Chapter 74

Chapter 74

Imogen

A year later

For a while, I'd faffed around cooking and doing odd jobs at HQ, but the guys staged an intervention.

"As much as I love having you as team leader in dodgeball," Kyle said, "this isn't you. You can't spend hours mucking around with kids?—"

"You can because you are a child still," Lucas shot back.

"We don't need you to integrate yourself into our life," Asher forged on, shooting them a dark look. "What we want is for you to decide what you want to do with yours."

"We'll support you no matter what you decide," Lucas said, pulling me into a hug, and right then I stood within the safe haven of my sleuth and wondered…

Which led me all the way to here.

Standing in front of the art department of the University of Adelaide, just staring at the massive building, not able to take another step forward. My hands were sweaty, the handle of my folio slipping from my grip, which was when Kyle stepped forward and took it from me.

"They'd be lucky to have you," he assured me.

"More than lucky. Cole is a grumpy prick ,and even he said your work was amazing." Lucas stepped into view, focussing me on what was important. "If you can impress him…"

Then I could impress anyone. He smiled when I straightened up and then marched towards the door of the building.

Upstairs was a long corridor of people waiting for their interviews, big black portfolios everywhere. They were all babies too, just out of high school. It was hard not to see it, an opportunity missed. I could've been doing that too when I finished school.

But ruminating on the past wasn't going to help me.

Elodie was actually really good at her job, and I felt a little embarrassed at how I'd brushed her away before, but she was very understanding.

"Let's focus on how we're going to move forward, shall we?"

We would. I stepped up to the desk of the person handling the interviews and gave them my name and then waited.

I'd had to get used to people staring. After the news reports, people did it all the time. Usually with some weirdly constipated look as they tried to place where they'd seen me before, their eyes widening when they put two and two together. One of the other applicants did that, right as my name was called. I leapt off the chair I was sitting on, and my mates did the same, but I was forced to put a hand on Asher's arm.

"Just stay here. I've got this."

I didn't have this.

As I walked in to face a panel of art lecturers, one man's nose grew pinched. His eyes hardened as he took me in, then he turned to the others.

"This is that bear girl." Without even waiting for a response, he faced me. "You're?—"

"Imogen."

I placed my portfolio on the massive desk in front of us and unzipped it, flicking through to the first example of my work. Unfortunately, that was a watercolour of a grizzly bear. Nature illustrations were what I was best at, I'd quickly worked out, and Cole said this was one of my best. So I stood there and tried to let the art speak for itself.

"A bear," the man said with a snarky sigh. "Of course it is."

"Well, it's really quite well done." One of the women rose and then pulled the portfolio closer. "Exquisite colour usage. Brushwork needs a little work, but you're demonstrating some real skill here."

"The complexity of the shading in the fur is well done," another man said, then shot me a mischievous look. "I'm guessing you have a plethora of models willing to sit for you?"

"Some," I replied, then flicked to the next watercolour. "These are some studies completed en plein air, out in the wetlands…"

Bitchy dude lost some of the attitude, all of them clustering closer to look at my work, and that's when I let out a little hiss of breath. See me , I thought furiously, see what I can do.

So they did.

Weeks later, all three of them were clustered around my computer, staring at my emails. One from the tertiary admissions centre was sitting there unread.

"C'mon, open it," Kyle said.

"Stop." Lucas nudged him in the ribs. "Imogen might not be ready yet."

"I'm not sure why." I looked up to see Asher smiling down at me. "You'll get in."

"Do you know something I don't?" I asked, mind racing. "Did you pull some strings? You did, didn't you?"

"No strings to pull, and I definitely have no sway with the university," he replied. His hand covered mine, moving the mouse over the email, but not clicking yet, the others doing the same. "We'll do this together."

My finger and theirs clicked on the email and it opened before us.

I dimly heard Kyle's yelp and felt Lucas squeezing my hand. There it was on the screen.

Imogen, You have been accepted into the Bachelor of Creative Arts program…

"Holy shit," I said, raking my hands through my hair. "When you met me, I was trying to get out of a dead-end relationship, surviving in a dead-end job, and now…"

"Now you're exactly where you're supposed to be," Asher said, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to my lips. "Happy."