by Megyn Ward
Even though it’s still wet, I lift the canvas from my easel and carry it into the living room. Pulling the full-length mirror from the wall, I set it aside and hang the painting on its hook.
I want you to feel it, every time you look in this goddamned mirror…
Looking at the painting, remembering what he said to me last night, I couldn’t agree with Patrick more.
I smell it first. Grilled meat and greasy French fries and my stomach rumbles. Beside the single bite of breakfast burrito a few hours ago, I haven’t eaten anything today. I turn away from the painting in front of me, toward the smell, expecting to find Tess in the doorway, eating a cheeseburger. Or maybe Chase—the guy likes his food. But it’s not either of them.
Jerking my earbuds out of my ears I feel my gaze narrow to a glare. “I’m not in the mood for your grease monkey/love guru routine.”
Unflappable as usual, Conner gives me a grin. “Come on, Legs,” he says, coming through the doorway. He’s carrying a burger basket from downstairs. “I brought you an olive branch.” Walking in like he owns the place he breezes past me, like I’m not standing here in my underwear, and sets the plastic, paper-lined basket full of food on the dining room table. “The least you can do is let me apologize.”
My stomach rumbles again and I turn to pull a chair away from the table. “This isn’t an olive branch,” I tell him, sliding into my seat. “It’s a cheeseburger.” I lift the top bun and peer at the ketchup smeared cheese underneath. “Lisa’s not down there is she?”
Conner laughs and looks at me like I’m crazy before pulling out and sitting in the chair across from me. “It’s Sunday,” he tells me like it’s the answer to my question. He left the door to the apartment standing open and I can hear music again—The Rolling Stones—and the quiet murmur of voices. I imagine Patrick down there, deep in conversation with Sara. Perfect Sara, with her save the world ideals and rich family. Perfect Patrick and Perfect Sara. They belong together. A match made in perfect people heaven.
It’s enough to make me want to vomit.
Giving him a sloppy shrug, I take a chance on the burger. “What time is it, anyway?” I ask around a mouthful of food, too hungry and pissed to care if I gross Conner out by talking with my mouth full.
“After four…” Conner leans back in his chair, his gaze floating over my shoulder. I know what he’s looking at. The painting hanging behind me. I watch, amazed as a flush creeps up his neck. He’s embarrassed. The guy couldn’t care less that I’m sitting two feet away from him, braless and in my underwear but seeing my bare ass on a canvas is freaking him out. To be honest, it’d probably freak me out too if I wasn’t so pissed.
“Is there something wrong?” I say, shoving more food in my mouth.
“No,” he clears his throat and looks away. “Your guy said to tell you he had to go but that he’d be in touch about which paintings he wants for the benefit show.”
Hearing him talk about my work reminds me of why I’m mad at him. “He’s not my guy,” I tell him, dragging a pair of fries through the pool of ketchup he was thoughtful enough to squirt into the basket. I shove the fries into my mouth, as unlady-like as I can possibly get.
“If you’re trying to gross me out, you’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that,” Conner tells me, eyebrow arched at my questionable manners. “You forget who my best friend is.”
Tess. She has the table manners of a toddler. “Whatever.” I give him another shrug. “Chase is just a friend.”
“I get that,” Conner says, looking me in the eye. “I also get why he’d want to show your work...” His gaze strays over my shoulder again before refocusing on my face. “You’re way more talented than you make yourself out to be.”
I narrow my eyes on his face. “What would you know about?” I say. I’m irritable and angry and looking at him makes it impossible not to think of Patrick, which doesn’t help my mood.
“About art?” he says, giving me a one shoulder shrug. “Enough to know you’d never have to sell your ass to land a show.”
Sell my ass… I stare at him for a second before I start to laugh. “Is that it?” I swallow the food in my mouth, mainly so I don’t choke to death when I scoff at him. “Is that your lame attempt at an apology?”
Conner laughs, reaching out to swipe a fry from my basket. “You’ve gotta cut me slack here, Legs,” he says, chomping the fry in half. “I don’t have much practice at it.”
