On His Face - Tabatha Kiss Page 0,3
it.”
I look up into his face again. He’s tall, nearly a whole foot taller than me. His dark hair looks even darker thanks to the rain. His face and shirt are damp, too. He didn’t even try to keep himself dry.
What would Jenna do?
“Uh…” I swallow hard. “Would you like to come in?”
He pauses. “Come in?”
“You’re soaked,” I say. “You can come in, dry off. Maybe… have some coffee? Or tea? We’ve got… both.”
The words spill out of my mouth, taking me by surprise. I guess my mother’s southern hospitality rubbed off on me after all.
His gaze wanders my face. Not for too long, though. Just long enough for me to feel it. “Sure,” he answers. “I’ve got nowhere else to be tonight.”
Well, that can’t be true. There’s no way he’d rather be here hanging out with me than be… literally anywhere else on the planet.
I unlock the door and step inside, holding it open wide for him to follow me. He walks in and scans the living room, his face as expressionless as it was in class. I can’t get a read on him at all.
Those dimples, though.
“Let me grab you a towel,” I say as I peel off my jacket and hang it on the coat rack in the living room.
“All right,” he says.
I shuffle down the hall on the left, doing my very best to walk like a normal freaking person, but I guess that’s off the menu tonight. I drop my backpack by my bedroom door and continue forward to the bathroom. With the light on, I grab a clean towel from the cabinet and pause in front of the mirror. You know, just to make sure I’m still me and did not mutate into some strange creature capable of inviting a hot stranger into her house.
I take a deep breath and exhale it slowly before reentering the hallway.
My bedroom door is open.
And the light is on.
My bedroom door is open, and the light is on!
I widen my stride to the doorway as my stomach flips upside down.
He’s in my bedroom.
He stares at the sketches hanging on my wall above my desk. “Wow,” he says, noticing me standing behind him.
“What?” I ask, tense as fuck.
“Are these yours?”
“Uh…” I step forward, quickly scanning the floor. Luckily, I did laundry yesterday. The hamper is empty. Nothing too cringe-worthy in sight. “Yeah,” I answer, glancing at the dozen drawings of faces. Some random. Some from memory. Others of family or friends or celebrities. “These are mine.”
“You’re really good.”
I blush. I hold out the towel. “Here. Nice and clean.”
He takes it with a smile. “Thanks.”
I try not to stare too hard as he pats his face and hair dry. Afterward, he tosses it over his shoulders, holding an end in each hand as he continues smiling.
“So, are you an art major?” I ask.
“Me? No.” He shakes his head. “I just do the modeling gigs for extra cash. I’m a business major.”
“Oh, cool. That’s smart. Much smarter than mine.”
He laughs. “You never know. You could make it big someday.”
I scoff. “Doubtful.”
“No, really.” He steps closer to the board. “You’re talented. They’re so lifelike.”
“I’m…” I hesitate, far too modest to agree. “I’m learning. I can’t really do anything except for faces.”
My cheeks burn brighter as he looks up again.
“What’s a vision board?” he asks.
I flinch. “Uh…”
Before I can answer, he reaches for the small letter-sized canvas balanced on the edge of my desk decorated with pictures and letters cut out of old magazines.
“Oh, that’s—” I wince. “Nothing.”
“Five Goals for a Perfect Freshman Year,” he reads aloud.
“That’s just something my roommate made me do,” I blurt. “It’s dumb, I don’t even—”
“Learn a new life skill,” he continues.
“Super dumb...”
He smirks. “Get a tattoo?”
“Another wonderful roommate suggestion. She’s been begging me to get matching tattoos since we were fourteen.”
“Pay off my car.”
“Not going to happen on my salary,” I say, cracking a joke to keep from dying.
“Enter the Art Fest. Win.”
I squeeze my clammy palms. “Again, not happening.”
He looks at me again, his lips curling into a quick smile. “Fall in love with a stranger?”
My breath hitches. “I couldn’t think of a fifth one. And I’m not even sure that qualifies as a goal. I mean, it’s not exactly measurable or at all within my control. I should just get rid of that thing. It’s dumb.”
“No, it’s cool,” he says. “It’s good that you’re so organized. If I had made goals like these my freshman year, I probably wouldn’t have had to retake Algebra.”
I chuckle.