And now I feel ten times guiltier.
Understanding crosses her face. “Oh. You’re not staying, are you?”
I bite my lip, hoping to look sheepish.
She plops herself on the edge of my bed, looking at me with squinty eyes. “When am I going to be able to meet her? Don’t you think I should? Are you ashamed of me or something?” There’s hurt in her voice.
I sit next to her, putting my arm around her. “I will be home for reals in three more months. I don’t want it to be a big thing. I don’t want to put so much pressure on any of us. You included.”
She looks at me with her mom look. “You’re staying with this woman without being married instead of your mother’s house when you’ve already been gone three months and you’re saying you don’t want it to be a big thing and pressure?” She doesn’t look convinced. “What’s the big deal about meeting your family? That’s what decent people do.”
I grab her by the shoulders and look at her. “Eetsa, she is decent. I want her to myself, okay? I have two busy weeks and then I have to go back. This isn’t about you.”
“But I only get two weeks with you too and I made you,” she pouts, putting her head on my shoulder.
“I know. Will you go to my showing in Seattle with me? I’d like for everyone to go.” I hope it’s enough to redirect her.
“What about Nikki and Dexter? Is your girl going? What about your father? I don’t know if I’m ready to see Persephone.”
“Yes. Nikki, Dexter, Persephone, Marc, my dad. Everyone.”
“What about her?” she asks, squinty-eyed.
“You wouldn’t know if she was or wasn’t there because you’re not going to know who she is until I come back.” God this is a pain in the ass. I look at the time on my phone. I want to be able to make her dinner.
“What did I do to make you so mean to me?”
Where is Marc? Shouldn’t he be saving me?
She sighs. “Well, I’m glad you want your father to come. He is proud of you even if he doesn’t understand it and doesn’t know how to talk to you.”
“Proud of me?” I let go of her and sit with my hands between my knees. There are a lot of complex feelings that come with that statement.
“It’s to your benefit to forgive him.”
“I think he’s an asshole and I don’t want to be around him. But that has nothing to do with forgiveness.” I hate having this discussion. “But anyway. Yes, I would like everyone to come. And any of your friends who want to buy a painting, too. Everyone.”
She shakes her head. “Ares,” she chides.
“What’s wrong with wanting to make money? You artists are all alike.”
“Wanna talk about it?” She smiles looking like a nicer version of Persephone.
“No, I don’t.”
“I know you haven’t forgiven me either. You won’t let me meet the woman you’re shacking up with. You know how I feel about what you’re doing. You didn’t even tell me.” She complains, tearful.
“It just happened and I just want to be with her.” I sigh. “And you did the best you could with what you had.” I hug her. “Thanks for the dinner and clean sheets.” I grin and gather some things and stuff them in a backpack. I make plans to see her Saturday and Sunday and to go out with her Tuesday.
She hugs me and kisses my cheek. “I love you. You’re my baby boy. But you know you should be making an honest woman out of her. You should seek the counsel of your elders. Have you talked about marriage?”
“Eetsa!” I push away. “God!” I walk out and around to the kitchen where Dexter and Marc are sitting playing poker, my mother following, satisfied she made her point.
“Are you off?” Marc asks because he expected it if my mother didn’t. I nod and Marc smiles. “Drive safely.” He points at me, giving me a dad look at the double entendre.
I give him a salute and walk out to my car. I get in and drive home.
Home.
I grin, thinking about the word and how easily it came to mind.
✽✽✽
I’m looking her over, not knowing whether to be thrilled because this is what guys fantasize about or worried this is the girl I want to be mine and other guys are fantasizing about her. It’s not the fake leather pants and boots and gold scaled top she was wearing last time. She’s wearing her boots with a super tight black jumpsuit that plunges to her navel and the bottoms are bootie shorts and her legs are covered in fishnets. “Whoa.”
She smiles carefully. “Whoa yourself, cowboy. It smells ridiculously good in here.”
I grab her by her butt and pull her to me. “I cooked.” But now that I’ve seen her I don’t want to eat.
“I smell it. Feed me.”
I pick her up and take her to the kitchen and sit her at the table, anxious to go to bed.
She looks at me, suspicious and smiling. “What is this all about? I thought I was putting out already.” She gives me suggestive eyes.
I smile, adjusting. “How was your night?”
“It was okay. I got fat tips.” She drops her wad of money on the table like a G and bends over to unzip her boots and push them off. She sits. “How was your evening?”
I give her the rundown. “My mom didn’t take it well I wasn’t staying.” I duck my head, shy from the guilt.
“That’s sad.”
I shrug. “It’s bound to happen sooner or later. I told her I would tell her who I was seeing when I came back home for real. I also told her I wanted everyone to come to my showing at the gallery in Seattle. Everyone.”
“Persephone too? What did she say?” she asks, eyes wide.
“She didn’t. She focused more on the fact everyone meant my dad too. Everyone’s a customer, right?” I scoff.
She smiles. “Definitely.” She leans over to kiss me, comforting. I didn’t know I needed comforting but I feel better now. She sits back in her seat and eats. I think she knows it’s more, but I think she also knows how it is to want to ignore it until you figure things out. “Did you get any work done?”