I nod my head in agreement. “It’s because you’re a self-centered ego maniac, isn’t it?”
He presses a hand to his chest like I offended him. “I was going to say it’s because I’m never wrong…” he cocks his head at me and shrugs. “But, yeah—that too.”
We’re both quiet for a moment. While I polish off my burger, Conner studies the painting behind me. The embarrassed flush is still there but beneath the embarrassment is something else. Something that looks a lot like envy.
“He loves you, you know.” He says it quietly, like he’s telling me a secret. Something he doesn’t really want to say out loud. I probably shouldn’t laugh but I do. Hard enough to bring tears to my eyes.
“He loves fucking me,” I tell him, wiping at my eyes. “There’s a difference, Conner.” I sit back, pushing the basket of cold fries in his direction. “You, of all people, should know that.”
“Are you serious?” He hisses at me before rubbing a rough hand over his jaw. “You asked for this, Cari.” He stands up, knuckles thumping on the table between us. “You made it happen—on a bet.” He lets out a rough laugh at the look on my face. “Yeah, I know about that.”
I’m going to kill Tess.
“So, what?” I say, giving him quite possibly the lamest excuse in the history of excuses.
He gives me a look that says I can’t possibly be as stupid as I sound. “Sooo, can you honestly say you’re surprised or angry over the way this shit is shaking out?”
“Yes.” I blurt it out, surprised that it’s true.
He waves his hand around the room. “You strut around here for six fucking months, throwing your tits and ass in his face at every available opportunity and then when he finally breaks and takes what you’re offering, you get your feelings hurt.” He’s glaring at me the way he glares at Declan over Tess. Like I’m something Patrick needs to be protected from, not the other way around. “What did you expect?” He laughs again. “And why do you even care?” he barks at me, picking up the basket, purposely looking at the painting over my shoulder. “It’s just about the sex, right? Seeing how far you could push him until he broke. You could never get serious about a guy like Patrick. He’s not rich and slick enough for you.”
That’s what I told Tess. That’s what I told myself. It’s not supposed to matter. I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t this. I didn’t expect it to matter. The stack of paintings in my room call me a liar. The one behind me argues the opposite. I clench my teeth against the stabbing in my chest. “I’m more than a pair of tits and ass.”
“I know that. He knows that—” He stabs his finger at the canvas behind me. “Matter of fact, I think you’re the only person around here who doesn’t know it.”
It’s like he slapped me. Inside I’m reeling. I can’t catch my breath. But that’s what it’s usually like when someone hits you with the truth, right? “Are you finished?” I say through gritted teeth, refusing to cry in front of him.
“Yeah.” He runs a frustrated hand over his head before dropping it to his side. “I’m finished.” Conner walks past me out the door and down the stairs. As soon as he’s gone I put my earbuds back in and go back to my room.
Forty-five
Patrick
I wake up to rain. The steady beat of it pounding against my bedroom window, insistent. Demanding. So loud I can feel it vibrating against my eardrums. I lay here, listening to it for a while, waiting for what I know is coming.
Fifteen minutes later, Declan texts me.
Declan: Job site is washed
out. I’ll let the
crew know we’re taking the day.
I stare at my phone for a few seconds before responding. Things are back to normal between him and me. After the show Cari and I put on for everyone yesterday afternoon I think he actually feels sorry for me. Which makes me feel like a giant pussy. Irritated, I punch my finger against screen, sending him my abbreviated answer.
Me: Thx
I drop my phone and stare at the crack in my ceiling. My new favorite thing to do. A week ago, I would’ve been thrilled to have a Monday called on account of rain. A whole day to myself. A whole day to work on my own building designs. Designs I’ll probably never get to see built but I draw them anyway, just so I can dream. A week ago, a rainy day would’ve been perfect. Today—right now—it feels like the walls are closing in on me.
