Page 34 of Tempt Our Fate
“Is it not?”
“No. It’s terrible. I don’t know how the food that you bake in it is even edible.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
She takes a long, deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. It’s quiet between us, but a comfortable kind of quiet. The one without expectations to awkwardly fill it.
Eventually, she takes another drink of her coffee with her eyes trained on the view in front of us. In the back of my mind, I still want to find a way to bring people here. To give some of the landscape artists I know the chance to capture the beauty to the best of their abilities.
“So are you going to tell me more about your childhood?” She doesn’t sound timid while asking it. She seems curious, but I also get the sense I could tell her no and she wouldn’t keep prying.
“Doubt it,” I answer honestly. I have a complicated relationship with my parents. As an adult, I can’t fathom treating a child the way they treated me. I could imagine myself having a kid or two if I met the right person, and I can’t imagine just discarding a child the way they discarded me. “All there is to say is that I was their trophy child. Paraded around and appreciated when they wanted to show me off to others but hidden away and forgotten about when there was nobody around to brag to.”
“Did they encourage you to be an artist?”
I take a drink of coffee because her question is a complicated one. They shoved art down my throat from the moment I could hold a pencil, but even from a young age, I rebelled against them. I didn’t want to become them, and every day of my adult life, I wonder if I became everything they hated or everything they wanted me to be.
“Encourage isn’t the word I’d use. Forced is more like it.”
“Something tells me you don’t take well to being forced to do anything.”
I chuckle. I appreciate that she seems to always say exactly what’s on her mind. “You could say that.”
“So you rebelled by becoming an art owner instead of a creator?”
“I rebelled by not ever giving in to their wishes and following in their footsteps. I was supposed to be some nepo baby art prodigy. They wanted me to be that desperately. It’s the one thing I refused to become.”
“So could you have been an art prodigy? Are you any good?”
My lips twitch as I do my best to fight a smirk. “Remember that statue you liked so much in my office?”
Her face scrunches in confusion. It makes me laugh, a small chuckle rumbling from low in my chest.
“The most beautiful piece of art I’ve ever seen? Yeah, I remember it.”
My teeth run over my bottom lip because she’s feeding my ego, and I love it. “The artist who didn’t know if they wanted to sell it? That’s me.”
“Shut up!”
“No one knows it’s me.”
“Oh my god, I gave you compliments without even knowing it.”
“You gave mesomany compliments,” I tease, popping another bite of scone into my mouth. It’s my second one. They’re just so damn good.
“I want to throw up.” She sighs dramatically, falling backward onto the quilt. “How could you let me say such nice things about you and not say anything?”
“Maybe I like it when you say nice things to me.”
She looks at me from the corner of her eye. “No you don’t.”
I shrug because I won’t confess to her what I do or don’t like. I loved watching her fawn over a piece I spent so long on. It was fun to see my art through somebody else’s eyes since I don’t allow a lot of people in on my secret. It was even more fun with the knowledge that she had no clue the artist she was complimenting was me.
“Camden,” she groans, covering her face with her hands. “You’re the actual worst for letting me make a fool of myself.”
Leaning forward, I attempt to push her hands from her face, but she keeps them locked in place. “You didn’t make a fool of yourself. I liked hearing what you thought of my work.”
She grunts, not giving any indication that she’ll move her hands. “I was telling you what I thought that artist was trying to convey whenyouwere the artist.” Another loud groan comes from her. I try to look away from the skin she’s showing between the denim waistband of her jeans and the ruffle at her midriff. So much sun-kissed skin that’s begging for attention.