Chasing Shadows (First Wives #3)(57)

“Spiders. Cool,” Emmett said.

“Is this supposed to be an arm?” Hiraku asked.

“Yeah. I’m thinking of a tattoo here.” She patted the underside of her right arm.

Monique leaned back. “That’s all you guys.”

“Oh?” Avery questioned.

“I’m all about the face. Hiraku is anatomy and Emmett is still life.”

Avery looked between the two of them. “Think you can sketch something if I can describe it to you?”

“What’s in it for us?” Hiraku was the businessman.

Avery liked that.

She removed three one-hundred-dollar bills from her wallet and set them on the table.

Monique snatched up the money.

The guys looked at her.

“What? The rental agreement is in my name. Consider it an advance.”

The kids shrugged as Hiraku tugged his sketch pad closer. He pulled out some kind of fancy case and removed a few pencils and got to work.

Avery would guide him once in a while. “More muscular. The veins protruded more. Hairy.” With each instruction, the sketch came to life.

When Hiraku was done, he sent the page over to Emmett, who had been studying the image she drew.

“What’s the scale on the arm?”

“Three-quarters, with the bulk of the body here and the legs spanning around.”

Hiraku pulled another pad out and started drawing a posterior forearm.

Avery concentrated on what Emmett was sketching.

“It was long legged but hairy. You can see the joints. Almost like you’re looking at it through a microscope.”

“Wicked,” Monique commented.

“More pointy on the legs,” Avery encouraged.

Around them, the coffee shop buzzed with movement in and out. As the image in her head slowly came into view on the page, chills ran a path down her spine. But unlike before, this time the chill was laced with excitement. Like she was discovering something for the first time.

“Like this?” Emmett turned the sketch around for her to see.

“Yeah, only more lifelike. Dimensional.”

Emmett shrugged like she had requested ice in her water. He twisted the page around several times, making slash marks on one side of the spider until it looked like it was crawling off the page.

“That’s it.” She stared at the paper like it was fine art that cost a fortune. Avery didn’t doubt she would see this image in her head for years to come. But right now it was a blessing after months of darkness. This was the hand that hurt her.

Emmett took the paper back from her and drew over Hiraku’s posterior arm.

Seeing the tips of the spider legs come to life on the other side of the arm was alarming. Almost like someone was grasping her with sharp nails that she couldn’t krav her way out of.

“Dude, that’s seriously good,” Monique praised her friend.

“Spiders are cool. They get such a bad rap,” Emmett said while he continued to add the dimension needed to match the other side of the arm.

“They run too fast,” Avery said under her breath.

“You would, too, if you had eight legs and an exoskeleton,” Hiraku said.

Emmett handed her the other page. Together they were matched perfectly.

“You guys are really good.”

“Damn straight.” Monique had attitude.

Avery loved it.

Avery stood with the papers in her hand.

“Here.” Hiraku handed her a plastic sheath to put the sketches in.

Avery set them back on the table. “You should sign them. Since you’re going to be famous one day.”

Even though they laughed, they totally scratched their signatures on the bottoms of the pages.

“Thank you, guys.” She dug back into her pocket and placed several hundred-dollar bills on the table. “Dinner’s on me.”

Stunned silence.

“Ah, anytime you need any other help. We’re here all the time.”

Avery winked. “I’ll take you up on that.”





Chapter Twenty-Three



She was busy. That’s what Avery told him in her morning text.

But then nothing.

Liam tossed the ball for Whiskey in the backyard while drinking a beer. The days were getting shorter, but there was no lack of heat in the air.

The back door opened and his sister stepped out. “Dinner will be ready in fifteen.”

“Thanks.”

Michelle walked all the way outside. “Okay, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He set his drink down and attempted to wrestle the ball out of his dog’s mouth.

“I know that face and it’s not okay.”

“I’m fine.”

Now Michelle just laughed. “It’s about Avery?”

Much like his dog, Michelle didn’t give up when she was onto something that had anything to do with emotions.

“She’s out of town. Working. Not a lot of time to chat.”

“In other words, you miss her.”

He missed her, worried about her, and thought about her all the time. The dreams were as vivid as the memories. “Yup.”

“Sounds pretty normal.”

“Yup. Like I said, nothing wrong.” Except that before their explosively sexual weekend she would drop a text in the middle of the day with something completely random. An emoji or a picture of a jacked up truck with a comment like Where is the ladder to get up in this thing? While it might not have been all that personal, the texts told him she was thinking about him, and he’d grown used to that instant smile.