Breaking the Rules (Pushing the Limits #1.5)(37)

“Not the Bates Motel.” I enter and inhale the rich scent of ground coffee beans.

It’s a quaint shop with seven older-than-me round wooden tables and just as worn wooden seats. What I like are the raw sketches tacked onto the walls, creating a wallpaper of art in progress. I feel like a missionary Jesuit priest walking into St. Peter’s Basilica and a bit like a child skipping into Disney World—small, high and enlightened.

Near the front, two girls with their heads huddled together whisper intently, and midway through the shop, a guy has his legs propped up on a chair as he sketches with charcoal. Behind the counter, a cute girl with blond hair slicked into a ponytail sits on a stool and reads a worn paperback with yellow pages. She gives me a cursory glance and when she notices Hunter stand, she returns to the words on the page.

“Now, that look,” says Hunter, “is what I like. That means you like my shop.”

“Your shop?”

In a dark blue button-down short-sleeve shirt and too-baggy-for-him jeans, Hunter flashes an I’m-a-proud-daddy smile. “Opened it four years ago on my twenty-fifth birthday.”

In other words, he’s much older than me, still sort of young, and is business savvy.

I smirk. No reason to make his life easy just because he’s an artist and established. Though I won’t admit it to Noah, the guy did creep me out this morning. “Is that your way of getting me to share?”

He laughs. “Maybe.”

And I’m smart enough to not answer, for now. “Let’s discuss the painting.”

“Fair enough. Coffee?”

I’d love coffee, but for the moment, it’s best not to accept drinks. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

He motions for us to sit, and when I do I become enthralled with the sketch of a baby cuddling near a delicate shoulder.

“It’s for my sister,” he says. “She had her first child last month.”

“It’s good,” I respond. Very good.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

I comb my fingers through my hair, wishing I did accept his offer for a drink so I’d have something to fiddle with. Hunter Gray is a name I’ve heard several times this summer. He’s some sort of an artistic genius that exploded into the art scene a couple of years ago. Some people at shows mocked him for his success and his indifferent attitude to the art community, and some people called him courageous and gushed about him like he was a rock star. With all that was said, nobody ever trashed his work. It was wildly understood that he is exceptional.

And I told him one of his paintings was wrong. “I’m sorry.”

His sandy-blond hair is a little like Noah’s in the front, but unlike Noah’s, it’s long everywhere else. The waves lick his shoulders. “That’s your name?”

Just crap, he had asked me a question and I spazzed. “No, it’s Echo.” Leaving off the Emerson because I’m not giddy about involving my mom.

He falls back into his seat, causing the wood to squeak. “That’s definitely better than I’m sorry. And the pissed naked guy at your hotel room would be your brother?”

“My boyfriend—Noah.” And he had jeans on.

“Figured. The beautiful girls seem to have those.”

There’s a muttered “Humph” from behind the counter, and while I assess the girl, Hunter keeps his eyes on me. Rushed by the sensation of being on display, I slip my hand along the scars of my left arm. I should have worn the sweater, but I was so mad at Noah that I forgot.

“So...the painting?” I say, circling the conversation back around.

He leans forward and picks up the pencil he’d been drawing with. “Let’s discuss it, Echo with no last name and who must be old enough to travel with her boyfriend. Tell me which would you do—paint in the star, or do what you said and make the area where it’s missing darker?”

Not caring for how he stares at me like I’m announcing the cure for cancer, I grab a napkin out of the dispenser and fold the edges. “What did you intend for it to be?”

“To be the full constellation, but when I tried to fix it last night, I couldn’t. I kept hearing your voice yapping about constellations and how they represent the sum of their parts. But what struck me was when you mentioned a darkness because something is missing from your soul. I realized at three in the morning that I wanted the painting to be that and more.”

My mouth squishes to the side. “Then make that area darker.”

“I can’t.” This guy never tears his gaze away.

“Why not?”

“Because it wasn’t my idea.” He flicks the pencil, and it bounces onto the floor. So he has a conscience and wants permission to use my suggestion. I didn’t know people like that existed.

I toss the napkin in his direction. “I’m officially giving the idea to you. Paint as many dark spots as you want, and I’ll never claim that we had the conversation.”

“What do you do? Paint? Draw? Sculpt?”

“Um...”

“You’re an artist. I can tell. What’s your medium of choice?”

“Painting,” I answer immediately. “I love to sketch. I’ve grown fond of charcoal over the past two years.”

“Are you studying someplace?”