There isn’t a room in this place where I haven’t touched Cari—or touched myself while thinking about touching her. Like clockwork, my dick twitches just thinking about it. If I have to stay in this apartment all goddamned day, I’ll either wind up jerking off until my brains leak out my ears or hanging myself in the fucking shower.
Getting out of bed, I pull on the first shirt I find. It’s the shirt I wore Saturday night and it smells horrible but I don’t give a shit. Next, I pull on a pair of socks that, God help me, smell even worse than the shirt, before leaving my room.
The rain is louder in the living room, it lashes against the skylights in the ceiling, drowning out the sound of everything else. I sit down to pull on my shoes but the minute my ass hits the couch, my gaze lifts to the spot on the wall where the mirror is. Or was. She took it down sometime yesterday and replaced it with a paintings that isn’t like any of her painting that I’ve ever seen.
She painted us. That way she sees us. The way she thinks I see her and I can’t look at it for more than a few seconds before I have to look away.
Seeing it from her perspective makes me feel like shit.
Shoes on, I grab my keys and head out the door.
I run as far and as fast as I can. I’m soaked through within seconds of stepping out onto the sidewalk but I don’t care. The streets are flooded, businesses and shops shuttered against the rain. The few commuters brave or maybe dumb enough to try and make it to work drive impossibly slow, water slushing above their wheel wells, windshield wipers slapping uselessly at the rain. As they drive by at a crawl, the all stare at me like I’m nuts. Like trying to operate a vehicle in this shit is any smarter than running around in it.
I don’t care. I just keep running. Until my legs are numb and too heavy to lift. Until my fingers won’t work right and my elbows scream when I try to unbend them. Until rivers of water stream down my back and pool in my shoes.
I don’t care. I just keep running.
But running myself into the ground doesn’t stop me from thinking. Every time I blink, every time I close my eyes, I see that painting. Not the one she hung in the living room. The one I saw propped against the stack of hidden canvases in her room, The one of me in the kitchen.
Watching her while, all the while, she was watching me.
I can’t stop thinking about it because it changes everything. Everything I ever thought or felt about what’s been going on for the past six months. The past four days. The past three years. About how Cari feels and what she thinks about me. Wants from me. What made her do the things she did. What made me react the way I did when I figure out she was doing them on purpose. Right now, I think none of it really matters.
I love her. And I think she loves me.
I stop running and go home.
Forty-six
Cari
It’s raining inside my room, cold drops of water hit my arm and face and I screw my eyes shut even tighter for a moment. The clouds rolled in sometime around 3AM. I watched them swell and bulge from my place behind my easel, scrape and tumble their way across the skyline until they burst. Then I crawled between the sheets of my bed and let the deafening sound of it pull me under.
Another drop of water hits my cheek, rolls to slide across the bridge of my nose and I groan softly. I turn my head and look up, expecting to see a fast leak from the skylight above my bed. Instead of a leaky skylight I see Patrick.
Patrick is in my bedroom.
And he isn’t just in my bedroom, he’s standing over me, soaking wet, inches from where I laying, his T-shirt and shorts sodden. His shoes sopping, water puddling on the floor and on my mattress.
“What time is it?” I lift my head and turn but I can’t quite make out the display on my alarm clock.
He shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says, still looking at me. “Early.”
“Did you go for a run?” I say. It’s a stupid question. Unless he took a shower, fully clothed, that’s exactly what he did.
He grins at me before squeegeeing rain off his face with his hand. “Yup.”
“Are you crazy?” Another stupid question. I’m pretty sure we’re both crazy.
Instead of answering me, he just grins some more while he toes off his runners.
“What do you think you’re doing?” My gaze strays behind him to the painting of him still propped against the stack and I feel heat erupt across my chest. Even though I know he’s already seen it, I feel naked. Exposed. Much more exposed and naked than the painting I hung in the living room. When I look back at him he’s got his socks off and he drops them onto the floor next to his shoes.
