She turned her sketchbook around, holding it so I could see both pages at once. Both sketches of me were just gray silhouettes with no defining features, but that was okay because it wasn’t the point.
The point was everything behind me.
One side, the background was all sweet, subtle colors: warm yellows and corals accented with baby pink and shimmering gold. I didn’t even know pencils could be metallic like that.
It was so soft. There were shimmering little clouds and bubbles, flower petals and buttery rays of light.
Then, at the bottom, a puddle of blue. And despite the fact that I wasn’t an empath in the slightest, not even in the pop-culture sense, I knew exactly what that was.
That was me missing my mother. The grief heavy yet fluid, not a drowning pool at my feet threatening to swallow me. No, it might have once been that, but it wasn’t anymore. Now it was just a melancholy presence. A bit of necessary darkness to remember her brightness and all the wonderful things she’d filled my childhood with.
“That’s…” I shook my head, unable to find satisfying words for what I meant. My gaze moved to the second page, and I was enthralled all over again.
Because Cherry hadn’t drawn the calm, always practical third son. She hadn’t drawn an alpha shifter ready to do anything he needed to protect his family. She hadn’t even drawn a businessman. All those things were how I would expect a stranger or casual acquaintance to see me.
But not her.
The second picture was the antithesis of the first one in every way possible. Instead of being a pleasant blend of comforting colors and tangible evidence of the sweet feelings that my mother had left behind, it was a cacophony of bold yet conflicting hues. Angry red lightning, green gaseous clouds that looked keenly foul. Blue roiling shapes with sharp angles of deeper mazarine and black within it. Slashes of gray going this way and that, mirroring my scattered thoughts whenever I lost control.
And Cherry saw it. She saw it all.
She sawme.
I looked at one page, then the other. One page, then the other. I probably should have felt uncomfortably vulnerable tohave someone be able to map out the confusing storm within me so easily, but it didn’t feel that at all. It felt...
It feltfreeing.
As if the cat herself was gifted, Hudson stood up from where she’d curled on Cherry’s lap and came over to me, purring up a storm as she rubbed up against my chest.
“She’s asking you to hold her, if you want,” Cherry said. The slight quiver in her tone betrayed her uncertainty.
I got the distinct feeling that she was also feeling a little exposed, a little raw around the edges. I could tell her that she was full of shit, or say that the drawings didn’t matter to me, or even that she made them up.
But, crazily enough, I believed her.
I petted the cat, letting her purr and make biscuits on my shoulders as Cherry and I sat in silence.
It couldn’t have been easy for her, especially if what she said about her ADHD was true. Suddenly, the inordinate amount of caffeine she consumed made a whole lot more sense. She was likely self-medicating.
Did oracles not have health insurance?
Something to ponder another time, because I was at capacity. I was feeling things I was never prepared to feel. I couldn’t deny this connection I had with a strange woman who had been lying to me during every interaction we’d had. It didn’t make sense, yet it also made perfect sense.
I liked that I wasn’t a VanMarche to her, not really. She didn’t see me as a rich heir or possible mate who could secure her an esteemed position in the East Coast shifter hierarchy. To her, I was just Paul, and she could see exactly whoPaulwas like no one else. Not even myself.
“I hope the drawings were okay. You can rip them up if you want. They’re not?—”
I didn’t know what possessed me, but the slight panic permeating Cherry’s scent had me reaching out and resting my hand on her knee. I could feel the solid muscle of her thigh through her black leggings. That explained how she’d managed to jump onto the tavern canopy so easily back in the market.
“I like them. I don’t appreciate that you lied to me, but I get it. I can’t imagine living your life with this kind of gift but not really having anyone who understands it. I can see why you let people believe the psychic thing.”
“You… you forgive me?” she asked, eyes going wide. The shock on her elven features was so endearing. “Even after I screwed up so royally?”
“I’m not thrilled about how our collaboration has gone so far, but I am willing to give you another chance,” I said. “But there can be no more secrets, no more lies. If we’re going to solve my family’s murders together, then we need to be equal partners. No longer a psychic and the client, but an oracle and your?—”
“Watson?” she suggested helpfully.
“Sure, let’s go with that.”