“The library just got the art in this week. I’ve been dying to see it in person,” he said.

Art? What art? I was busy admiring Justin’s impeccable fashion sense. He was stylish and hip without over doing it. I bet he had his own personal dresser and style consultant. His hair was carefully mussed in a sexy way that looked easy and relaxed but probably took an hour to arrange.

One look at Justin and my profound art observations had flown right out the window.

“What do you think of it?” Justin smiled.

His hair? It was amazing. His smile? Even better. “Uh…”

Justin frowned, “The art? What do you think of the art?”

“Oh! The art! Yes! The art is amazing!” I think it was common knowledge that guilty people ended every sentence with an exclamation point. Not that I was guilty. I wasn’t guilty of anything. So what if Justin was adorable?

Justin slowly nodded with an odd look on his face. I think he didn’t know what to say because he was trying to decide whether or not I was clinically insane.

I wasn’t sure what to say either, so I nodded back at him. Nod, nod, nod. I could go on nodding all day like a Bobblehead doll if I had too. Nod! Nod! Nod! Big smile! Lots of teeth! So not guilty of finding Justin adorable! NOD! NOD! NOD!

“Why do I feel like I’m stuck in the middle of a Dennis the Menace comic strip?” Justin asked.

Because we were? Except in this case, it was Denise the Menace, and I was Denise.

I shook my head, trying to get a hold of myself. That just made the bobbling worse. Hold still! I grinned so wide my cheeks hurt. I had a moment to realize that although I had an amazing boyfriend, some men had cuteness powers granted by the devil. It wasn’t my fault Justin was dazzling me. Any woman who took one look at him would go Bobblehead the second they saw him.

“So, uh,” Justin stammered, sounding uncomfortable, “did you do any more wombat sketches?”

What was a wombat again?

Okay, I’d had enough of my brainlessness. I bit the inside of my cheek, shocking myself out of my boy crazy stupor.

Wincing, because now the inside of my cheek really hurt, I said, “I was going to ask you, did you guys vote yet?” It had been a few weeks since I’d given him all my designs for Potty the Pot Smoking Wombat.

“Not yet. Some of the other artists are still working on ideas.”

“That’s good,” I nodded. Nod, nod, nod.

STOP NODDING!!

My cheek hurt too much to bite again, and I wasn’t going to bite the other side, so I sighed, rolled my eyes, and said, “I wanted to submit a few more before the vote.”

“Do you have them now?” he asked.

“Uh, no. I’ve been sort of, ahh…busy lately?” Guilty people also ended their sentences with question marks. Or was it broke people whose parents were pricks? I forgot. One or the other.

“Well, get any new drawings in to me as soon as you can.”

Yeah, I was into him. NO I WASN’T!!

Justin continued, unaware that I was schizophrenic, “I’ll probably take a vote at the end of the week.”

“Okay,” I smiled, doing my best not to bat my eyelashes. It was Justin’s sexy devil powers that made me do it.

“By the way, have you and Romeo come up with any ideas for comic strips yet? We’re already putting together the next issue for print. The deadline for submissions is right around the corner.”

“We have a few, but we’ve both been pretty busy. Romeo always has theater major stuff taking up his time.”

“Well, even if you guys don’t make the deadline, Romeo still seemed like a good guy. Lots of funny ideas. You should totally bring him to the next staff meeting.”

“Okay,” I nodded. I meant, tilted my head to indicate agreement without nodding, nodding, nodding.

STOP!!

“Anyway,” Justin said, “I’ve gotta run to class. Email me any new material if you come up with something?”

“Okay.”

Before walking off, he flashed a grin and said, “Laters!”

Wait, he had ended his sentence with an exclamation point! And the one before that with a question mark! Did that mean he was feeling guilty? Or was it just me feeling guilty? Well, ‘Laters!’ was only one word and didn’t count as a sentence, right? Did Justin like me? Or did it mean I was crazy?! Maybe both?!?

Oh, um, hmm. That might complicate things for me. Him liking me. And me being crazy.

GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF.

Note the absence of guilty exclamation points. That was my sane voice telling my cray cray ones to shut up.

Sigh.

I needed a lobotomy.

I walked outside into the fresh air hoping that would help clear my head and that Justin was long gone so he wouldn’t think I was stalking him.

