Texting With the Enemy (Digital Dating #1) - Marika Ray Page 0,68

monochromatic masterpiece.”

I tossed a look over my shoulder at the shelf with his monochromatic frogs before looking back at him. “Is that what those are? Your masterpieces?”

He clutched his chest, and I straightened in alarm. “Your harsh criticism wounds me.”

I didn’t get the chance to reply to the surprising appearance of humor before the bell above the door rang. A piercing voice called out, “There you are!”

Nails on a chalkboard would have been preferable to that squawk. The guy cringed, as if expecting a physical blow. His eyes widened comically at me before he smoothed out his face and turned around.

“You must be Jessica,” he mumbled, his voice sounding far less deliciously rumbly and more grumpy grumbly.

“I am, you handsome devil. Your mama said you’d be the rugged tall one, and she wasn’t kidding, was she? What are you? Let me guess! Six-foot-five? No, no. That’s a bit much. Six-foot-four?”

The woman kept talking, words just dribbling out her mouth like a fire hydrant wrenched open by kids on a city street corner. There was a hint of a southern twang, but I couldn’t tell if that was natural or an affected thing she did because she thought it was cute. Her hair matched her mouth, over the top and jaw dropping. For a morning date, she dressed like she was going to prom, complete with the huge curls, inch-thick makeup, and a dress that put it all out there.

Seeing her thread her arm through the cute guy’s and pull him to a table made my stomach churn. Not out of jealousy, of course, but just concern for his general wellbeing. That woman was going to eat him alive.

Today might have been my day, but it certainly wasn’t his. Definitely not the day to introduce a bird masterpiece. I’d let him sloppily paint his frog and get out of here. I walked over to the table with his ceramic frog, placing it in front of him and addressing my question to Miss Talks a Lot.

“What can I get you to paint?”

“Oh honey, I’m not here to paint. Me, paint? In this dress?” She tossed her head back and laughed before coming to a stop, not even realizing no one else laughed with her. “I’m just going to watch Lincoln paint his cute little frog. I bet he’ll make him look so lifelike it’ll scare all the little kids.”

There was only one preschool-aged kid here, and he was currently picking his nose while kicking his mom repeatedly in the shins. Pretty sure a monochromatic frog wouldn’t phase him.

“Okay, well you let me know if you change your mind.” I looked over at the cute guy. Lincoln, she’d called him. “I’ll go get you the paint. Going for blue still?”

He looked up at me, his eyes wide and glassy. He mouthed the words ‘help me’ before nodding his head. “Yeah, blue is perfect.”

I bit my lip to keep from laughing and turned to grab his paint pot and brush. When would he learn to quit setting up these ridiculous dates? Watching him struggle made being single sound better by the second.

* * *

CHAPTER THREE

Lincoln

* * *

Jessica was the kind of woman that had always scared me. A lot. She was like a caricature of a woman, something put together by a maniacal cartoon artist who had a vague impression that women should have long nails, big hair, very red lips, and wear dresses. But as much as I liked to see a pretty woman who had all of those things, there was something about Jessica that took it too far. Way too far. The nails were too long. The hair was too done. The lipstick was… well, it was terrifying. Too red, I guessed.

But I’d survived every other setup my mother had arranged. Statistically, I would probably survive this one too. It wouldn’t be easy though.

I sat down at the table with my frog and my blue paint, Jessica kind of hanging off one side of me as I did so. Luckily she wasn’t a big woman, because I was supporting half her weight as she hung from my side the way a remora attaches itself to a shark. But this didn’t feel symbiotic.

“So strong,” she purred as she settled next to me and her fingers probed at my biceps. “Do you do a lot of working out, Lincoln?”

It was clear that there was a right answer here, but I was not in the mood to be agreeable. “Not really,” I told her