Stupid, stupid, stupid! She chastised herself.
Her jeans were suddenly too tight; she tore them off, feeling restless and irritable. Off came her sweatshirt and her bra too, her skin was hot and itchy and Aullie felt suffocated. She found a baggy, worn t-shirt her father had brought her as a souvenir from golf trips. The “Pebble Beach” print on the front was cracked with age and wear. Though she loathed and resented her father, the shirt had always been her security blanket in times of stress.
Maybe I should paint it out, Aullie thought, seeing her emotions as bursts of vivid color. Then, she smacked herself in the forehead. The whole reason she had left was to get the supplies she needed to paint, and she’d wound up flipping Weston the bird and storming home instead.
Now the stupid guy was interrupting her art, her dream!
Still flustered, she found her phone again and dialed Brittany. On the third ring, she answered and said, “Hey I was just about to call yo-”
Aullie cut her off. “I just saw Weston with someone else.”
“What?!” Brittany’s screech was so loud Aullie had to move the phone further from her ear.
“Yeah! I was walking by the coffee shop and there he was with some chick, all dolled up, touching his knees and stuff.”
“Jesus, really?” Brittany still sounded stunned. “I really didn’t see that coming. I thought you guys had a date yesterday. That’s why I was gonna call you, to see how it went.”
“Well, it went great, actually. Or so I thought.” Aullie paced restlessly around her apartment. “He took me to the museum for an ‘art lesson’ and we kissed and it was awesome, then I brought him back to my place because he said he wanted to see my art. He said he loved it all, we made out a little bit and probably would’ve gone further but he stopped and said he didn’t want it to be all about sex.”
“Well, that does sound great. What the hell is this guy’s problem?”
“It’s not his problem. It’s me. I should’ve known better. I mean, seriously, what waitress gets swept off her feet by some billionaire? Plus, we went on like two dates. It’s not like we’re married or anything. It’s not outrageous to think he’d be seeing other people,” Aullie could hear the exasperation and hurt in her own voice.
“I still just can’t believe it. He was so committed to seeing you again, you would think if there was another girl in the picture, he wouldn’t be quite so insistent. Damn girl, I’m sorry,” Brittany sympathized.
Unwelcome tears sprang into Aullie’s eyes. Her voice wavered as she said, “I can’t believe it either. I had really started to like that guy, Brit, even though it was fast. And you know I don’t get like that.”
“I know you don’t, sweetie. Has he said anything to you?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t know. I blocked him.”
“Damn,” Brittany seemed shocked or impressed, Aullie couldn’t tell. “You’re really pissed.”
Before Aullie could respond, there were three loud knocks on her front door that made her jump.
“Someone’s here,” she said quietly into the phone. “They just knocked.”
“Oh shit,” Brittany replied. “Is it him, do you think?”
“I don’t know. Let me call you back.”
Without saying goodbye, Aullie ended the call and set her phone on the counter. She began a mad dash to find pants, no matter who it was, she wasn’t answering the door in her underwear. Especially in chilly weather.
She settled on the jeans she had kicked off earlier, they were better than nothing and yanked them over her legs. Giving up on securing them, she let her long baggy shirt hang over the front to hide the open button and zipper. Two more knocks came through the wooden door, a little stronger and more urgent this time.
Damn, Aullie thought as she shuffled toward the door, steeling herself for the incoming anger if it was Weston and disappointment if it wasn’t.
Inhale. Exhale. She opened the door.
There he was, in all his golden-haired, golden-eyed glory. He almost didn’t look human; his poise, his grace, the flawless structure of his face wrapped in perfectly clear skin. His sad eyes did nothing to soften Aullie’s glare or her seething rage.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Let me explain…” he said before he was cut off.
“Look,” she said, putting her hands up in sarcastic defeat. “I really don’t care anymore. You’re totally entitled to see other people and that’s great, you bagged a real looker, but that’s not my style, ok?”
Aullie placed her hand on the door to close it. He began to say, “It’s not what it looks like,” but she never heard the end over the sound of the heavy door slamming hard in his face. His words still mumbled through, so she walked away. She had no interest in hearing what Weston had to say.
She could still hear him outside, he must be close to yelling now, so she snatched her phone off the counter and plugged it into a clunky, dated sound system she sometimes used when she was painting.
‘Sorry neighbors’, she thought before cranking up the volume and pressing shuffle.
Angry guitar chords ripped through the speakers, a tiny bit louder than she had expected, but it was perfect. Aullie didn’t have a set taste in music, she liked to collect music with different moods to ensure variety in her inspiration with painting. Though anger wasn’t her top choice of painting feelings, she was extra thankful for the music and the message it was hopefully sending Weston.
That is if he was even still out there. She couldn’t hear him anymore and that pleased her.
I’m done, she thought, blissfully as she flittered around her apartment, collecting mugs and tidying away dirty laundry to a chorus of gritty screams and manic drums. Absolutely done!
Aullie fell into a rhythm as she cleaned her apartment. She kept her music loud, but the soundtrack in her head was just a slamming door on repeat. Over and over, she replayed the sad little look on his face and the heavy thud that closed him off and hopefully pushed him out of her life.