“You’re going to be late for work,” I tell him even though he said it was early, I have no idea what time it is. “Declan’s going to have a—”
“I’m not going to work today.” Patrick catches the hem of his shirt, still grinning. “Neither are you,” he says, peeling his shirt off, up over his head before letting it hit the floor with a wet thwack. “Not unless you have a boat somewhere.”
I shake my head and sit up. “It’s Monday,” I say, feeling around in the bed for my phone. I haven’t seen it since yesterday afternoon and I have no idea where I left it. “We’re expecting a shipment today. Miranda—”
“It’s in the kitchen,” he tells me, laughing a little because he knows exactly what I’m looking for. “Dead and a doornail.” He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and boxer briefs and takes them off together, discarding them as unceremoniously as he did his shirt. “I texted her for you. She said the shipment is delayed because of the rain and she’ll see you tomorrow.” He’s completely naked, so perfect and beautiful that I can’t look away even though the sight of him makes it hard to breathe.
“I can’t stay here,” I say, shaking my head again. I don’t have the mental or emotional strength to handle Patrick right now. An entire day trapped in this apartment with him will probably kill me.
He cocks his head at me. “Why not?”
“Because—” I stare up at him, my eyes widened slightly. Because you’re angry at me. Because being around you makes me angry. And horny. And stupid. “Because.”
He laughs at me. “Because?” he says, totally okay with the fact that he’s stark naked in my bedroom. “That’s not a reason, Cari. That’s a conjunction.”
My eyes narrow on his face. “Whatever.” I throw my covers back and turn, moving away from him, toward the other side of the bed. I’ll take a shower and get dressed. Boston might be on a rainy-day schedule but I know Tess is at the garage, business as usual. It’s only two blocks away. I can make it. I’ll go hang out with her. Where it’s safe. I’ll have to put up with Conner’s bullshit but—
Patrick’s hand closes over my ankle, dragging me back across the bed. I flip myself over so I can glare up at him.
Jesus. Does he have to be so naked? And perfect?
“What?” I say the word through gritted teeth, jerking against his hand still clamped around my leg.
“Tell me why.” He’s not smiling anymore. Even though he keeps asking the question, he looks like he’s afraid of the answer. “Why can’t you stay here with me?”
I squeeze
my eyes shut against the sight of him so I can think straight. So I don’t have to look at him when I say it because I’m just as afraid of the answer as he is. “Because I’m tired, Patrick,” I say. “I’m tired and I don’t want to do this today.” I look up at him, shaking my head. “Not today, okay?”
He loosens his grip on my ankle but doesn’t let go. “Do what?”
“This. Us—whatever this is.” I look away, swallowing against the lump in my throat. “Not today, okay?”
The hand on my ankle loosens even more, its fingers gentle as they slide up the length of my calf to stroke the back of my knee. My nipples stiffen instantly, my panties dampening almost as fast. “Patrick,” I whisper. “Please…” I’m not sure if I’m asking him to stop touching me so I can run away or to keep his hands on me so I won’t. “Please.”
“Delay the game on account of rain?” he says, a slight smirk lifting the corner of his mouth but there’s something else. Something solemn about the ways looking at me. Something that squeezes around the edges of my heart. He’s asking for a truce. A time-out. He doesn’t want to fight anymore. Play games anymore. At least for today.
It’s ridiculous, the idea that we can stop fighting and fucking with each other, just because it’s raining and I open my mouth to tell him so. Instead, I nod my head. “Okay,” I say softly, my heart in my throat.
“Okay,” he echoes, a slow smile spreads across his face and he lets me go so I can scoot over on the bed to make room for him.
He slips under the covers and reaches for me. I expect his hands to close over my breasts. Reach between my legs. Tear off the paint splattered T-shirt and boy shorts I fell into bed wearing. To get me naked so he can live out whatever unfulfilled fantasy he’s still harboring about us.
Instead, he pulls me close, turning me in his arms so that my back is pressed against his wet chest, instantly soaking the back of the shirt I’m wearing, the mattress and sheets under us. “You’re wet,” I say because I’m nervous and I can’t seem to stop saying stupid, lame things.