Page 29 of The KING Review

“Say that five times fast,” Grant deadpans, and I snort a distinctly unladylike laugh right before Liv envelops me in a huge hug. Another noise squeezes out of me, along with all the air in my lungs.

The Aspens are a family of huggers, but I don’t mind it—I love a good cuddle, unlike my sister, who had to take a little time to adjust to being accidentally hugged, though they do try their best. Especially Cade’s mom, Ret. She’s the loveliest woman, but a little absent-minded, and from what I’ve heard, she often forgets Fia isn’t a hugger.

Grant tips his head to me after Liv graces him with a huge hug as well. I try to push down the swell of jealousy—not because I think it means anything more than a hug, but because I want a damn squeezy hug from Daddy Grant King.

God, I need to stop calling him that—it’s getting unironic.

I wonder if he secretly likes it, too.

“I’ve got to keep things organized, but let me know if you need anything, okay?” Liv says, and then she’s gone in a cloud of sweet perfume and a whisper of the beads in her earrings.

“So, do you take Sera to lots of artsy stuff?” I ask, trying to sound casual.

Grant smiles. “Yeah. Sera loves art. Give her a craft, she wants to try it.”

“Girl after my own heart,” I say with a laugh.

He shakes his head as we walk around the conference boards, where art pieces are hung up and placed on plinths and pedestals. There’s everything from 2D canvas paintings to clay sculpture and plexiglass boxes with refracted light as the entire piece.

“If Liv does it, it’s even worse,” he says fondly. “She loves her to death. Whatever she does, Sera wants to do it. I had to have a pretty stern talk with her about drawing on the walls after Liv started doing murals.”

I guffaw, my head tipping back. My first instinct is to cover my mouth, because I’m always conscious of drawing too much attention by being loud in public, but Grant just grins, his dimples popping, and the lines around his eyes deepening. Something slow and heavy thuds in my chest the second I realize he doesn’t seem to have a single instinct to try and shrink me or make me shrink myself.

“If Liv is painting the walls, why can’t she paint the walls, right?” I say, trying to deflect from the thoughts swirling around my head.

“Right.” Grant walks ahead of me. “This one’s my favorite.”

He points to a painting on a small, square canvas. It’s impossibly bright, listed as being made with acrylic paint and markers with layers and layers and layers of detail. There are neon squiggles and void black patterns and pops of white, along with every other color I think I’ve ever known how to name.

I swallow hard as I look at it. “Wow.”

“Yeah, wow,” Grant echoes. He huffs a soft laugh. “I didn’t think of it before, but it actually kind of reminds me of you.”

My ribs go tight. “Yeah?” I try to keep my voice even, but it squeaks up to chipmunk despite my best efforts. “Why?”

Grant shrugs, hands in his pockets as he studies the piece. I do the same, and it makes me a little afraid of what he might say—because if anything, yeah, it reminds me of me, too. Because it feels like so much. Not too much, really. I’m not arrogant, but I don’t mind spending time with myself. I’m not too much for me, but there are few other people who are amenable to spending a lot of time around me.

The list is pretty much limited to my sister, her fiancé, and Vida Lennox.

Everyone else just seems to… wilt under my too-muchness.

It’s like looking into my own brain. All the… everything in there. It’s all tangled together, bright, very happy—sometimes too happy. It feels suffocating sometimes. I’m always the chipper one. I don’t get to be sad (and when I am, I do it wrong anyway—always too much).

“It’s a lot,” Grant says eventually. My heart knocks my ribs. “But it’s not too much.”

I feel my face flush, and I refuse to look at him. I can feel that his eyes aren’t on me—I can sense his gaze, such a heavy thing that it is, and I know just by trying to feel it that it’s still on the painting, not on me.

“Is it making you feel something?” he asks, voice softer now.

“Yes,” I whisper, but that’s all I can say. Something heavy is climbing up my throat, and the bridge of my nose stings.

“That’s all right,” Grant says quietly. “Good art is supposed to do that.”

We carry on exploring the rest of the show until we’ve seen every painting, and we end up back at the front doors.

“I’ll take you home,” Grant says, and I don’t have the energy to protest, scraped out as I feel. I meant it when I told him I love art shows, but it does leave me feeling a little raw afterward, most of the time. Like he said, though—good art is supposed to do that.

We say goodbye to Liv when we catch her flying by, reapplying a wall hanging to a canvas, then head back out to Grant’s car. The sun has set, casting navy and gold over the line of the city and the coastline in the distance.