He was like some wild, untamed creature that you could keep and feed for a time, but in the end you knew you'd have to let it go for its own sake as well as yours.
"So, tell me, where do you live?" she asked.
He cleared his throat and dropped his hand from her cheek.
The uncomfortable look on his face made her stomach sink. "Oh Lord, you do have your own place, don't you? You don't happen to live with your mom or some creepy old aunt?"
He looked offended by that. "Of course I have my own place. It's just..." His voice trailed off and he looked away.
Oh sheez, here it comes... "You have a live-in girlfriend?"
"No."
Ugh! It was even worse than she thought. "Live-in boyfriend?"
He gaped at her while his midnight eyes flashed with indignation. "Jeez, Sunshine, what do you think I am?"
"I don't know, Talon. I asked a simple question and you got all weird on me. What am I supposed to think?" She swept her gaze down the expensive biker's outfit he wore. The man had a body to beat the band and was too bodacious to be real. That tended to make a woman go, hmmm...
"And you do wear a lot of leather."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
She gave him a duh stare. "I am an artist, you know. I tend to hang out with an awful lot of homosexual and bisexual guys."
If he had looked offended before, it was nothing compared to the look on his face now. "Now there's a stereotype I hadn't even considered. Thank you very much. For your information, I happen to like leather since it tends to protect my hide on the occasions when I wreck my motorcycle and go skidding down asphalt."
"Well, that's true too. So why did you get all weird on me when I asked you where you live?"
"Because I figured if I told you where I lived, you'd get all weird on me."
She hesitated as a million scary locations came to her mind. He lived in a cemetery or crypt. A run-down shack. A cardboard box. A dock house. A broken-down camper or bus. Good Lord, in this city there was no telling where he might make his home. "Okay, you live somewhere freaky, don't you?"
"I live out in the bayou."
Relieved, she scoffed at his evasiveness over something so silly. "Oh please, I know several people who live out by the bayou."
"Not by the bayou, Sunshine. I live in the bayou."
Was he serious? Who in their right mind lived in the bayou with the snakes and gators and other things she didn't want to even think about? Things that carried guns and did lots of illegal activities like feeding murdered bodies to gators.
"You live in the bayou?"
He nodded. "It's really peaceful out there. No modern sounds to intrude on you. No neighbors. No traffic. You can almost feel like you're living centuries ago."
There was a wistful look to him as he said that. "That means a lot to you, doesn't it?"
"Yes. It does."
She smiled. Yeah, she could see Talon out in the bayou all alone. He reminded her a lot of her father, who loved to spend hours outside just soaking up nature. They both shared that quiet kind of peace-with-the-universe attitude.
"How long have you lived there?"
He avoided looking at her. "A really long time."
Sunshine nodded.
As they started for the door, she dropped her wicker tote and retrieved her Studiopack French Easel Backpack from the corner. She always kept it well stocked in case she decided on a whim to go some place else and paint.