Luke weighed it up. ‘I’ll give you that.’
‘But being around someone who makes you smile or laugh can only be a good thing. Last night, when you stood on the rooftop and pretended to fly with me, that made me laugh so much.’
‘You found that attractive?’
‘Honestly, yes. I couldn’t stop thinking about it last night and this morning.’
He stared at her and she looked at the stag for want of something to do, her cheeks flushing.
‘Anyway, can we get back on topic?’ she said. ‘Do you get many people coming up here to watch you work, you or the other artists?’
‘Not really, the odd tourist in the summer, the odd rambler caught in the rain.’
‘So we’re not even getting people through the doors to look at your goods.’
‘Mygoods?’ Luke teased.
‘Stop,’ Flick laughed.
‘No, footfall is very low.’
She sighed and looked around his studio. ‘You haven’t got a lot of stock here.’
‘Most of my work is commission based. I do a few medium-sized table-top sculptures that I sell on Etsy or my website when time allows. My website has pictures of all my past sculptures so people can see my work there and see if I’m suitable for any commissions they might have in mind.’
‘But if the odd tourist or rambler comes in here and there are no sculptures for them to look at, they can’t buy anything or see your work.’
‘That’s true. I guess I could print out some pictures and put them in a folder for people to look at. But I am leaving in a few weeks.’
She decided to bypass that; he couldn’t just do nothing for the next four weeks. ‘It would be better if you actually had stock on the shelves for people to pick up and touch.’
‘I’m not sure I have time to create surplus stock.’
‘It wouldn’t be surplus if people were buying it.’
‘No one comes up here to buy anything. If they do, they soon find out it’s too expensive.’
‘But if you were to do smaller sculptures, say the size of a large mug or pint glass, sell them for twenty or thirty pounds, you would get more sales.’
‘This level of detail on a pint-sized sculpture would still take several days and would be worth more than twenty pounds.’
‘You couldnotdo this level of detail on the smaller sculptures.’
‘You mean, make them substandard?’
Flick sighed. She could understand his reasoning but if she couldn’t get the artists to try and help themselves then nothing would change. And Luke’s reaction to her suggestion was a good indication of how the other artists would react when she called a meeting later this morning. She wasn’t looking forward to it.
Luke was just finishing shaping one of the stag’s antlers, his mind filled with Flick. If she was going to ask the artists to produce smaller, substandard pieces of work, they were going to slaughter her. He was pretty annoyed by it himself, except he knew it was coming from a good place, a need to save the studios. If no one was selling anything they had to change.
He sighed. To be honest, she was just too damned likeable for him to be angry at her. And it wasn’t just that she had no idea who he was, there was just something about her that he felt drawn to. She was sunshine after months of rain. He wanted to wrap himself up in her warmth, bask in it, and he hadn’t felt like that for a long time. He loved how she made him smile so much. She was right when she’d said the night before that they shared a connection. It was something that was rare and didn’t come along very often.
And it couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time – he was leaving in a few weeks. He couldn’t exactly change his plans, he’d bought a house, he’d paid the builders to start work on it the day after he’d got the keys. He was excited about this new start. These feelings were just a blip. The whole move had been incredibly stressful with one problem after another to solve. It felt like, if there was such a thing as fate, it was conspiring against him getting his dream home in Scotland. But now he had exchanged contracts, it finally felt like it was within his reach. This was just another small problem toget past. So he would be professional, friendly and he’d do everything he could to help Flick save the studios and realise her dreams and then he could leave without looking back. He ignored the voice in his head that said that was going to be harder than he thought.
Just then the front door opened and his friend Quinn walked in. He was sweaty and had clearly been for a run over the hills. Luke moved over to the sink and poured him a glass of water, then walked back to his friend and handed it to him.
‘Cheers mate,’ Quinn said, taking a long drink. Luke had known Quinn for a few years now. They’d both started off working at the craft market on the village green selling their wares. Quinn was a metal worker and made sculptures or more recently monsters from household items like cutlery or tools. They were cute and people loved them. Their tables always seemed to be next to each other in the market and they just hit it off. Quinn was laid-back and made Luke laugh. They’d go for a pint once or twice a month and put the world to rights.
Quinn handed the empty glass back. ‘Is it me or is that wonky tree out there looking a bit more wonky than normal?’
