Page 90 of Devils' Day Party
“Panties might be nice,” he adds, handing my discarded underwear back to me. “There's also the outdoor bathroom. You could use that to cleanup if you want.” His attention flicks down to my thighs, as if he knows that he's left his mark between them.
“Thank you,” I snap, tearing the panties from his grip and putting them on over my boots. I lead the way out the door as Barron collects his sketchbook, following behind me as I pause in the bathroom for a moment.
He doesn't give me any privacy either, slipping in to draw me while I wet a paper towel and slip into one of the stalls. It doesn't bother me as much as I thought, to have him there. Instead, I feel comforted by his presence. That doesn't change when we climb into Calix's stolen car and head back to the Diamond Point Mobile Home Park.
The only light on is the porch light, and a quick peep inside the house shows me that both my parents are asleep. I back up and bump into Barron, spinning around to find him smirking down at me, his palms on the wall on either side of my head.
The way he's looking at me, I expect a trick. With him, I'm always expecting a trick.
“I know this probably won't help matters much …” I start, swallowing back a sudden surge of desire at the closeness of his body, his smell, even the cocky arrogance spreading across his lush mouth. “But please don't hurt me here.”
There's a pause where the smirk nearly falls from his face, but he recovers it quickly, moving one of his hands off the wall to stroke strong fingers down my cheek.
“I won't hurt you again, Karma,” he says, sounding almost surprised at the admission himself. His mouth thins into a flat line and he backs up a step. I smile back, but it's hard to resist the words clinging to the tip of my tongue: yes, you will. He will hurt me, even if he doesn't mean to, just by not remembering tonight ever happened.
“Come with me.” I push aside my feelings and take Barron's warm hand in mine, dragging him down the steps and over to the greenhouse door. It's unlocked, as always. We don't really feel the need to lock our doors out here. There are some definite positives to living in such a small community. Everyone in Diamond Point knows my moms and appreciates the care and effort they put into the park where we all live.
“A greenhouse turned art studio,” Barron comments as I push the door open, the sweet fragrance of violets and jasmine stirring in the cool air around us. “Interesting.”
He follows me in, and I'm struck suddenly by how intimate this moment is. Glancing over my shoulder, I notice his eyes scanning the sacred space, and my pulse begins to thunder. This is me extending trust that I shouldn't rightfully give, far more invasive even than sharing my body. If Barron rejects me here, now, the violation will be something I'll never be able to forget, not in this timeline, or any other.
“My moms believe art is the pinnacle of human invention,” I say, plugging in the lights and smiling as the strings of Edison bulbs strung through the space bloom to life.
“Not medicine or space travel or bio-engineering?” Barron asks, but not like he's judging, just curious. He pauses next to the pottery wheel and then moves over to a stack of paintings, thumbing through the canvases as my heart freezes in terror. Some of my work is in there, and if he starts shit here … I'll probably kick him right in the balls.
“All necessary inventions to keep people healthy and safe, so that they can make art,” I say with a laugh, the sound trailing off as Barron pulls out one of my pieces. It's just an oil painting of Little Bee, the bright yellow of the car at contrast with the dark woods behind her. There's a set of paints on the car's hood, a myriad of colors spilling over the sides and dripping to the grass beneath the wheels.
Barron stares at it for a long moment, and then turns to look at me, his face dark and serious, contemplative as always.
“Can I buy this from you?” he asks, and my brows go up.
“Wh… What?” I stutter, pushing red and black hair over my shoulders. It's pretty, but I had to bleach the shit out of it to get it here, and it's dry as hell. Likely, I won't be doing this again anytime soon.
Barron pauses for a moment to pull a unicorn-horn lollipop from the front pocket of his jacket. I'm honestly not even sure where it came from, probably some secret stash in Calix's car. He unwraps it, careful to keep the painting beneath his arm, and then sticks the whole damn thing in his mouth, twirling it in a circle as he studies me with one blue eye, and one brown.
