Read Artistic License for Free Online Page B

balance accounts and spin a marketing pitch with the best of them, but it was a steep learning curve and I probably forgot half of it the moment I grabbed the degree paper. The statistics requirement was a bit of a stretch and I didn’t enjoy all the group work. I still have nightmares about the words “class participation”. In art history and Classics lectures, you can just sit in the back of a dark room and look at beautiful pictures, you know.”
     
    She grinned at him and it belatedly occurred to her that they were getting on very well. Her shyness of him was breaking down into familiar friend status at a more rapid pace than she’d ever experienced. She just genuinely liked him.
     
    “So why didn’t you major in Humanities? It’s obviously where your interests lie.” Mick obeyed her silent gesture and turned his head to the left, giving her an excellent view of that wonderful profile. He probably wished he had half as much nose, but Sophy thought it gave him a sort of…Caesar vibe. The tendons flexed in his immense shoulders and biceps, right down through the ropy cords of his forearms.
     
    She had never found excessive muscles that attractive in the past, unlike Melissa who watched every televised rugby game for reasons that had nothing to do with the score or team pride. If she’d thought about it, Sophy would have assumed that such physiques were entirely dependent on a man spending a narcissistic amount of time with a weights machine and a protein shake. But although Mick was clearly fit in a way that made her asthma threaten a pre-emptive wheeze at the thought, when she looked at his bone structure and the size of his hands and feet there was also an obvious genetic element in play. She wondered what his dad looked like and if he had any brothers.
     
    Realising that she had been ignoring his question for several long minutes of ogling, Sophy flushed and said quickly, “It was my single attempt at practicality and forward-planning. I knew that I would probably be involved in my parents’ business at some stage, you see. They own the Cheesery on the Silver Leigh vineyard near Gibbston and I’ve worked there on and off since I was fifteen. I’m the only child and Dad really wants me to have a role, so…”
     
    “Is that what you want? Or just what he wants?” There was an oddly serious undercurrent to the question and Sophy looked up at him in surprise.
     
    “Oh, it’s not a sob story. I’m not going to be forced to give up my art and report to the warehouse in chains. They’ll hire a manager when they retire, but it’s important to them that there’s at least a nominal family presence. I don’t mind. It’s beautiful on the vineyard and I quite like working on the production side. The process that goes into making the cheese is really creative. It’s fascinating.” She smiled. “And I’m in clover for free brie and camembert for life. Comes in handy when you’re still trying to budget like a student. Stone and marble sculpture isn’t a cheap medium.”
     
    Without altering the angle of his head, Mick’s eyes flicked to the waiting block of Oamaru stone in the corner.
     
    “I hadn’t initially realised this was going to be a three-dimensional project,” he said, still not sounding overly enthusiastic about it, although after an initial wince he had borne the news with stoic martyrdom. “Do you prefer sculpture to sketching?”
     
    Sophy looked ruefully down at her messy hands.
     
    “I suppose they both have their ups and downs. I suspect that if I want to make a living as a practicing artist, though, I’ll get more paper commissions than stone. I think the days of consistent employment as a monumental sculptor went out with the industrial revolution. I already sell quite a lot of charcoal portraits through online craft marketplaces. Combined with my wages from the bar, it’s enough to live on as long as I don’t develop a taste for fast cars and poker