The wry smile flashed again, though she kept her eyes mostly on what she was doing. He tried to hard to seem prickly and standoffish, but the way he looked as he lifted out some of her finished pieces told her how much more to him there could be.
In all honesty, she was restraining herself from pushing — there were lots of questions she wanted to ask, and a /lot/ more she could say to him about what she was doing. It wasn’t so much that she was naturally outgoing — she wasn’t. But here was an interesting new person, and there was no one else around to make her feel shy.
But she bit her tongue, just watching him, fingers sliding chip after chip onto the wire. Hopefully, if she was patient, he would open up to her.
Ace’s gaze drifted from the jewelry in his hands, to the way her fingers worked nimbly in a matter of minutes, not at all feeling awkward by the silence.
He was a listener. Not a talker, and for this, people thought he simply did not understand; he was a one-dimensional, heap of muscle, all-brawn, no-brain.
Not true. He saw things, and he understood, he just couldn’t put it in words or voice his observations.
“Where did you learn?” The question was innocent enough, he was still trying to get a feel for this unique soul just a few steps across from him.
Summer looked down at her hands, thinking for a moment. “I used to string pony beads, or the crystal-like ones, when I was little with my mom,” she began. “You know, the fat round plastic ones that teachers pretend are indian beads. They aren’t, of course. And, I don’t know, I just got fascinated with all the different possibilities, and different rocks and gems, and I started looking up tips on the internet, and designs, and here I am.”
The box just behind her was large and filled to the brim with little boxes and various containers, each one filled to the top with beads or gem chips or strangely-shaped shiny bits. “Do you want to try?” she offered.