Chris ignored Matt’s outstretched hand and padded over to the sink. He started the water running and plunged the tools under the warm stream before answering. “Not tonight, you don’t. Tonight we’re gonna grill slabs of meat, drink many beers, and try to figure out how these two beach bums ended up waiting for women instead of peeling them off of us.” He snorted laughter and slapped Matt’s taut belly with the back of his hand as he passed him, heading for the kitchen. “Still not bad for an old guy. At least your mopery hasn’t led you directly to the fridge. Nothing sadder than a boardhead who needs a ‘bro’ for his moobs.” He turned in the doorway and pointed at his duffle. “Get that, will you?”
It was Chris’s third belly laugh in five minutes that drove Matt to drop his knife and go looking for his cousin. Memories of the whiskey-fueled heart-to-heart they’d shared the night before were blurry, but he’d had a slightly brighter outlook when he’d woken up.
He found his cousin sprawled on the sofa, eating a bowl of ice cream and talking on the phone. He raised a questioning eyebrow, and Chris waved him off.
“Swear to God! Jason in a bear suit. I wish I’d seen the dog bite him in the ass myself—” He laughed harder. “Yeah, the things semi-pro athletes will do for a little scratch on the off-season are horrifying. Makes what he did for Matt seem like child’s play, though I don’t know what was worse: the dog or Zoe.” He glanced at Matt and sighed. “I’ll have to let you go. Matt’s here and looking pissy. Talk to you soon.” He handed Matt the phone and heaved himself off the couch. A moment later his door closed.
Matt sank down on the same cushion Chris had just vacated. “Hello?” he said tentatively.
“It’s me,” Abby said. “I tried to call you last night, but you didn’t answer.”
“Chris showed up. We got to eating and talking…and drinking…a lot of drinking.” He groaned and was pleased when Abby laughed. “I’m busting my ass to get these sculptures done by Thanksgiving, I promise, but any weekend would be good. Who says we have to aim for a holiday, right? I just want to be with you, Abby.” He heard the rawness in his own voice.
“Matt.” She cleared her throat; Matt hoped it was from an emotion other than laughter at his neediness. “You’re right. I’d say forget holidays, too, but it’s not necessary. I quit.”
“Abby, I…I don’t know what to say. Shit.” Elation at not having to deal with Abby’s work schedule warred with shame. He flopped against the back of the couch and rubbed his forehead with the heel of one hand. “Is this because of me?”
He didn’t even know that he was hoping for a polite lie until she answered honestly. “Yes and no. If I’d never gone to Santa Cruz, I’d probably work at Shaw Museum until a better deal with a bigger museum came along. Repeat cycle until I ended up a director somewhere.” Her tone became urgent. “But, Matt, that’s not the best thing now. Listen to me: this is not your fault. There is no fault. You made me face a part of myself that I’d locked up for a long time, and I realized I like that Abby better.”
“But how will you live? I mean—not long term, but for now? Will you be okay?”
“Well, I’ll be persona non grata for a while, but I’ve got some money stashed away that will hold me until something comes along. I might have exaggerated a bit about the ‘nickel an hour and a bank account at zero.’ I’m not a kid, you know. If I learned anything from growing up with artists, it was that you sock some away in the good times because they always end…until the next wave of money rolls in. That’s why I’ve been so focused on you taking advantage of the Baker deal, I guess. Silly.” Her voice held a note of expectation.
Again with these damned statues, Matt thought, and the rubbing on his forehead changed to pounding. “Not silly. Smart.” He willed his heart to agree with his head. “Speaking of which, I left my Zoe uncovered when I came out here to recapture my pirated call. I need to get back to work.”
“Oh. Okay.” Abby sounded startled. “I didn’t mean to keep you. I just thought you’d like to know…” She trailed off, sounding disappointed.
“I’m glad for you, Abby, if that’s what you really needed to happen.” He searched for the right words that would show his support but not pressure her. He fought the urge to say, Damn everything else. Come home to me. Because, really…God knew where else she might have to go now that she’d be job hunting. He didn’t think he could handle saying goodbye again if she got a job quickly.