I wasn’t stalking him! Was I?

I promise I wasn’t!?!

Where was that lobotomy? I heard you could use an ice pick through the eye socket and it worked fine.

Groanballs.

Anyway, I really hoped Justin wasn’t being nice to me just because he was interested in me. He wasn’t a jerk like Hunter Snakeley, but he was the editor of The Wombat. I didn’t want him fudging the vote in favor of my wombat drawings just because he thought it might make me like him. And I didn’t want him fudging the vote against me if he thought I didn’t like him. I wanted to win fair and square.

Wait, I just remembered Justin had been the one who approached me in the first place last quarter. He’d been drawing stalking me for who knew how long. You didn’t stalk someone you weren’t interested in, did you?

Groan!

Why was my life so complicated?!?

Not guilty!

I swear!

I mean, I swear.

No exclamation points or question marks that time.

* * *

The hot yellow sun rolled across the surface of the Pacific Ocean as I parked my VW in the driveway of the Manos house. I walked to the front door with my keys jingling in my hand. I always felt a sense of relief wash over me when I came home. As I was about to slide my keys into the lock of the double front doors, the door was ripped open from the inside.

“Thank god you’re here!” Sophia blurted, standing in the doorway. Sophia was one of Christos’ other models. I’d met her several times before. She had Eastern European eyes and full lips. Normally she was quite beautiful, but at the moment worry cut her face into ragged lines.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, immediately frightened by her panic.

“Christos is passed out,” she said nervously, pulling me into the house, “I didn’t know what to do. I was about to call 911.”

My heart tripped into overdrive. “Is Christos hurt? Did he fall?” He’d been drinking so much lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had. I knew drunk people were supposed to be so relaxed they were less likely to get hurt if they fell down or whatever, but that didn’t matter if you fell through a window and landed on shards of glass or off a balcony onto cement.

“Sort of,” Sophia winced.

“Sort of fell?”

She shook her head, obviously worried. “I don’t know how to explain…”

“What happened?” I did my best not to lose my cool.

“Maybe I should show you,” she grimaced.

 I was suddenly thinking Christos had had a seizure and his mouth would be covered with foamy blood. Could alcohol give you seizures? Or was it something worse?

As we stepped into the studio, Sophia said in a low voice, “I think he’s drunk.”

Shit, was that all?

Sure enough, Christos sat slumped over in a chair in front of the painting of Sophia he’d been working on. There was a huge red streak running across the canvas, cutting down the middle of the face and across the chest. A brush loaded with the same red paint dangled from Christos’ hand.

He was snoring.

“He just fell onto the painting while he was working about an hour ago. I’d told him this morning maybe he should stop drinking, but he ignored me. Who was I to complain? I’m just the model, and I need the job.”

I could relate to that.

“I didn’t know who to call,” she said, “and no one else was here. I almost left, but I thought I should stay until someone showed up. I didn’t want him choking on vomit or whatever.”

“Thanks, Sophia,” I said sincerely. “I totally appreciate your hanging around and keeping an eye on him. If you want, you can take off now. I can handle it from here.”

“Oh, uh, I’m supposed to stay and model until six.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said dismissively. “I’ll tell Christos you were here the whole time,” I winked. “Either way, I don’t think he’ll know when you left.”

She nodded nervously. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” I smiled, “I promise.”

She heaved a huge sigh of relief, “Thank you SO much! I was starting to worry no one would show up and I’d be stuck here until whenever he woke up. I’ve got a photo shoot in L.A. tonight, and with traffic, I’m probably going to be late as it is. If I get a head start now, I might actually make it. Do you need any help moving Christos before I roll?”

Sophia’s arms looked like pencils. Despite her compassion, I didn’t think she would be much help in the lifting department.

“I think I’m going to need a crane,” I joked. “Or I can just wait until he sleeps it off.”

“Totally,” she grinned.

After Sophia left, I took a good look at Christos. I wanted to make sure he kept breathing and didn’t choke on vomit. Considering he was snoring like a saw mill, I think he was fine. But if the saw mill shut down operations, I’d slide him out of the chair and onto his side.

In the meantime, I took the brush with the red paint out of his hand and folded his arms into his lap so he looked more comfortable.