“No. But I brought all my best pieces from storage from over the years to look through them and add to the collection.”
“Will you show them to me?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
I help her with the dishes and lead her to the spare room. I’m always nervous about showing stuff to her because I want her to love it and get it.
“I like that one.” She points to one of the stream and the trees and her and Persephone sitting on the roots of the big tree, relaxed and talking.
I smile. “I know. I spent a lot of time on it.”
“Is this what it’s like to be involved in the life of a famous artist? Having your images and special moments forever on canvas, decorating someone’s wall?” she asks, looking at it all.
Am I a famous artist? Will this be a selling piece? A picture of best friends, sitting and talking while they’re being sketched, candid because they’re used to it? There are so many of my pieces like that. How does it affect them?
I turn to her. “Is it doable?”
“I don’t know yet. It won’t be real ‘til you come back home, if you do.” She smiles sadly.
I look at my paintings, my accomplishments. “Look at this painting. Don’t you see the difference between how I painted you and how I painted Persephone? And this was painted when Persephone still hung out at the stream. You will always be my center.”
She nods, seeing it and understanding. “If you ever fell out of love with me I’d be sad. Like really sad.”
“I’ve never been in love with anyone else.”
She smiles, sad.
“It’s okay. Someday you’ll believe me. And until then I’ll keep loving you.” I put things back in order and take her to her bedroom. “You look tired.”
“I am. Not feeling good.” She lets herself be led. She takes comfy clothes into the bathroom.
There are purple flowers in a vase on a table by her door. She said they were fr
om my mother. She has a bookshelf full of books, with candle holders and candles on top. There’s a rug on the floor. I can tell my mom got them, thinking someone like Nikki would like it. The books are the only personal things in the room.
I walk over and look at them, taking off my shirt and jeans. Lots of novels: the whole Dark Tower series, which she loves and always references, and trashy romance novels. There’s an old dictionary, two Bibles, one in Russian and one in King James English. On the bottom shelf are books about sewing and patterns and jewelry making.
“Are you looking at my soul?” she asks quietly, looking beautiful and raw with all the makeup off and her little t-shirt and sweats.
I smile at her, seeing only the thinness of her shirt and the shape of her body underneath. “Yeah. I never knew you were sentimental about your mother’s language.”
“I didn’t know either but I couldn’t throw it away.” She picks up the Russian bible. “I don’t know the first thing about how to read Cyrillic.” She sits next to me on the edge of the bed and opens it to the front pages. “It’s her family bible. It has all the birth, death and marriage dates. Everyone in her family is dead but me.”
I look at her eyes. She’s sad and I don’t want her to be. “I think I want to marry you.”
She laughs and puts it back. She sits looking at her hands. “Okay, Bruno Mars.”
“You know, the night you made sweet, sweet love to me in the woods?”
“Yes?” She raises her eyebrow, waiting for me to continue.
“I don’t know how exactly to say this but I’ve never had sex with anyone before. I’ve gotten a few mediocre BJs but yours is the only vagina my penis has ever been in.”
Her eyebrows are up as far as they can go. “Persephone never told me.”
I hope Persephone doesn’t know everything about me.
“Your mama’s going to hate me when she finds out. Like, hard.”
“The price I’m willing to pay for love.”
She rolls her eyes. “So, you love me, huh?”
“If what I’m feeling is love, then yes, I love you more than I’ve loved anyone in my life.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Home. Contentment.”
“No fireworks or sparkles?”
“Yeah, cuz you’re amazing, but I don’t think that’s the love part, I think that’s the other part.”
She smiles. “I love you too.”
“Thank God. I don’t think I could do the unrequited love thing with you.”
“You don’t think so?” She smiles and it’s beautiful.
It makes my heart happy. “No. I would have to make you love me. Someday I’m going to build you a house and you’re going to feel comfortable letting everyone see what you love and you won’t have to worry.”
“Hmm.” She stands and turns off the light switch. She comes back to me, pulling me into bed with her.
“Hmm,” I murmur, snuggling against her and moving my hand under her shirt to rest on her belly like she and everything inside of her is mine. My fingers burn with the weight of the thought of the gesture.
“Don’t,” she whispers softly, so small and downtrodden.
I move my hand to her breast, touching her, and my eyes feel heavy. She turns onto her side and curves herself to conform to my body and I pull her close, touching her.
Chapter Fifty-two
Nikki
“Whatever. Your brother is totally hot.”
We’re in Ares’ car outside of the gallery where he had his showing. He’s looking a little iffy with his hands gripped to the wheel and zoning out with his scowl. I know he sold a lot of paintings and I know one of them was a lot of money.
I think he’s completely wigged out.
“Did you see him in there? With all those people talking about him? I can’t believe that rich lady bought that picture of us. I can’t believe she took a picture of us next to it with her phone. That was so freakin’ weird.” Persephone shakes her head, her eyes wide.
“Did that reporter guy interview you?” I have missed talking with Persephone so much. I didn’t know how much I missed her until tonight.
