Free The Artist and Me by Hannah; Kay Page A

here.”
    She smiled, allowing her poetic fingertips to roll the small dial. Hendleson’s cab filled with dull static for a moment then the static fizzled out into mellow music—a guitar’s strings being plucked slowly, a lulling, haunting voice singing. She beamed, green eyes turning up to look at me. “It’s all about the sweet spot.”
    I smiled at her. “Impressive.” The road in front of us bent for about the fifth time, curving into the summer trees. We were close.
    She exhaled. “Lucas, are you ever going to tell me where we’re going?” She finally bit.
    I grinned, taking my eyes off the road for a fraction of a second just to look at her, glowing from the frame made by the setting sun behind her. “I’ve been waiting twenty minutes for you to ask.”
    She laughed, looking down at her lap. “You didn’t answer my question.”
    “Don’t need to,” I answered as the dirt road bottomed out at the creek where my friends and I used to play as kids. I backed the truck up the creek and looked up at her.
    She groaned, rotating in the seat to look through the back window. “Okay, Lucas, explain.”
    I chuckled, opening Hendleson’s door and walking around to open hers. She was already halfway out but I closed it and she lifted an eyebrow. “When I was a kid, my friends and I used to swim out here during the summer.” I nodded to the old knotted rope hanging from one of the trees. “One night we stayed later than usual—someone’s dad forgot to pick us up—and we discovered the magic of Creek’s Sunset.” I smiled at her, walking slowly around to undo the bed of the truck. I lifted a picnic basket from the inside and laughed, looking down. “I know it’s corny, but I figured you’d be hungry.”
    She was smiling, an iridescent glow in the sunlight. “I am hungry,” she agreed, laughing quietly. “But that is corny.”
    I shrugged, climbing into the bed and extending a hand to her. “Just wait until you see what’s inside.”
    She laughed, taking my hand and climbing up herself. In that moment she looked like a giant—the figure of Aphrodite in her true, inhibited form. Blindingly bright sunlight surrounded her form, reflecting off the pure white of her dress and bouncing from the gold in her hair. There I was, kneeling at her feet and spreading a blanket across the bed of the truck, and looking up at this goddess.
    “That’s intriguing.” She carefully sat down on the blanket, leaning her back against the cab of the truck and spreading her legs out along the bed, crossed in a ladylike fashion at the ankles, before pulling the basket onto her lap. “May I?”
    I nodded, sitting beside her, bending my legs at the knees and sitting Indian-style next to her. “Go right ahead.”
    She opened the basket and laughed, pulling one of two canisters I had packed. It was one of those insulated cups, filled to the brim with Randy’s coffee. She slowly unscrewed the top then sniffed the contents. Her eyes swiveled to meet mine. “I think you just broke the cliché.” There was a glittering in her green eyes, an extension of the sunshine residing in her very retinas.
    I grinned, casting my eyes downward as I laughed. “I do my best.” My hands reached into the basket and grasped the other cup, balancing it against my leg and pulling out two white to-go boxes. One of them had Julie scribbled across the top in Randy’s signature scrawl and the other Lucas . I extended my other arm, removing the basket from her lap and replacing it with her box.
    She looked down at it curiously, head tilting to the side. “What’s in the box?” she asked, sing-songily, turning to peer at me.
    I grinned. “Open it and find out,” I challenged, playful half-smile dancing across my lips.
    She laughed at me, opening the box. It was an American favorite, a cheeseburger and fries. She smiled. “Mmm. Looks delicious.” She took a bite of the burger and looked at me, still holding it between her hands. “How’d you