The emotional drama was too much, it was bringing out something in her that she wasn’t comfortable with and she was happy to have him gone.
Good riddance!
At least that's what she told herself.
Chapter 2
An entire week passed. Each of her six shifts at work, Aullie panicked the entire night until it was over and there was no sign of Weston. She didn’t know if he had called or texted, she’d stayed strong and kept him blocked.
Truly, the time had been agonizing but every time she thought about talking to him and actually hearing him out, all she could see was that long swishy mane of strawberry blonde hair. That beautiful companion he’d had in the coffee shop. It was one thing to think he could do better than her and an entirely different thing to actually see it.
Thankful for a Tuesday off, it didn’t happen often, Aullie was preparing her things to go to school. There was an open studio and she felt like getting out of the apartment. Maybe the change of scenery would help her feel a little more inspired.
She loaded her heavy backpack into her car and drove there, thankfully, with no car incidents. The squealing had stopped and, even though it was probably a bad thing, she convinced herself that it was fine.
The trees were becoming bare, with the on-set of winter, even the last leaves clinging to the branches were brown and crunchy. The heater in Aullie’s Accord rattled, remedying the chilly interior with dry blasts of artificial hot air.
She took a deep breath and enjoyed the pleasant mood she was in. The first few days after she had slammed the door in Weston’s face, he’d been on her mind constantly, but as time passed she found herself thinking about him less and less. She missed him, sure, but she was happy to have her focus back on her art, where it belonged.
Aullie parked her car in the school lot, behind the small, boring brick buildings she did a fair portion of her creating in. She carried her backpack inside and swiped her student ID to open the studio
door. The big, bright room had two walls of high windows which let in plenty of natural sun and several neat rows of fluorescents that clicked on with the motion sensor when she entered.
A scene constructed by one of the professors took up the center of the room, big swaths of colorful fabric draped over boards and boxes with an assortment of white objects on top like eggs and ceramic statues. A circle of dozens of paint-stained easels were cramped around the scene, all set at different angles. Aullie picked one at random; she liked her easels like she liked her men - tall and solid.
She began fiddling with the knobs, raising the tray to an appropriate height for the medium-sized canvas she had brought. She had thought she was alone, but once she was set up, another person came out of a small office tucked into the side wall and scared the crap out of her.
“Oh, hey! Aullie! Sorry, I didn’t know anyone was here. I was wondering why the lights were on.” It was her teacher’s assistant for her advanced oil painting class, Gerald Woodley.
He was only a few years older than her, about the same height, with thick black glasses and a full head of curly black hair. She could see how someone else could find him attractive, he had that sort of androgynous, hipster-like vibe that girls seemed to like, but he definitely wasn’t her type.
“Hey Gerald,” she said, still trying to slow her startled heart rate.
“I don’t usually see you on Tuesdays,” he said.
“Yeah, had a random night off work, so I just figured I’d get some painting in.”
“Well cool,” he said with a smile. “These are my office hours and it’s usually pretty dead in here. I’m glad you came in, though. I actually have a question for you.”
“What’s up?” she asked. What kind of question could he have for her?
“Well, a spot actually opened up in a gallery show that a friend of mine is heading up this weekend. They’ve got a pretty decent amount of wall space to cover, it’s mostly other abstract work and I thought of you.”
“Really?” Aullie asked, bewildered. She definitely hadn’t expected that.
“Yeah. I know your last show was a little... disappointing,” he said, with apologetic eyes. “So, I figured maybe you’d be up to giving it another shot. Do you think you’d be able to get a group of works together by then?”
“Yeah, totally,” she nodded enthusiastically, a smile breaking across her lips. “I’ll have to get my shift covered at work, but if I can, then yeah, count me in.”
“Cool,” he said with a grin. “If you give me your number, I’ll shoot you a text with the details later tonight.
Aullie unzipped her backpack and pulled out her sketchbook and a charcoal pencil. She scrawled her phone number on a blank corner and tore it out, handing it to Gerald. She thanked him again and he went back to his office, which Aullie was grateful for. She felt a new zeal, a refreshed excitement at knowing she was getting another shot.
She squeezed tubes, mixing colors and sloshing them all over the canvas. The work she did wouldn’t matter, she thought, there was no way it would be dry in time, but as the prism-esque rainbow came to life on the scratchy white surface she recognized that her groove was back. This opportunity had been exactly what she had needed to break her out of her painter’s-block funk.
The next two hours flew by. Once she had done everything she could, Aullie washed her brushes and her hands and packed up all her equipment. Paint still stained her fingers and forearms, probably her face and neck too like usual, but she didn't really mind. It wasn't like she was trying to impress anyone.
She waved at Gerald through the window, thankful again that he had thought of her for the show. “Is it cool if I leave that canvas here to dry a little? I can come pick it up when I have class tomorrow.”
“Yeah!” he replied. “I’ll move it into your cubby later when it’s a little drier.”
“Thanks!” Aullie said as she headed out the door.
