Neat (Becker Brothers, #2)(40)

He shrugged, turning his attention back to his canvas. “It’s all useless, except for maybe a trivia night. But like I said, I love to learn, so I usually find myself deep in the rabbit hole of the Internet reading about some subject I didn’t even know existed before I stumbled upon it.”

“You make me feel lazy, I never do anything productive like that — not now that I’m out of school. If anything, I avoid anything that looks suspiciously educational.”

Logan gestured to the shop around us, to the canvas in front of me. “Are you kidding? Look at what you can create, at the art you can bring to life. And you’re sharing that with your hometown, giving kids here the options that you never had to explore their creativity.” He lowered his brush, pausing to look me in the eyes. “That’s incredible, Mallory.”

I wanted to hold his gaze forever, to lose myself in the specks of brown that dotted the gold irises of the man next to me. But I couldn’t bare it, couldn’t look at him any longer without wanting to shrink away from the parts of me he saw that no one else did.

I cleared my throat. “You know, it means a lot to me that you see it that way,” I said, dipping my brush in the rinse water. “The studio, I mean. For a while, it’s felt like this pipe dream, and even now that I’m making it a reality…” I shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seems like I’m the only one who takes it seriously, who sees what it can be.” I looked at him again then. “Except for you.”

Logan smiled, his eyes searching mine for the briefest moment before he turned back to his work. I did the same, and for a while it was just brushes over canvas, a soft rock ballad in the background.

“Mallory,” he said after a moment, still painting. “The night we walked Main Street, you sort of mentioned that you had a deal with your dad. A deal regarding the studio.” He didn’t look at me, not even when my hand froze where I was painting a snowman in the yard of the Christmassy cabin scene on my canvas. “What does that mean?”

I blinked. “It’s complicated, but long story short — he bought the studio in exchange for me finally working at the distillery. For at least five years, I have to be there Monday through Friday, and I’m free to use my evenings and weekends here.”

My voice was low, tone short, my brush strokes on the canvas a little more violent.

Logan nodded. “I guess he’s always been a little desperate for you to be a part of the family legacy, huh?”

I scoffed. “That’s putting it lightly.”

“What happened?” Logan asked, and this time, he stopped what he was painting to look at me. “The summer before high school, you said something happened that changed everything with your family.”

I shook my head, the blood draining from my face as I recalled the memory. I thought about avoiding it, telling a lie, saying it was nothing and I was just a dramatic teen. But even now, even twelve years later, I still felt the same way about what happened as I did that hot summer night.

And for some reason, for the first time since I’d told my best friend Chris, I wanted to share it with someone.

“Something not a lot of people know about me is I have a very sharp sense of what’s right and what’s wrong,” I said, continuing work on my canvas. “I’ve always had this moral compass, and a desire to be just, and to seek justice for others. I even thought about being a lawyer once,” I confessed on a sarcastic laugh. “Until I realized how corrupt our judicial system is.”

Logan was quiet, just listening, watching me.

“Anyway, one night that summer before high school, Dad had a big party at the house. It was catered, giant tents everywhere in our yard, a band and — of course — a casino. I’m sure you’ve heard of how he likes to offer the residents of Stratford a place to gamble since they have to drive out of state otherwise.”

He gave me a face at that, because we both were well aware that my father’s “underground” casino was nowhere near a secret — at least, not in this town. He was protected by the local police, and no one had ever reported him to any higher authorities — mostly because nearly everyone in town had participated at one point or another.

Logan and his family had an even more in-depth knowledge of it all, thanks to his older brother, Noah. Noah had started dating the mayor’s daughter, Ruby Grace, and the mayor was now famous for his debt owed to my father from nights at the casino — a debt made public at what was supposed to be Ruby Grace’s wedding to another man. It was the biggest scandal Stratford had seen in some time, and even now, six months later, it was whispered about.

“The casino part of the night was in our basement, and I went down there a little after midnight to get a soda. I also wanted to sketch, since I couldn’t sleep with all the noise, and my favorite set of drawing pencils were down there with the rest of my art supplies — which I’d begged Mom to let me keep in my room, but she’d refused, saying the mess of paint brushes and pencils were eye sores.”

I swallowed, still keeping my eyes on my canvas as I told the story.

“When I went down there, there was a group of guys playing blackjack. One of them was Randy Kelly.”

“As in, Chief Kelly?”

I nodded. “Yep, the very one. He had just been appointed police chief, like two days before that. He was definitely celebrating that night, too, because he was so drunk he could barely keep upright in his chair.” I pursed my lips, dunking my brush in the paint harder than necessary. “Not that it stopped him from groping me in front of everyone in that room and insinuating that when I was old enough for it to be legal, I should find my way to his bed.”