“Like the one of me?”
I swung my bag over my shoulders. “Still not showing you.”
“Come on. I’d be interested to see how you see me.” He stared at his feet before finally arrowing his gaze on me.
“I’ll show you one of my paintings before you leave.”
“One? How many do you have of me?” His eyebrows waggled. “Are they dirty?”
“Perv.” And I wouldn’t be showing him the one that sexualized him more than I was comfortable with. That one was at the back of my deck of paintings.
“Guilty.” He followed me out the door and down the hall. I led him to the main part of the community dining area. “Wow. This is crazy.” His gaze roved over the huge atrium. The windows were stained glass. The artists who worked at J Town often left their imprint on the walls and windows, which left the building as eclectic as its inhabitants.
Bent had a metric ton of vegetables laid out on the counters. Ian filched a sliced pepper off the cutting board, narrowly missing a slap from Bent’s knife.
“That’s how you end up missing a finger, boy.”
Ian crunched around a red pepper. “Sorry, mate. They were too tempting.”
“You take without asking?”
His shoulders tightened. “Ha
d to most of the time.” He peered up at Bent. No fear brightened Ian’s eyes. Very different than most people’s reaction to the man who towered over most of us.
Bent grunted and pushed over a small pile.
Ian’s chin lifted. “Nah, I’m good.”
Bent popped a cherry tomato into his mouth, then loaded a container full of veggies and slid it across to me. “Take this and your friend out of my kitchen, Z.”
“Thanks, Bent.” I tucked it into my bag and steered Ian out to the front doors. “Gotta antagonize everyone?”
“It was just a pepper.”
“Bent’s all about manners. You’re one of many who have gotten a scolding.”
“But not you?”
“My aunt Laverne wouldn’t have that.”
“You’ve mentioned her a lot, but not your parents.”
I shrugged. “My parents are good people too. They work at the family orchard. I just ended up working at the store with my aunt more than doing hard labor like my parents and brothers.”
“Ah, the family orchard I saw in your photos.” His gaze seemed a little distant.
I nodded and sailed through the door he held for me. He wasn’t completely void of manners. “Yeah, in upstate New York. Not sure how much you know about LeeLee—er, Lila. Sorry.”
“LeeLee?”
I shrugged. “What we call her back home. Doesn’t really fit the suit she’s become here, does it?”
“I’m trying to picture it and it doesn’t work.”
I laughed. “She was pretty young when she got married to Martin. Biggest douche on the planet, by the way. But she moved here and made a new life. Dumped the douche—”
“Married another from what I hear.” Ian immediately shoved my old aviators over his eyes the moment we got outside.