He hung on to what he knew was solid. “We’re still on for Thanksgiving, then? I swear, these will be done then, Abby, and I need more than a weekend.” He waited anxiously for her reaction.
Abby’s voice was flat. “Thanksgiving for sure. It can’t come soon enough for me either. Do you want to come out here, or…”
“Whatever works for you,” Matt said. “Abby, did I say something wrong? Because I’m getting a strange vibe here.”
Abby sighed. “Nope. Just reminded me about being a grown up.” She chuckled weakly. “Not my favorite state of mind right now. I’ll let you get back to work. Call me tomorrow?”
Matt agreed and ended the call after their usual endearments. He’d meant to make things better, but he had a feeling he’d done the opposite.
And he had no idea why.
Thunking his mug down on the table, Matt tapped a tempo on the edge, his eyes roving over the faces in the pub. In the hour since since he’d slammed into his house, already ripping off his tie and kicking off his shoes, he hadn’t been able to sit still. He’d insisted that Chris accompany him to grab a burger at the bar, but his dinner had turned out to be a basket of fries and three beers, so far.
“So,” Chris said, pushing a fresh beer to the side to join the one that was warming near his elbow. “Didn’t you tell me Claire was against setting you up for more commissions?”
“Claire doesn’t know what she wants,” Matt grumbled. “She spent the first half of the summer telling me I have a great future ahead of me, then does a one-eighty after…”
Chris’s brow furrowed. “Did you get the job?”
Matt laughed roughly. “Of course I did. Are you kidding? Easiest sale ever.” He swallowed a mouthful of beer. “I just played it like you always say: charm the hell out of the wife and suck up to Mr. Deep Pockets. Claire, bless her reluctant little heart, got me a five-figure deal before we even left the table. All I had to do was busts of their family in full Greek god or goddess style. Oh, and fix any flaws, like Deep Pockets’ double chin.” He laughed again and downed his drink.
“Had to do,” Chris said thoughtfully. “Do I detect a past tense there?”
“That you do, my friend.” Matt pointed at his cousin. “Very perceptive of you. I say ‘had to’ because, when it came right down to it, I couldn’t do it. Claire had notes for the contracts all prepared, we shook on it, everyone left happy…and Claire had to stop halfway back here because I couldn’t breathe. I called the buyer from the side of the road and quit.” He stretched his arms out in mocking display. “You see before you the dumbest man ever.”
“Not so sure about that.” Chris drained his mug. “Have you called Abby?”
“Let’s not bother her with this tonight.” Matt’s voice was brittle. “She told me last night that she’s packing up to go to Maine—R-and-R at the family cabin while King Dipshit—” he pointed at himself “—gets his act together. Little does she know…” He jumped to his feet. “Want to go to The Catalyst? Play a little pool? It’s too quiet here.”
“Sure.” Chris got up and dropped some bills on the table. “Whatever you say.”
The Catalyst was jumping. Now that the University of Santa Cruz was back in action, it was crowded most nights and unbearable for anyone over twenty-two on the weekends. Their slog through the crowd and up the stairs only bought them an hour’s wait for a pool table. Matt filled the time by people-watching and working his way through a steady stream of glasses and bottles, so many that he lost count. Faces began to blur together. Chris swam in and out of his vision, th
en a barmaid, and then he was stumbling off the back of a motorcycle and wondering how he ever got on it.
Zoe spread her feet and braced herself to take his weight. “Be careful, big boy. I may be tall, but I can’t hold you up for long.”
“How about I hold you up?” he slurred.
“Promises, promises.” Zoe slung an arm around his waist and guided him toward the door. When they got there, she looked at him expectantly. “Keys?”
Matt thought hard. “Nope. Chris took ’em. Try above the door.”
Stretching on tiptoe took Zoe’s skirt to dangerous new heights. In fact, if it weren’t for the hand she fanned over her bottom, hanging on to the very edge of the fabric, she would have been completely exposed. Matt caught himself staring and felt color creep up his cheeks. He lowered his eyes to stare at his shoes until the door squeaked open.
