Page 24 of Cruel King

That makes her blush again, and she tries to smile as she says, “Thank you, but I miss playing all the same. My afternoons and weekends were always either practicing or playing in a match, but now that I’m not on a team since I’m not in school, I don’t have anything to keep my mind busy.”

I know what she needs to be distracted from. The same thing that made me realize how much I needed art.

“I’m sorry about your mother. I know that must be rough.”

She nods, swallowing hard as her eyes fill with tears. “Thanks. I was just thinking the same thing about you. It must have been difficult when your mother passed. I know you two were close.”

I force a smile as a sigh escapes my throat. “She was the one person who always told me I had talent. My father sees no use for this whatsoever. It’s a waste of time in his mind. My mother, though, always encouraged me. She bought me my first sketchbook, and whenever she saw me drawing, she always made sure to tell me how good it was, even when what I was drawing was shit. I miss that.”

As those last words leave my mouth, I realize I’ve never told a soul that. Not even any of my brothers.

Ava tries to smile bigger now, but she wipes tears from under her eyes as she says, “I know what you mean. My mother always cheered me on at every match. She was right there in the stands no matter what the weather was like or what else she had to do. I always knew no matter how bad things were going I could look up and see her smiling face as she waved at me. That’s one of the reasons why I miss it so much, but when I do get back to it, I don’t know how I’m going to handle not having her there for me. I just know I’m going to look up into those stands because that’s where she always was for every match, and when I don’t see her there, it’s going to kill me.”

I hate seeing her sad, so I quickly flip through the book to find one of my worst drawings. An apple I tried to capture but ended up making it look like a beach ball.

Pointing at it, I say, “This is an apple. Don’t worry if you can’t make it out. It sucks.”

That makes her giggle. “Oh, well, maybe I could see an apple there.”

“You don’t have to be nice. It’s not good. That’s okay, though. Not everything is going to be great all the time. My mother used to say that to encourage me when I felt like everything I was drawing was terrible. She’d say, ‘Honey, don’t give up. If this doesn’t work, try again.’ So I’d try again, and she was right. The next thing I tried usually turned out better.”

“Do you ever draw people?”

I turn to a drawing of my brothers I was working on earlier today before they left with my father to go to the city. Spinning the book around, I hold it up so she can see. “It’s not finished, but those are Marius and Kellen shooting pool, and that’s Theo standing with a pool cue. That outline over there is Ronan. He wasn’t doing anything but sitting on the couch texting his girlfriend like he always does, so I figured I could finish him some other time.”

Ava studies the image for a long moment before looking at me. “I love how you got their expressions so perfectly! Theo always does that thing with his tongue when he’s thinking about something or watching something intently. He sticks it out and focuses really hard. You captured that precisely as he does it!”

I can’t help but laugh at her description of exactly what my brother does when he’s thinking hard about something. “He’s done that all his life. I swear he did it when he was a baby.”

“No kidding! I remember him doing it when he was just a little boy and we started playing our hide and seek game. I’d look out from where I was hiding and see him looking for me, his face all serious and that tongue poking out of his mouth. He’s too funny when he does that.”

“He gets it from my father. He does that tongue thing too when he’s really focused on work. I’ll walk into his office and see him sitting there reading some specs with his tongue sticking out.”

Ava gets quiet for a long while as I continue to show her my drawings until she asks, “Would you draw me?”

Since I don’t want to come off as a stalker, I don’t tell her I’ve drawn her before as I sat in the window and watched her goof around with my brother or when she would run up and down the road that surrounds the estate to train for soccer. That would only make her question why I’ve been so rotten to her for so long, and that’s not something I want to talk about.

“Okay. Only if you’re sure, though.”

Instantly, she tugs the comforter from underneath me and pulls it up to her chin. “I’m sure.”

I shake my head. “Nope. Nude or nothing.”

She points at the sketchbook and pleads, “But you don’t have any other nudes in there.”

“This will be my first.”

Lowering the covers down to just above her breasts, she tilts her head to the right and smiles. “We aren’t in Titanic, Matthias.”

“Nude or nothing.”

She frowns even as she inches the comforter slightly lower. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t you trust me? We just had sex.”

“And right before that, you were acting like you hated me.”

I pull on the comforter so it drops down to her waist, exposing her beautiful breasts. “Come on. You can trust me. No one but me will see it. I promise.”