I lose track of time, poking through her social media friends. Nobody I recognize. Nobody connected to Luke, either.
Time to pour another glass, because I’ve hit an obsessive wronged-wife treasure trove. All the men who like her posts. I click on all of their profiles and try to figure out if they’re married.
Most are not.
Three are, and I scowl at the screen as I sip my second over-filled glass.
I pace away from the computer and order delivery. A banh mi sandwich from the place down the street. Ten minutes, they say.
I love the city.
Back to the computer, and one of those three married men has his page wide open to the internet.
And there are messages that she’s sent him that are clearly talking about private dinners in the last week. Well, she moves fast. Or maybe she has multiple lovers at once.
Maybe you’re drunk and drawing conclusions.
Maybe I don’t care.
This asshole is just like Luke. Maybe worse, because he’s doing it in public. My mouse hovers over his name.
Don’t do it, says the wiser part of my brain.
Fuck it, says my heart. Tell him off. What does it matter?
It doesn’t. The fear of God is good for him, maybe.
And before I can think better of it, I hit send on a snarky, judgement-laden message.
I wake up the next morning with a raging headache, for obvious reasons. Too much wine, too much screen time, not enough sleep or common sense.
With a groan, I grab a laptop and carry it to the kitchen. As I brew an extra-large cup of coffee, I open the computer and wince at the evidence on the screen of my wine-fuelled critique of a stranger’s choices.
Then, because I’m a glutton for punishment, I refresh the page—and find myself blocked.
Well, that’s probably for the best.
Luke would be horrified if he knew what I did. It’s the worst kind of behaviour he abhors on the internet. I would feel bad about it if his own behaviour in private hotel rooms wasn’t a thousand times worse, and maybe the asshole from last night will think twice about making the same mistake my husband has.
My thoughts swirl from Luke to Damien Noble, and the conversation the day before. Then back to Luke, Luke of old, Luke from college, who would be the first person I’d talk to about taking my business in a new direction.
I’m so tempted to call him. No, text him. That would be safer.
Just to run the question past him.
Would it be fair? To ask him for that attention, knowing I’m using him? But also, why do I feel like I need to be fair? He hasn't been fair to me.
What if I'm selfish and I just take what I want? I'm nervous about this show. How best to leverage it and still deliver orders to my online customers who fund my life. The show is about prestige, local recognition. It’s about my reputation.
I want to go for a walk around my city, with my husband, and be selfish for a short period of time.
Maybe I have to be honest with him about that. I think about texting him or emailing him or calling him, and explaining what I want.
But something holds me back, and I don't. And then when I go out, there he is. On the elevator when the doors open.
“Hi,” I say cautiously as I join him in the elevator car. “Were you coming up to see me?”
What were the odds?
His cheeks stain red. “I was heading out to get some fresh air, and I saw the elevator was being called to the eighth floor. I hopped on just in case it was you. I just thought I might see you for a minute,” he finishes, naked longing in his voice.
I have wanted him to long for me for ages.
And now he does. And it doesn't feel good. It feels hollow and empty and sad.
I’m not sure how to reply to that. I was thinking of calling you feels cruel now, like I would be leading him on. I wanted to talk to somebody. And that somebody is you. Why is that somebody you? Why is it always you?
I opt for a smile instead.
“How's the prep for the show going?”
I don't have to bring it up. He's asking all on his own.
So I answer him honestly. As we arrive on the ground floor, I admit, “I’m nervous about it.”
He steps off first, waits for me.
“Are you heading to the office?”
He shakes his head. “I’m still working from home.” He stumbles over that last word and corrects himself. “Here, the apartment. I was going to get a coffee.”
“Oh, I was—” I cut myself off.
He looks surprised. “Are you also going to get a coffee?”
I nod. “And then I was gonna go for a walk, and think about why I'm nervous and what I need to do next and how to get ready for this, how to maximize the opportunity.”
I’m blathering, but I want him to ask the next question, too. I don’t want to have to invite him to join me.
Will he? I don’t know. This is what we are now, two strangers who were once lovers, who were once married, who are still married. Strangers married to each other. Unsure of what to say next.
He searches my face. “Do you want to talk about any of that? It sounds like a lot to consider.”
“Yes,” I say. Feels good to be honest, that simple, single syllable, yes. I want to talk about it.
And then I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I went off. “Actually what I want is to get coffee and go for a walk. I think better when I walk. Does that make sense?”
He shoves his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunching. He's so big, next to me. I used to love his size, and then I started to resent it. And now it's just a curiosity to me. What does it feel like to be him, so big next to me, taking up so much space and not knowing what to say.
“Is that too weird for you?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No. Not weird.” He smiles. “It’s nice, but I don’t want to overstep. If you’re open for company, I’d love to be a sounding board.”
18
Luke
We get our coffee and then head down to the waterfront. It’s cold today, but bright, and she’s bundled.
I’m less prepared than she is for the wind coming off the lake, but that’s what the hot beverage is for, and I shove my other hand in my pocket.
