"Mm." Joaquin couldn't help but feel discouraged. He'd sold paintings for that much before, though they were usually a lot larger than this one, but that wasn't really it. Mostly he was disappointed that his little look at me I'm really calm and casual about selling you this painting for way more than I wrote down for it thing hadn't worked on the man. Luc was calm and casual and he could tell- Joaquin, though, his current demeanour was fake all the way through. With a nod, he smiled again. Hard not to, looking at that smirk.
"Sounds good to me," he grinned, taking a step back from the painting to take a quick look around. He had a favourite, but not a second favourite. Maybe something smaller. Or larger. Something different. Aha. He didn't have an idea where Luc was from, but he figured it probably wasn't Alaska. Just a hunch. He motioned for the man to follow him to a slightly larger painting, one with an entirely different level of familiarity and nostalgia for Joaquin. An expanse of snow-capped mountains, framed with evergreens and loud patches of bright pink flowers. Alaska was lovely, he supposed. More so if you didn't grow up there, maybe.
"This is kind of like... My summers, um, when I was a kid but if you put it into a painting. My dad used to be a teacher, so he had all summer off, and we'd go on lots of drives up north... Well, um. More north." He took another sip of his drink, the ice sliding against the glass and brushing against his lip. He definitely needed to stop this before he got all... giggly. "I went up there again, um, last summer. I nearly froze painting this. When you go live in the desert suddenly sixty isn't nice summer weather anymore. Going for Christmas is horrible." He smiled, considering the idea of maybe taking a short trip up there before the autumn hit. Mm, maybe not. Short notice, Dad wouldn't approve.
"This one and the other one-- they're kind of both my home, but uh... Obviously quite different from each other." He blinked a few times, feeling somewhat foolish. That same Backstreet Boys feeling again.