Sunkissed by Kasie West (popular e readers .txt) 📕

“My sister thinks she might be the next…” Lauren paused, the camera pointing at herself while she thought. Then her camera was on me, then on the painting in front of me. “What’s the name of the guy with the big hair who paints?”

Brooks may have agreed to help me find myself the night before but we hadn’t really formulated a plan, so that morning at the breakfast table I had announced, “I’m going to try a painting class today.”

Dad had looked up from his eggs and bacon and said, “Painting? Really?” Did he have to sound so skeptical?

Mom patted the table in front of my plate. “Avery, remember those hilarious potato people drawings you used to bring home from school?”

“When I was like five?” I asked.

“They were so cute,” she said. “I put you in this little art class, but you were more interested in the lady’s cat.”

“You did?” I asked.

“You don’t remember?”

I didn’t, which in my opinion meant this class still met my criteria of trying something new. So I’d put on a T-shirt I didn’t care about (as instructed per the schedule) and gone to the class. Lauren had tagged along. And now we stood in a meadow behind the tennis courts, ankle deep in grass, where we were taught some basic techniques and were told we could paint anything we saw on a thicker-than-normal, but definitely not canvas, piece of paper, clipped to an easel. I chose a group of wildflowers that at the moment looked nothing like the drippy blobs of paint on my paper.

The thwack of tennis balls against rackets rang out behind us. Not exactly the serene environment I’d pictured for a painting session.

Lauren raised her hand. “Teacher!”

“Lauren, his name is Mr. Lucas.” He’d told us he didn’t work for the camp but traveled around doing classes. “And he looks busy.” He was pointing out something on someone else’s painting. I hoped he didn’t make it over to mine.

“Mr. Lucas!” Lauren said, ignoring me. “What’s the name of that big-haired painting guy from television?”

“Bob Ross,” Mr. Lucas said with a smile.

“Yes! Bob Ross. Thank you!”

Back to her phone, she said, “My sister thinks she’s the next Bob Ross.”

“I don’t think that,” I said. “And remember when I said you couldn’t record this.”

She put her phone down. “I don’t mean it literally. It’s exaggeration, for story effect.”

“Hyperbole,” I said.

“Yes, that.” She looked over my shoulder. “Ooh, I’ll be right back.”

“Lauren,” I hissed as she walked away. “That’s super rude.” The class was supposed to last an hour and we’d only been here twenty minutes. Lauren left her paper clipped to her easel and I glanced over at it. She had painted a tree. It wasn’t great but then again, she hadn’t really tried.

Behind me, I saw what had drawn Lauren’s attention—the band. She had caught up with the guys at the corner of the chain-link fence surrounding the tennis courts. I was too far away to hear what they were saying. I added another purple blob to a green stem. All the colors on the cardboard palette I held were mixing together and there was nothing I could do about it. Mr. Lucas was getting closer, going down the row of painters, made up mostly of people in their sixties.

I set my paints on the ground and stepped over to Mr. Lucas. “Excuse me, I’m sorry. I’ll be right back. I’m going to get my sister.”

“That’s fine,” he said.

“Thank you.” I rushed down the path.

“Avery,” Kai said when I reached them. “How is your transformation into Bob Ross going?”

Lauren gave me her impish smile.

“The only thing left is a perm,” I responded.

Levi snorted.

As casually as possible, I looked at Brooks and said, “Hey.”

“Hi,” he said, then returned his attention to the clipboard he held, writing something down.

“I’ve never painted anything in my life,” Levi said. “You any good?”

“No, not at all.” Back in the meadow, my paint blobs were probably dripping onto the tall grass by now.

“It’s one of those things that takes practice,” Ian said. “You’re not born with the skill.”

He was right, of course, and I appreciated the first bit of encouragement I’d heard all day.

“I was born with some skills,” Kai said.

“Oh, here we go,” Levi sighed.

“Good looks, awesomeness, and these.” He flexed his biceps.

“That was probably terrifying for your mother,” Brooks said.

I laughed.

“That’s not what your mother says,” Kai shot back with a punch to Brooks’s shoulder.

“Gross,” I said.

Brooks caught my eye and then looked down at his clipboard. I followed his gaze and saw a paper with the words pay phone, tomorrow, noon.

I gave him a short nod, hoping that was just where he wanted to meet for the deal we’d made the night before, not that I’d gotten another phone call from Shay.

“How’d my footage from the other night turn out?” Kai asked Lauren. “Need some better angles?” He spun a slow circle and of course Lauren laughed.

My big sister mode came out. It was one thing to talk about how cute the guys were, like Lauren had done the first night she saw them, but my dad was right—Lauren was only fifteen and Kai was eighteen, and I needed to make sure nothing came out of Lauren’s documentary other than some killer footage.

“Yes, actually,” she said, dragging him closer to the chain link. “Outside shots would be good.”

Ian and Levi followed and I stayed close behind.

“What’s with the clipboard?” I asked Brooks, noticing him move with me. “Do you do something aside from band stuff here?”

“We’re gofers. We go wherever we’re needed.”

“But you have to do it together…as a group?” I asked. “You’re inseparable?”

He smiled. “Yes, we’re very codependent.”

“As every good band should be,” I said.

He lifted the clipboard. “No, we don’t have to stay together but we usually do in the mornings so that we can talk over songs and stuff for that night.”

“Oh, is that the reason?” Levi asked. “Then I have a discussion point.”

Ian