Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake (A Brush with Love, #2)(56)
Lizzie chewed on her pizza, thinking. “All over, really. I set up somewhat of a home base in Prague, and then would travel from there. On that trip,” she said, nodding back at the TV, “I went on to South Korea and Japan. I really wanted to see Vietnam, but I ended up spending too much time in Japan and had to get back to Prague for a monthlong nannying job I’d snagged.”
“Too much time doing what?”
Lizzie wiped her hands on one of the flimsy napkins that came with the pizza. “I met a guy,” she said with a laugh. “I try not to live with regrets, but one I’ll always have to bear is that I was so preoccupied hooking up with a Turkish guy staying at the same hostel that I missed out on an entire country.”
Lizzie thought she saw Rake’s jaw tick, but he smoothed his features, smiling. “Sounds like quite the life,” he said. “Ever make it to my hemisphere?”
“South America, yes. But never Australia.”
Rake made a disapproving noise.
“I’d love to go, though,” she added. “I have to see the reef before humans destroy it.”
“Ahh, you definitely have to go. I’ll take you someday.”
Lizzie’s eyes went wide, and she blinked at him. Rake snapped his mouth shut, the words dropping heavily onto the couch between them, snuggling up like little monsters for an awkward cuddle.
“Want some water?” she asked, bolting up and clambering over the back of the couch toward the kitchen.
“Yeah, that’d be great,” Rake said, clearing his throat.
Lizzie pulled out the water pitcher from the fridge, filling two cups. She chugged down a cold glass, then another. She also made sure to draw a penis in the condensation of Rake’s glass for good measure.
She went back to the couch, handing him one of the drinks and settling herself on the far end of the love seat. She needed a bit of space from Rake and his kind words and lovely eyes. He was making domestic bliss all too comfortable.
“That’s cool,” Rake said, pointing at the TV. The show’s host was touring an open-air market and had stopped at one of the stands, watching a woman weave a rainbow of threads into a textile. Her fingers worked quickly, and she gave a broad smile at the camera, pride radiating out of her. “Every inch of that place is covered in fabric.”
“You like stuff like that?” Lizzie asked, perking up.
“How could you not? The time and focus that goes into it, the colors, it’s incredible.”
“Wait here.” Lizzie tossed down her plate and bolted toward the bedroom, hurdling over her air mattress like a track star. She pushed aside some of her garbage bags and pulled out her securely taped boxes—boxes she hadn’t opened in years. She ran her hands over the cardboard, the memories buzzing and humming, ready to be remembered.
She tore into them, riffling through one, then another, until she found what she was looking for.
She looked at the textile, then hugged it to her chest, rubbing her cheek against the rough wool and tangling her fingers in the fringe at its edge. She pressed her nose to it and inhaled like she could breathe in the happy moments the fabric held, allow them to soak into her soul. Smiling, she moved back toward the couch.
Lizzie stood in front of Rake, allowing the fabric to unfold with a flourish. It was a magnificent explosion of colors—geometric shapes in fuchsia and bright blue, blocky birds lined up in green and purple, linear zigzags of orange and red, all of it glowing against the dark green background.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Lizzie cooed, looking down at the weaving. “I got it in Guatemala. The woman even taught me how to embroider one of the flowers.” She ran her finger over the raised yellow threads of a wonky flower, the single imperfection in the glorious masterpiece.
“It’s amazing,” Rake said, pushing off the couch to get a closer look. He pinched the edge between his thumb and forefinger, touching it gently as though it might dissolve in his grasp. “The colors are unreal.”
“I know. That’s what drew me to it. I saw the woman working on it, and I couldn’t stop staring. I sat there and watched her weave for hours.” Lizzie remembered the feeling, like each strum on the loom was harmonizing with something in her brain, plucking at her neurons until they were all focused on the creation of the vibrant piece.
“You should hang it up,” Rake said, carefully studying the stiches.
Her eyes flew to his face. “Really? That’d be okay?” The idea of gazing at the textile every day, seeing it hanging proudly on a wall, hummed through her bones and set a large grin on her face.
“Sure. It’s too cool not to show off. What else have you been hiding in those boxes?”
And so it began. Lizzie plundered into her stored-away memories, reliving all the joy she had put to rest so long ago in that drab, brown cardboard. She’d always meant to show off her travel mementos, but Indira had liked a more minimalistic decor. And something had always held Lizzie back from even asking.
Once she’d sealed up those boxes, she’d been afraid to reopen them, like all the happiness the objects held would rush out. Leave her. Or worse, they’d act as a taunting reminder of the freedom she’d felt in those different places, and what a cruel trick it was to actually grow up.
But as she unpacked them, surrounding herself with treasures—smooth pebbles from a volcanic beach in Iceland, carved cedar trinkets from Lebanon, an evil eye from Turkey—she wasn’t homesick for those places. Instead, the memories zipped through her veins in pleasure.