“Yeah. He gave me his number.”
I laugh and shake my head. “Oh my God. What a slut.”
“I know.” She looks over at Ares. “What’s wrong with you? You look like you’re going to throw up.”
He shakes his head.
“He’s thinking of all the food he can buy us.” I grin. It’s weird but I like this, talking about him like before but now I’m proud of him in a way I never was.
“Good cuz I’m starving. Where are you taking us? I don’t know where to eat in Seattle,” Persephone says.
“Did your dad enjoy it?” I kept looking at him for his reaction but he’s too much like his son and I couldn’t tell.
She shrugs. “He’s like Ares. He doesn’t enjoy anything. And if he did enjoy something, who would know? Like this guy. He made like thirty thousand dollars in one night and he’s sitting here with that face.”
“I think it’s thirty-six, before the gallery and agent percentages.
We both look at him quick. “What? For real?” we ask at the same time.
He looks sick, guilty. He opens the door and gets out. He stumbles to the blackberry bushes and heaves.
I stay in the car, completely shocked. Persephone is watching him throw up. “I’m in the wrong business,” she whispers.
“Any business is better than your business,” I whisper too. I can’t picture that much money. That’s like three used cars. If I made that much in one night I would throw up too. I might anyway.
It’s weird to see him showing vulnerability. He has a lot the whole time he’s been at home with me, lying in bed and talking about things. He’s been working on his proposals and showing me each one and sometimes at night he’s been working on the plans for the house he says he’s going to build me. And he kisses me like no one has ever.
“Do you think we should help him?”
“I think we should all go home and leave him alone.” I look at him with so much affection it kills me.
“Yeah. I told my dad I would text him when we’re done. I can see where they’re at. I have a job interview tomorrow anyway. He’s still throwing up. Is he okay?”
I don’t feel like having my own wave of nausea at being close to puke. But maybe as his person I should? Ugh. “You’re his sister.”
“Yeah, but you’re used to guys upchucking on you.”
“Oh my God! Stop bringing that up! That was like three years ago!”
“Oh, he’s coming back.”
We watch him as he gets in the car. He looks ill.
His sister hands him a bottle of water. “I’m texting dad to see where they are.”
He drives to a restaurant where Persephone said their parents and Dexter went to eat together. They’re all standing outside beside their cars, talking and laughing as we pull up.
“Hey, Princess. Thought you’d be out ‘til the sun came up,” their dad says to Persephone.
She goes to him to be hugged. “Ares tossed his cookies so we ended the night early.”
“Are you okay? Are you sick or nerves?” Natalie touches his forehead and cheeks, looking concerned.
He moves away and scowling.
“You don’t have a fever.”
“It’s okay. He’s fine.” Marc pulls her to him, putting an end to the coddling.
“It’s nerves. I throw up when I’m nervous too,” his dad says, quiet.
I can see the love and affection for his son in his eyes. He feels like he doesn’t deserve to show it. I know because I feel that way too.
We all stand, awkward for a second and now Ares’ eyes flit over to mine to say let’s go.
I waitress smile. “So, he’s going to take me to get my car on his way out so I can go home.” It’s so uncomfortable with all these parental eyes on me. I hate lying anyway. I can see by the way his dad is looking at us he
’s figuring us out and looking at Marc for confirmation which he gives almost imperceptibly. He cocks an eyebrow looking so much like Ares.
I hate it.
And I love it.
“Are you coming home after?” Natalie asks him.
He looks at her like she knows the answer.
“Are you sure? If you’re not feeling well I want you to be taken care of,” she says.
“Natalie!” Marc groans. “Leave him alone!”
“His girl will take care of him a lot better than you can, love,” his dad says to Natalie and looks at me with a knowing smile.
Marc chuckles and grins.
I’m blushing so hard.
I’m glad it’s dark.
Ares is already walking toward his car. I hug everyone and kiss my sleepy little brother. “Goodnight.”
✽✽✽
We gradually make our way from the sofa to the floor and lie there on our backs, legs tangled, catching our breath. The light on the stairs to my apartment is shining through my blinds and leaving lines on the ceiling of the dark living room.
He twirls my hair around his fingers.
I look at him, cozy and heavy with happy love vibes. “Are you okay? Feeling better?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I don’t want to do this anymore. They said it was garbage and then they bought it anyway. They didn’t do it because they thought my work was great, they did it because I’m the new it thing. That makes me feel shitty.” He frowns and bites the insides of his cheeks.
I look at him in detail while he’s glaring at the ceiling, clenching his jaw. I love the way his body is softer now but he’s even harder underneath. Feeling his weight on top of me hurts it feels so good and I think about it all day. I feel his weight on me even when he’s not. “The lady who bought the one of me and Persephone was nice. She loved it. She was happy and was happy to meet you.”
He nods. “I should have let her have it for free. At least she wanted it.”
I scrunch my face, thinking about what to say. It was pretty creepy having people talking about him and his art like they read about him in a magazine. “Isn’t this what you wanted? To make money off your art? I thought that was the plan.”
Chasing Stars Page 24