Grace gets right to the point. “One of the other artists in the show suggested something that has taken up residence in my head, like maybe it’s a genius idea, or maybe it’ll dilute my brand.” She does a backtrack first, and explains some things I maybe knew, but didn’t really pay close attention to. How she sets up her art auctions online, which pieces she sells at set prices, and how she manages more people wanting those commissions than she can ever keep up with.
“I mean, I make a really nice revenue stream from prints and merchandise, too. That gives everyone a chance to own a version of a piece, while still maintaining the rarity of the original item.” She takes a deep breath. “But the possibility of earning three or five times the commission on a major item, simply by creating a few of them…”
“It’s tempting.”
“Very.”
“Is that the only way you see to scale your business?”
“Outside of brand partnerships? Yeah, probably. As long as I’m the sole producer of the art, there will be limits. So I can focus on the reproducible parts, like merchandise, or I can work harder. Or faster, or both.”
She makes a face, and I chuckle. “No, you don’t want to do that.”
“Right? But I also don’t want to copy Damien just because he mentioned it. I’m just antsy. I want to make the most of this. I’ve tried to get a show for three years and galleries just wanted nothing to do with me. When Alex introduced me to his partner, it was a dream. Damien doesn’t seem to have the same nerves here, so I think, whatever he’s doing, maybe I should do.”
“There are probably other artists out there who look at you and say the same thing, though.” I take a sip of coffee. “Something we tell companies before they’re rea
dy to go public, but they’re in that pipeline is, there are other companies who aren’t even there yet. We can forget to look behind us when we’re so focused on what’s the next big step ahead.”
She makes a face. “I don’t like to look back.”
Not when we have nothing but train wrecks in our recent past, no, I bet she doesn’t. “Sorry, that was thoughtless.”
“It’s fine. It’s a generally good point.”
“That’s what I’m here for. Being in the vaguely right vicinity of a topic.”
“Do you remember that sketch of you I drew in university?”
“It hangs in your closet, of course I do.”
“But do you remember…” She trails off. “I don’t know. There was a vibe about that whole project. It was just a club thing, but it consumed me and gave me something to be passionate about. Everything that I have done in my career, and that’s the moment I remember. It was a turning point. Even though it took me thirteen years to really get serious about art, that was the origin moment. After that project, I started taking more art classes, and…”
“You found the thing that would drive you. You just didn’t know it would be a career. But it’s always been your passion.”
She stops abruptly and turns to look at the lake, moving off the path.
I’m horrified to realize she’s crying.
She shakes her head when I try to say something. Whatever I was about to say—it’s okay, don’t cry, I understand—would have been all wrong.
“I’m still young,” she finally mutters. “But I feel like I’ve started my life over again a few times now, and I don’t want to. Not again. I really liked this one, Luke. The loft, the studio, the lake, being downtown.” She turns and glares in the direction of our building, now in the distance.
“I wanted that life,” she yells, startling the joggers around us, and an older couple walking down by the water.
I force myself not to be embarrassed. It doesn’t matter. It’s fine. I don’t know why she needed to be quite so loud about it, but I understand the sentiment.
A sinking feeling drags the next question out of me. “Grace, how much of that life is tied up in your art?”
She turns around and starts marching down the path again. Fierce and frightened. Like a kitten, I think, and regret twists my insides into barbed wire.
We walk in silence for a while, then she slows. “We should go back.”
“If you want.”
“This hasn’t been the business talk walk I advertised it to be.”
“That’s fine.” I clear my throat. “Sam realized I’m not working at the office anymore.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I’m going through some things. General mental health stuff. Probably a coward’s way out of the conversation, but I wasn’t…” It was too soon.
“It’s okay. He hasn’t said anything to me.” She makes a face. “I guess I’ll tell you if he does. It’s probably better to wait until after the show, anyway. The last thing we want is a scene.”
“Right.” Although that’s not really a Grace thing to say. That’s a Preston concern, and she’s only ever worried about those on my behalf.
“We should go back.”
“I’m not in a hurry.”
She rolls her head. “I’m just—this isn’t what I thought—”
“What do you want from me, Grace?” I hope to tell my voice sounds pleading. I’ll do anything she wants, I just need to know what that is. “Let me in. At least as a friend.”
"No."
“I’ll be gentle."
She laughs bitterly. “I don’t want gentle. I want safe."
Fuck me, I don't even know what my wife wants. “What do you mean, you don’t want gentle? Is this about kink?”
She gives me a strange look, then shrugs. “Sure. Okay. I don’t know how to answer that. I think it’s just about life. And maybe my life, maybe I am kinky, in a bone-deep way you will never understand, because when it’s this intrinsic to someone, you get scared. But it’s okay if it’s play acting. I don’t know, Luke. But you scare me. Not in a threatening way, but in a dangerous way. I don’t want a gentle conversation from you. I don’t want friendship from you. I wanted a desperate, needy, possessive fuck from you, and that was never on the table. Not for me. But it was for someone else. I’ve had enough of gentle from you for a lifetime and it was all deeply dangerous to my psyche in the end. Do you want to know something highly embarrassing?”
