Page 83 of The Bridesmaid (Brides of Beaufort 3)

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LAYLA

“Great job, Gray. Now after you rinse your brush in the water, use the paper towel to dry it a little bit before you pick a new color. It’ll keep your colors from getting all muddy.”

Grayson did as I instructed, then carefully dipped the brush into the blue paint. Before he touched it to the canvas, he frowned. “I don’t want it to be nighttime in my painting. Do you have light blue?”

I rubbed my hands together. “Ooh, we’re going to get into some next-level painting techniques.”

“What?”

“Have you ever tried mixing colors to make new colors?”

He nodded. “Like how blue and yellow make green?”

“Exactly,” I praised, then turned to look at Lyndi. “This kid’s an artistic genius.”

She snorted, but kept her eyes on her Kindle, of course. I laughed when the kale chip she meant to put in her mouth fell down her shirt, causing her to jump and brush it out.

“Hush,” she said. “I’m at a good part.”

“Uh-huh.” I turned back to Grayson, pointing at the large white circle in the middle of the plastic palette he was using for his rainbow of paint. “See this space right here? You’re going to use this space to mix. Put a little blue here, good job. Now add some white. Excellent. Okay, mix it together and see if that’s the right color.”

“It’s too light now,” he said, pouting.

“Okay, so what do you think you should do to fix it?”

He frowned down at it for a second, then looked up at me with a gleam in his big brown eyes. “Add more blue!”

“Exactly.”

I stood over his shoulder and helped him with his painting of a house in the woods, complimenting him often and directing him to try different brush techniques depending on what he was doing. For a six-year-old, he was very patient and careful about his work.

When he was finished, I taught him how to sign his name with a graphite pencil in the bottom corner. He’d wanted to paint it in large letters over the sky, which I guessed would have been fine given his age, but I just couldn’t bear the thought. Delicate signature at the bottom, always. It wasn’t about us, the artists, it was about the art itself.

He stood and stared at it, crossing his arms and tilting his head. “I think my dad is going to love it.”

“I agree,” I replied, putting an arm around his shoulders. “Now comes the fun part.”

“What?”

“Washing our palette and brushes,” I said with a wag of my brows. His face fell and he groaned, making me laugh. “Okay, okay, just because I’m nice, I’ll let you skip out on it this time. But next time, it’s on. Artists have to take care of their supplies so they’re ready the next time inspiration strikes.”

“Thanks,” he said, then put a hand on his tummy. “All that painting made me hungry.”

“Seriously? You ate like a half a pizza.”

“My dad says I’m a bottomless pit.”

Chuckling, I nodded. “Yeah, I can see that.”

Grayson bounced over to Lyndi, eyeing her kale chips. “What are you eating?”

“Kale chips.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What’s a kale chip?”

“Well, it’s like a regular chip, but they take kale leaves … which, I guess, are like lettuce leaves … and they turn them into crunchy pieces so they’re like chips.”