Parental Guidance (Ice Knights #1)(36)

Perfectly normal.

Yep.

That was her and her mini elephants.

The miniatures scene was straight out of a fantasy, a parade of miniature rainbow-colored elephants marching up a waving ribbon of EEG readings. Each elephant followed the up-and-down path of the brain waves readings. The elephants and the ribbon got smaller and smaller the higher the EEG ribbon went until they disappeared into nothing. It was one of her earlier works when she did an entire series on idioms. She and Gemma were pulling the whole series and more out of her building’s storage vaults so she could pick ten to display as part of the ultraexclusive cocktail party to celebrate the opening of ticket sales for the Friends of the Library ball next month.

“An elephant never forgets?” Gemma asked as she set another scene on the kitchen island.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure if it’s right for this show.” Zara looked around, her gut doing a very uncomfortable version of the Cha-Cha Slide. “I’m not sure if any of these are right for the show. I just need to rethink this. Keep working on it. Maybe next year.”

“What is this gibberish? These are awesome.” Gemma took Zara by the shoulders and turned her so they were facing each other. “This is what you want. What you’ve been working toward—a chance to show the world what you can do, to share this joy.”

“It’s not good enough.” Every miniatures artisan she followed on Insta showcased work that just blew her away. Each piece was an amazing fantasy. However, when she looked at her own pieces, all she saw was the work that went into it and never the joy she felt when she looked at other artists’ work. “I can do better.”

“So can we all.” Gemma pulled her in for a quick hug and then walked over to the stove and poured boiling water from the whistling kettle into the two mugs on the counter. “That means your work will continue to evolve and continually be fresh.”

Zara took out the tea bags from the cupboard and handed two to Gemma. “I want it to be perfect.”

“If you wait for perfection, then you’re never going to do it.” After adding the tea to the mugs, she handed one to Zara. “That’s not a dig, it’s an acknowledgment of the fact that perfection is unachievable.”

She didn’t want to admit that. Life was too messy as it was. Part of the reason why she’d even begun working in miniatures was because the ability to control every last detail spoke to the need deep in her soul for order and stability. Exposing that to someone else’s eyes and asking for that judgment when every time she looked at a scene she saw something else to tweak or adjust made her palms sweaty.

“If I put it out there and it gets shot down, then I’ll have to accept that all of this has just been a silly dream as dumb as my dad’s get-rich-quick schemes.” She took a sip of Earl Grey as she turned a skeptical gaze toward the ten scenes on the kitchen island. “Looking at this, all I can think is that I’m being an idiot for thinking that getting a face-to-face with Helene Carlyle at the ball would make any kind of impact—I’m just not ready.”

“There’s a big difference between showing your amazing art or talking to an influential collector and your dad’s plan to start a cat-walking business.”

Despite the emotion making the tip of her nose itch, Zara had to giggle. Her dad had gone so far as to buy professional walker leashes that would let him walk ten cats at once. The first time he’d tried it—with only five cats—had been an epic disaster. Her dad had taken the failing with a shrug and started work on his next scheme.

Zara shook her head. “That idea was almost as inane as this whole Bramble dating thing.”

“Well, since you brought it up, have you seen Caleb’s latest interview?” Gemma said with enough fizz-bang excitement in her voice to show just how much she’d been wanting to bring up this topic. “This one was just him and his mom, no Asha.”

Zara’s tea became incredibly interesting—okay, the smell wafting up from her mug was amazing, but the contents itself were not. It was just that looking down was a lot better than making eye contact with her bestie, who would be able to read her thoughts and therefore know what happened the other night. She could play this cool. She could. Really.

She didn’t bother to look up from her mug because she knew that was a lie. “I haven’t seen it.”

“Oh, honey.” Gemma dug her phone out of her purse, brought up the video, and hit play. “Take a look.”

Zara tried to watch the right corner of the screen instead of Caleb’s face. Then he started talking, and there was no way she could turn away. Her belly shimmied in that good-things-are-coming way as she took in the crooked line of his nose that she’d spent way too much time thinking about while thanking the universe that she hadn’t broken it again when she’d come hard enough to make her ears ring.

Caleb and his mom sat next to each other, pivoted so they half faced each other, on the couch in the Harbor City Wake Up set.

“You actually cooked for your third date? I didn’t think you’d go through with it,” Britany said, her eyes wide with shock. “Did you burn the place down?”

“Very funny.” He pulled a face at his mom. “But yeah, I was a little worried about that.”

“I still remember that time when you were in high school and the fire department had to come because you got distracted by the hockey draft while making a grilled cheese,” Britany said with a smile. “Of course, I did end up dating one of the firefighters for a while, so that almost made up for the smoke marks that went up to the ceiling.”