How am I supposed to answer that?
She glares at me with challenge in her eyes. “No?”
“Yes,” I shout back. Now I’m the one attracting attention. “I want to know everything about you, Grace.”
“Well, that’s new.”
Shame roars inside me, loud and wounded. It’s my old standard, the driving force that built a firm to rival my father’s in just a few years—and then let my brother destroy it. But then I fucking rebuilt it.
I can rebuild my marriage, too. “Yeah. It is new. And desperate, and needy, and possessive. So if you want to see that inside me, let me assure you it’s there. Maybe I’m the one who should start sharing embarrassing shit with you, right? How about that?” I stalk over to a garbage can and get rid of my coffee. Then I spread my arms wide. “I’m a stupid fucking man, Grace, but I love you. If you don’t want gentle, I’ll give you something else. Just give me a chance.”
“You don’t get it, do you? We were done a long time ago. That’s why you had an affair. I even made a sculpture about it. I guess you’ll see it on Friday night. There, that’s something I haven’t told you yet. Surprise.”
My chest heaves. “What?”
“There’s a…” She gasps. “It’s kind of pathetic, really. I mean, the whole show is a love letter to a man who never deserved any of it, but it’s a tragic kind of love letter, and the final piece is called Death of a Marriage.”
“When did you…”
“Months ago. I told myself it was just art, inspired by the world around me, and I was telling a story. But I wasn’t. Okay? Every piece I have ever made has been about us in some way, and that part of me knew we were over before…this.”
“Or…” My chest hurts, but I fucking plow on. I have to. “Maybe that wasn’t the end of us. Maybe that was the death of a marriage but not us. That was the crisis point, and now we’re on the other side of that, and we’re going to be okay. That’s possible, too.”
“We aren't going to be okay.”
“We are going to be better than okay. We are going to be amazing. With a fractured past but a dazzling future.”
“That sounds like something you read in a book.”
“It is.” I look right at her, and hold her gaze. “I’ve been doing my research about repairing from an affair.”
“That also sounds like someone else’s words.”
“Then here are mine. My wife is an incredible artist. The toast of the town. You said that you think I’m bored around you? I felt dull and boring next to you. Not bored. Boring. I don’t know what to say about your art, because it’s beyond me. But knowing that it’s based on us? I can’t wait to see it, Grace. I want to see Death of a Marriage. I’m not scared of that. I’m scared of losing you, but I’m not scared to look at my mistakes.”
“Why?” She laughs, but it’s the edge of hysteria, the edge of tears, and I feel the same. “Why now? Why not sooner?”
“I don’t know.” My cheeks are wet.
She turns around again and looks back at downtown. “We should go back.”
And that’s how the conversation ends. We walk all the back in silence.
When we get back to the building, I ride to the eighth floor with her, and she doesn’t tell me not to.
Baby steps.
At her door—our door, our loft, our home, that I lost—I reach for her. She freezes. At first I don't think she's going to let me touch her.
“You need a hug,” I say quietly.
“Not from you.
”
“Maybe not. But I’m here. I’m offering.”
“I don’t need a hug,” she says stiffly.
“Look, you said you don’t want gentle from me, not anymore, and…I hear that. But you’re a hugger, Grace. I get that I didn’t give you enough in the past. I promise I hear that. I’d really like to make up for that at some point. But right now, I see my best friend tightly wound, and I’m thinking she hasn’t had a hug in weeks.”
“Alex hugged me yesterday.”
“I stand corrected.”
But her gaze lingers on my face. Wary, uncertain.
Wanting.
“Was it a bone crusher, though?”
She bursts into tears. “Luke…”
I step closer. Not touching, but close. And I reach for her hand again. This time she doesn’t tense up. I brush my knuckles against hers, then slide my hand up the sleeve of her coat. The contact, even through layers of fabric, instantly warms me inside.
For a second, I hover my hand over her hip, the shape of her familiar and wonderful and entirely off-limits. Then I wrap my arm around her and pull her in against my chest. As I press my face to the top of her head, I feel tears slip out again, and the fucking therapist was right.
It’s cathartic this time.
She shakes inside my arms, and I squeeze her tighter. “Tell me when to let go.”
She sobs and burrows her face deeper into my chest. I curse myself, and that shame monster inside me growls and hisses, happy with the mess he’s made.
But I’m going to fix it. Piece by piece.
When she finally nods and rocks back on her heels, I let her go.
“Thank you,” she whispers, not lifting her head to look at me.
That’s okay. It’s going to be, anyway.
I squeeze her shoulder one last time, then step back towards the elevator. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Her head jerks up. “What’s tomorrow?”
I give her a little smile. “Whatever you want. Maybe another walk. We can get more shit off our chest.”
She laughs and nods. “Okay. Tomorrow.”
19
Shame (Secrets and Lies Book 2) Page 7