet of someone who has something on their mind.
“Casey’s my friend now,” she said, idly. After a moment. “We call each other and everything.”