As her car was revved up and homebound, she began to seriously think about the show. It was a big deal for Aullie and she needed to make sure she was putting her best foot forward. Not only with her art but with herself.
During her first show, she’d been nervous, and given that she was naturally pretty introverted, she had hung back on the walls and hadn’t spent as much time marketing herself as she probably should have.
Her little debacle with Weston was behind her and though she resented the entire ordeal, it had opened her eyes to some self-consciousness she hadn’t recognized before.
She was aware now that she wanted to succeed. She wanted to feel worthy of a successful man so that next time she found one, her own stupid insecurities wouldn’t get in the way.
Once she was home, it was go time. Aullie poured some coffee she had made that morning into a mug with a little bit of creamer from the fridge and nuked it in the microwave. As it made its roundabout way around the microwave, she looked her walls up and down, trying to channel her inner art critic or collector.
Most of her class projects, though she was proud of them, weren’t show material. It was hard with class stuff because everyone needs to learn the basics and therefore did similar things, so none of that work would stand out.
She had finally painted the deer she had drawn, his proud neck shrouded in beautiful flowers, the light tan of his textured fur stood out against the blueish background, it was definitely one of her better originals. Hopefully, it would be totally dry in time.
But what else?
Suddenly, she no longer felt optimistic but overwhelmed. There were so many choices, plus the stacks of paintings she kept in her closet because she had no wall space. Aullie had been painting for so long, there were too many options.
Though others respected and admired her work, she could see the tinier details in each and every painting; the mistakes, the layers and layers of paint to fix them, places where colors had run together, works that hadn’t quite stayed true to her original vision. Everywhere she looked, she found flaws, flaws, flaws! Her confidence nosedived hard.
What am I doing with my life?
Aullie seemed to be having these surges of doubt more and more often, lately. She had no business being in a show, she thought, she wasn’t ready.
Would she ever be ready? Was she destined to wait tables forever?
The microwave beeped, probably for the third or fourth time since Aullie’s coffee had finished reheating and she extracted the mug just to angrily slam the little door closed.
She took a sip, the coffee wasn’t even warm anymore, but she craved some kind of buzz. Some kind of explosion of clarity to help her take the necessary steps to becoming the person she wanted, or needed, to be.
Aullie’s eyes came to rest on the painting she had done after her first night out with Weston. She had added to it after their second date, vibrant swirls of white, lavender and powder blue thrived against the fiery fuchsia background. It was a beautiful painting, she had to admit, but there was no way she could include it in the show. Some part of her wanted to hold onto it; the only reminder she had left of the man who had made her feel again. The relationship may have crashed and burned but, be that as it may, she had felt things with him she hadn’t felt in a long time, if ever.
The painting opened a sort of rabbit hole, one thought about Weston led to another and Aullie couldn’t help but feel as if she were tumbling down, down, down into the abyss of obsessive thought.
She looked at her phone. One little button push, that’s all it would take to unblock him. He had come over to explain himself, right? What if there was a valid explanation? What if there wasn’t?
She didn’t know if she could handle another emotional roller coaster with him; between work, school, and her being poor, she had more than enough to be worrying about. But the truth was, she had enjoyed the unexpected rush. And, like a junkie, she craved it again.
Aullie picked up her phone. She scrolled through to his contact page. Her thumb hovered over the ‘Unblock Caller’ button.
>
One phone call wouldn’t hurt. Just to hear what he has to say.
She set her phone down without unblocking the man, not allowing even a tiny opening for Weston to return to her life.
Just as she had every other time for the last week, which was roughly every few hours, Aullie talked herself out of it. The biggest thing holding her back was the feeling, deep in her gut, that the relationship was doomed.
Aullie envied the rich and famous almost as much as she loathed them, and Weston was one of the rich and famous. With his job and his heritage, it wasn’t like any of that was going to change.
Maybe Aullie would make it as an artist, maybe they’d at least be on closer levels one day, but maybe she wouldn’t. She had always sworn to herself that she would never become dependent on a man, and she wasn’t about to be some little failed artist looped on to some rich guy’s arm. No way in hell!
She did a pretty good job convincing herself that the beautiful other woman had nothing to do with it, too.
‘I’m done’, Aullie reminded herself. ‘I’m done, I’m done, I’m done’, she repeated it in her head like a mantra, each time with more and more conviction.
She thought of a saying she loved from one of her favorite yoga teachers; breathe in the positive: success, prosperity, confidence, and forgiveness, breathe out the negative: doubt, anger, spite, and jealousy. And Weston, she tacked onto the end of the exhale, with a coy smile.
She was going to breathe him out, she had to, and staring at his stupid painting wasn’t going to do her any favors. Aullie grabbed the painting from where it leaned against the legs of her old, wooden easel, probably not as gently as she would with another painting, and tossed it in the closet. It landed on its corner, leaning against the wall in the back under her coats.
Take that, Aullie thought, a little triumphantly. She closed the door a little too hard, reveling in this new sense of resolve. Out with the old, with the failure and insecurity, and in with the new, success and hopefully a relationship with an honest, more realistic man.
His Beautiful Revenge: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance Page 98