I was halfway through my bowl, my mind still fixating on King and the mystery of his photograph, when a shadow fell over me. I looked up to see Jack. He sat down across from me, and I told him the extra bowl was for him.

“Thanks,” he said, fitting his feet around mine beneath the table, but it seemed like his mind was elsewhere.

“Is…is King okay?” I asked.

“Marina put him to bed in her camper to sleep it off. He’ll be fine.”

“Do you know who the woman in the picture is?” I couldn’t help blurting.

He shrugged. “Some old flame of King’s, I think. When he’s really wasted, he sometimes talks about losing the love of his life, how it was some guy called Bruce’s fault. I don’t know many more details than that. He doesn’t make a lot of sense when he’s drunk, and he’s drunk more often than he’s sober.”

I pondered his answer, wondering if the love of King’s life had died or if she’d just left him.

“What did he do before he came here?” I asked. “Marina once said something about his life being very different before.”

Jack met my gaze as he chewed on a piece of bread he’d dipped into the stew. “You’re very curious about King, Lille.”

“Yes, I am,” I said, not bothering to deny it. “There’s something fascinating about him. I’d actually really like to draw him.”

Jack tilted his head, now taking a swig from a glass of water. “Do you want to draw him for the same reasons you want to draw me?”

I scrunched my face up. “No, of course not. I like interesting subjects. And different people interest me for different reasons. King interests me.”

He absorbed my answer and continued eating for a while before he spoke again. “In answer to your question, from what Marina’s told me, King used to be really rich. Some big successful banker or something, but he got involved in some shady stuff and lost everything. Marina thinks he was being blackmailed, but who knows if that’s true.”

“Oh my God, that’s awful.”

“Yeah. In the end whatever he was doing caught up with him, and he lost everything. And like a lot of fallen men, he hit the bottle.”

“Wow.”

Jack cocked an eyebrow. “Wow?”

“Yeah. I mean, to have it all and then lose it is kind of epic. It’s like the ultimate tragedy.”

He let out a deep, cynical chuckle. “If you say so.”

The smile that shaped his lips told me he found me amusing for whatever reason, and I scowled at him playfully. “So how come you don’t know more about him? You two seem to talk a lot.”

Jack shrugged one shoulder. “We do talk a lot, about lots of things, but never his past. He obviously doesn’t want to discuss it.” He paused and got a faraway look in his eyes. “I guess we have that in common.”

I reached over and squeezed his hand, feeling a deep sense of gratitude that he’d entrusted me with his past. I had a feeling no one else knew the full story of Jack McCabe, and it was humbling.

Before I knew it, it was time for the night’s performance, and people were flocking in from the city to see the show. My hands were stained with all the colours of the rainbow by the time I was done, but I felt satisfyingly tired. I’d transformed kids and even some adults into a whole variety of creatures, from real to mythical, and I was so looking forward to sleep.

Jack had given me a key for his camper, so I tiredly trudged my way there. Lola walked with me, then continued on to Violet’s. I must have been caught up in all the activity after the show, because when I arrived, Jack was already inside. He lay on his bed, reading. All he wore was his black lounge pants, and his long hair hung wet at his shoulders. I came in quietly and set my things at the foot of the bed. We smiled at one another, not saying a word, and I went to kick off my shoes and leave my sketchpad and face paints on the dresser.

“I need a shower,” I sighed.

Jack glanced up from his book, a quizzical arch to his brow. “What does Teutonic mean?”

His question caught me off guard, and I scratched at my head, trying to remember. “Oh, I think it’s similar to Germanic, or relating to an ancient race of German people called the Teutons. Don’t ask me for more details — I was always crap at history.”

A little smile graced his mouth as he plucked a pencil from behind his ear and scribbled down a note. “Thanks.”

“No problem. So, is it okay if I shower?”

When his eyes came to me again, they were heated. “Only if you promise not to wear a towel when you get out.”

I laughed and shook my head as I turned for the bathroom. “We’ll see.”

I noticed his eyes had been flickering to my sketchpad when I was in the room, so it wasn’t a surprise when he called after me, “Can I look at your pictures?”

I hesitated a moment in the hallway. I was self-conscious about my work, but Jack had already seen most of it, so I shrugged and answered, “Yeah, sure.” And honestly, I was a little bit flattered that he wanted to look at them. When I emerged from the shower, I considered his no-towel request, but I wasn’t ballsy enough to go through with it. Instead, I pulled on my sleep shorts and tank top, which really didn’t leave much to the imagination anyway. And technically, I was fulfilling his request, since I wasn’t wearing a towel.

All thoughts of towels fled my mind when I stepped inside his room again to find him with my sketchpad open on his lap. He wasn’t looking at the sketches, though. He had a piece of paper in his hands, his eyes scanning the words as he read.

It was my list.

Sixteen

A discovery made Lille’s heart pound

Oh, God. I’d tucked it into my sketchpad the other day and forgot about it. Now Jack was holding it in his hands, reading it, and my mortification was palpable.

His attention landed on me, but I couldn’t read his expression, couldn’t tell what he was thinking. The list made me look like a silly little girl, I knew that, but I didn’t care because I’d never planned for anyone to read it but me. It was my comfort blanket, something to remind me of my goals and ambitions, ridiculous though some of them might seem. I took a steadying breath and swallowed.

My voice was tense when I held my hand out and requested, “Can I have that back, please?”

Jack stared at me, and the numbered items ran through my head. I knew them off by heart. Aside from numbers 3, 6, and 11, there wasn’t anything on there to embarrass me too much. Still, I felt exposed.

1.      Dump Henry Jackson.

2.      Get a tattoo.

3.      Have sex with a stranger.

4.      Do something dangerous.

5.      Visit a place I’ve never been before.

6.      Fall in love.

7.      Make a new friend.

8.      Quit my degree.

9.      Become a real artist.

10.  Move out of my mother’s house.

11.  Get my heart broken.

The first thing Jack said was not what I expected at all. “Who’s Henry Jackson?”

I let out a long breath and came to sit beside him, running my suddenly sweaty palms against the fabric of my shorts.

“You shouldn’t be reading that. It’s private.” I knew I was being a little unfair, since I’d read his discarded letter to his brother, but I couldn’t help my annoyance. I tried to convince myself that turnaround was fair play, and my irritation slowly deflated. Plus, if I had found a similar list among Jack’s things, I was pretty sure my curiosity would have gotten the better of me, too.

Jack reached out and pulled me close, tucking me under his arm as he continued to hold the list in front of him. I rested my head on his chest and could feel the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. It was reassuring somehow.

“I thought it was a sketch,” Jack explained.

“Mm-hmm.”

A beat of silence elapsed. “So, who is he?” If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a note of insecurity in his tone, and I was taken aback. Jack was jealous of the idea of me with someone else. At the very least, he wasn’t thrilled to be thinking about it. My little beating heart and its ever-growing feelings for him was over the moon.