Chapter 40

As the woman studies another sketch, her brow furrows. “What’d you use to draw this?” she clarifies. “It looks so familiar but I can’t quite put my finger on it…”

Brody laughs, relieved. “Oh! Um, you’re probably going to laugh, but everything’s done in colored pencil. Crayola, actually. You know, the stuff kids use.”

She turns to look at him, the lines in her brow deepening. “Seriously? It looks almost digital.”

To prove himself, Brody reaches under the table for his backpack and extracts his trusty sketch pad and pencil case. Flipping to a blank page, he sits down in one of the folding chairs and leans forward so he can keep her in view. The first pencil he grabs is teal green, which matches the shirt she’s wearing. For a long moment he studies her, then turns to the pad and starts to sketch.

She comes closer, drawn to him like a moth to a flame. As her angular face and short bobbed hair start to take shape on the page, she gasps. “That’s fucking awesome.”