“Home, baby.” Zoe gestured toward the open door. Matt reached out to steady himself on a porch column. “Oopsie. Let’s get you inside.” Slipping an arm around him again, Zoe guided him into the living room.
Matt stumbled against her as she steered him toward the couch, the softness of her body cushioning his angles, and he felt a surge of lust. The hand on her shoulder that he’d used to steady himself trailed down her back. He was tired of cold sheets, tired of waking up alone. What he wanted—needed—was to lose himself in the current of flesh on flesh and sink deeply into a woman’s warmth…
He’d barely brushed his lips against hers when she pushed him toward the cushions and backed away.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you don’t want to do this. You’re not ‘that guy.’” Zoe smiled sadly. “And I’m tired of being a ‘that girl.’ We both know there’s something better out there.” She dropped a swift kiss on his head. “I’ll see you around.”
“Probably better if you don’t.”
Matt looked around with bleary eyes, not surprised to see Chris in the doorway, expression grim.
Zoe laughed. “I guess I deserve that. ’Bye, Chris.” She patted his arm and closed the door behind her.
Chris watched her go and then turned back to Matt, now slumped on the couch, drifting in and out of alertness. “What the hell were you doing? I left you in front of The Catalyst so I could bring the Jeep around, and when I got back, you were gone. What are we going to do with you?”
“Shoot me. It will kill me faster and hurt less.” Matt was asleep before he heard Chris’s response.
Matt’s shirt and shorts were already smeared with drying clay by the time Chris had grabbed a cup of coffee and chucked a piece of driftwood at the morning’s first screaming gull. His last statue of Zoe was nearly finished; only the upper torso and face weren’t perfectly smooth. Working with the finest of his knives, Matt carved a paper-thin curl of clay from the left side of her nose before stepping back to examine his work. His eyes flitted between a photograph on his corkboard and the clay. He nodded almost imperceptibly and switched to a wire loop to shape the underside of her breast.
Chris leaned against a cabinet, blowing on his coffee. When Matt hadn’t said anything for a quarter of an hour, he boosted himself onto the counter and started to whistle softly.
That ate up another five minutes before Matt grumbled impatiently and paused to clean his loop on his shirttail. Keeping his eyes on his sculpture, he said, “Yes?”
“Oh, nothing,” Chris said nonchalantly, swinging his feet and cradling his cup between his hands. “Just wondering what you’re up to today. I thought maybe we could get the boards out.”
“At this time of year? Really?”
“That’s why God created wetsuits. C’mon. It’s a beautiful day and not killer cold. Could be some tasty waves, dude.”
“Not even tempting. I want to finish this one up today, and then I have some calls to make.” He examined his tools and shook his head. He carried them over to the sink and started the water running. “Maybe Claire can smooth things over with Dunham—Deep Pockets.”
“Why would you do that? Calling him and begging off is the most honest thing you’ve done since I’ve been back.”
Having cleared his tools, Matt stomped back over to the sculpture and started shaping the clay with tight, angry motions. “Easy for you to say. You seem okay with whatever money you get from wherever you get it, but I have to work for a living.”
Chris set his cup down, rearranging his expression so quickly that Matt almost missed the anger that bloomed in his eyes. “Since you never asked, I get an Army pension, earned by seeing and doing things you don’t ever want to know about.” He smiled grimly when Matt straightened up, looking surprised. “What, you thought I lived off telling fortunes?”
“I just assumed…”
“Why, because I never asked you for money? Making the complacent uneasy and soothing the upset or worried is a lot of fun, and I make a little money, but it’s not enough to live on. That was a hell of an assumption. But then you seem to be making quite a few of those lately.”
Matt glared at Chris before getting back to work with a vengeance. “I assume we’re not talking about you anymore.”
“You’d be right.”
“It’s none of your business.”
Chris crossed his arms over his chest. “No changing the rules now. You gave me permission to plunder your private life when I had a life of my own, so here goes: You need to talk to Abby. Especially after what happened last night.”
