Savage Vandal (82 Street Vandals #1) - Heather Long Page 0,58

he was as I slid down the length of him until he put me on my feet. Heat penetrated the hoodie and seemed to roll off him in waves. Suddenly, I wasn’t chilled anymore. He lingered for longer than a moment, and his gaze seemed riveted on me.

“Get your coffee,” he said, releasing me and breaking the spell. I swayed as he turned away and grabbed his bag and his own coffee cup. As I picked up mine, I tried to regather my composure, but I seemed to have left it, along with my common sense, back up on the wall.

I was not attracted to the surly, silent twin with his penetrating stares and curt words.

I wasn’t.

Kidnapper, I reminded myself. He was one of my kidnappers. Maybe he wasn’t there that night, but he’d been one of my keepers since then.

“You coming?” He was halfway across the broken basketball court and heading to the far wall. Like the wall we’d climbed down, it was also cracked and crumbling. There was old and fading graffiti along different parts of the wall. Numbers. Names. But the section he was heading for was a lot different.

It was painted like a beach, right down to the way the water rippled in. It looked real.

Like really real.

He dropped his backpack and drained his coffee. Then he tugged off his hoodie and his shirt came next. I blinked. We were in the sun and it was great on my back, but the air was still freezing. He stuffed the shirt into his hoodie and then unzipped the bag. There were cans upon cans of paint in it, and he shot me a grin.

Then turned away. Two cans in hand, he moved to the next section of the wall next to the beach that looked so real, you could step out on it and so utterly incongruous to where we were. The dilapidated play-court with the broken pavement, listing poles, and surrounded by sad buildings with their broken windows covered over by cardboard and tape.

It was almost eerie. It was even harder to believe that there was a busy street just up that alley we’d walked down. We might as well have disappeared into some other place. At the first spray of the nozzle, I turned to find Rome focused on the wall. He was moving the can of spray paint in waves, and it wasn’t long before the beach had been extended.

With not much else to do, I sat slowly, riveted by the almost hypnotic motions as he worked from can to can. Beach. Shells. Ocean. Foam. Then sky. The sun moved overhead, and my coffee was gone and I had my arms crossed as I huddled in my hoodie. As long as the sun was on me, I wasn’t too cold. A couple of times, I’d gotten up and moved around. Then I’d stretched, but I stayed where I could see Rome work.

I kind of thought he’d forgotten about me. The beach had covered maybe ten feet of wall, and he added another ten feet of it. Though he kept going back and forth. At first, I couldn’t figure out why. Then there were seashells on the beach. An abandoned pail. A ball buried in the sand. It was…exquisite.

Rome had to have painted that picture on my wall, the one that didn’t even have a frame and yet had the feeling of being three-dimensional.

He went through can after can of spray paint. His torso and fingers were splattered with it. I suddenly understood why he’d taken off his shirt. It also let me watch him move, the way his muscles rippled. He was wiry, built like a dancer in some ways—all long lines and lean strength. I’d say he moved like one, but his focus was too specific, all the grace was in his hands, everything else an afterthought.

I was on my third set of stretches when he finally took a step back and cocked his head to the side as he stared at the wall. The water had foamy caps where it rolled in. The sand was golden, a burnished shade that would be a little coarse under your feet and not as soft as say the white sands in some places, but it would still be sweet.

Everything about the painting that now took up about twenty-five feet of broken and crumbling concrete wall was an invitation to escape. He’d even incorporated some of the graffiti that had been present by making it shadows