Guilt whispered across Matt’s expression before it hardened. “Nothing happened.”
“Not for lack of trying.”
“I don’t want Zoe.”
“Of course you don’t. You never have. You want Abby, so call her.”
Matt circled his statue until his back was to his cousin. “It’s not working anymore…We’re running out of things to say. I want to see her and figure out what went wrong.” His movements become jerkier, until he dropped the loop and started smoothing the clay with his hands.
“Then get the hell out of here. It’s as easy as that.”
“Really?” Matt shook his head. “Even if I wanted to go, I have these to finish.”
Chris’s temper broke. “Then finish and go! You have maybe two or three days’ work here. Don’t complicate things by getting into another contract to do something you hate.”
Matt had never seen his easygoing cousin look so upset. “I’m not doing this for me. You know I only take commissions when I have to.” He spun the statue around on its revolving table. “Do you think I want to do this forever? I’m not a whore—doing it for the money has no appeal for me. But—” He stopped talking, and his jaw tightened as he looked out the window for a minute. When he was sure he was under control, he sank down on a nearby table and sighed.
Chris settled next to Matt. “But what?” he asked gently.
Matt studied his hands. “I don’t have anything to offer Abby that she can’t get for herself. So maybe she’s better off in Boston. Maybe it was inevitable that she left. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Who says she wants anything from you but you, Matt? She’s known who you are and what you do from the beginning. Whatever’s happened in your past—” Chris spun the statue around to face them “—you can’t stop thinking about her, either.” He looked at the statue’s torso significantly before he rose and clapped a hand on Matt’s shoulder. “No one says it’s easy, but you’d better decide what’s important.”
He squeezed his cousin’s shoulder before heading for the kitchen. “God help you when Zoe sees that,” he tossed over his shoulder before he disappeared.
Matt sat, stunned, his eyes roaming from one telltale point to another. He traced the curve of the sculpture’s breast with one fingertip, seeing a perfect reflection of Abby’s body. Now that his eyes were open, he spotted more similarities to Abby than to Zoe in hip and thigh and waist as well.
He stared at his creation for a minute, then walked to the table in the corner and lifted off the drop cloth that had covered the
sculpture since he’d uncrated it. He’d told himself it was too distracting to remain uncovered, but now he forced himself to face the truth: It was painful to look at the replica and not touch the reality. He spun the table, remembering the days and nights of work that went into crafting his Pretty, and how gratifying it had been to find out that the real woman exceeded his imagination in every way. As he looked at the vague outlines of features, he had a keen wish that he’d defined the face, because what he needed more than anything was to see Abby.
He folded the cloth and laid it on a table. No more hiding from reality. Maybe if he was a different person, a long-distance relationship could work. But he wasn’t, and it wasn’t…and…
“Pretty, what do I do?” he whispered.
The cool bronze had no answer.
Chapter Twenty-Four
ABBY SWAYED FROM SIDE TO SIDE as she stared out the window at the third day of steadily falling snow, a freak for early November, even in Maine. She mouthed the words to the song coming from an old record player, sipping a cup of coffee between phrases and trying to keep her mind blank. She glanced to her left, at the new painting that she’d started that morning, and considered taking up the brush again. Anything to damp down the thread of misery that had laced her days since she’d left Boston.
The power flickered, and she sighed. She’d better go out to see that the air stack for the generator was clear. Again. She pulled on her boots and gloves and slipped into an ancient parka that had been buried at the back of her parents’ closet. It was a quick trip out the back door, a swift swipe of her hand to brush the thick, white mass away from the metal pipe, and she was back inside, soaked once more.
“Perfect.” She peeled off her snow-heavy jeans and tossed them in the corner before stalking to the bedroom and emerging in a pair of thermal underwear from her mother’s dresser and yet another pair of wool socks. She remained in the forest green sweater that Matt had bought her what felt like forever ago, on that rainy day in San Francisco. She’d put it on the morning she’d left home and had kept it on during daylight hours as a kind of superstitious totem. As long as she had it on, there had to be a possibility that she would leave Maine, right?
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