Work of Art

by Monica Alexander

  “Why is she coming to your wedding, Ryan? I wasn’t aware that you were even in contact with her.”

  I sighed. “I wasn’t. She’s Brandon’s date. They met on an airplane and became friends, and he invited her before knowing who she was. I haven’t talked to her since the summer after high school.”

  “The summer she told you she was aborting your baby and left you?”

  I gritted my teeth, hating how she just put it out there. “Yes, that summer.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I won’t allow it.”

  “What do you mean ‘no’. I wasn’t asking for permission. I was simply telling you that she’d be there.”

  My mother’s eyes narrowed further. “Ryan, that girl tried to ruin your life. I will not allow it.”

  “She did not try to ruin my life. If she was trying to do that, she wouldn’t have had an abortion. You never liked her, and you were just thrilled when we broke up. Don’t try to change your tune now. Besides, you don’t have a choice, she’s coming.”

  “Unbelievable,” she muttered.

  “What? What’s unbelievable?” I asked, sitting up straighter, curious about where this was going.

  She shook her head. “Convenient, don’t you think. That you haven’t seen her in eleven years, and all of a sudden, right as you’re about to walk down the aisle, she weasels her way back into your life. Does she know how much money you have? How successful you are?”

  I laughed out loud. “She’s just as successful as me, Mom.”

  “I highly doubt that. She was always trouble.”

  “She wasn’t trouble,” I snapped, and my mother glared at me, so I clarified my statement. “How come you never liked her? Was it because of her stepdad and what he did?”

  My mother didn’t respond. She just turned to stare out the window at the busy San Francisco streets outside.

  “Come on, Mom. You never told me back then. Was it because she wasn’t friends with the girls whose mothers you were friends with?”

  She glared at me. “Ryan, I am not that petty.”

  Yes, you are.

  “Then what was it?”

  She looked away for a moment before turning her eyes back on me, and I saw so much anger and sorrow and regret in them. “Her mother was having an affair with your father, and it went on for several years. There. Are you happy now?”

  My eyes went wide, and my jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

  I had no idea my dad had been unfaithful, ever. I didn’t think he had it in him. And I sort of hated him for it. Harper and I had known her mother was sneaking around with someone who was married, but never in a million years did we think it was my dad. We thought it was Mr. Hollinger, since his wife had fought the hardest for Harper’s mother to have her country club membership revoked after her stepfather was sent to prison.

  But she’d been sleeping with my dad. Shit.

  “Yes, Ryan, I hired a private investigator when you were a junior in high school, and I have pictures. I confronted your father about it soon after you left for college, and he admitted they’d been seeing each other for over two years. When I threatened to leave him and take him for everything he was worth, he stopped the affair and has been faithful ever since.”

  Damn, I had no idea.

  “Why did you wait so long to confront him?”

  She sighed. “Because you were in love with that girl, and I did not want a scandal on my hands that would affect you and your reputation. I waited until after you two had no chance of being together, and I confronted him. And thankfully we were able to keep things private and handle them on our own.”

  “But the affair had nothing to do with Harper. Why would you hold that against her? You were always so mean to her.”

  “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” she said simply, and I opened my mouth to respond but noticed that Trish and her mother returning to the table, so I kept quiet.

  “What did we miss?” Felicity asked loudly as she took a sip of her martini.

  “Nothing,” my mother said in a clipped tone. “I think we should get the check.”

  And I knew we’d never talk about what she’d just revealed again. She’d pretend she didn’t know what I was talking about if I brought it up. I knew my mother well, and she confronted things and acted tough most of the time, but when she’d been personally wounded, she simply stuck her head in the sand.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Harper

  I sat at the bar where I’d chosen to meet Ryan, nervously tapping my fingers and slowly sipping the dirty martini I’d ordered when I got there. Ryan and I had plans to meet at seven, but I got there at six forty-five so I wouldn’t have to walk up to him. I was nervous enough to see him that actually walking up to him sitting at the bar would probably make me want to vomit again. I much preferred the surprise arrival.

  At five after seven, when I was just starting to wonder if he was going to stand me up, I heard someone clear their throat next to me. I turned and there stood Ryan, all blond hair and blue eyes and chiseled jaw, and my stomach twisted in on itself as I remembered reading his words of dismissal all those years ago.

  I’d dug out that old email the night before, because I needed to read it again. I needed to see his words in black and white. Granted they were the words of an eighteen year-old kid who was probably scared, but they’d cut me deeper than any of the verbal abuse I’d received from my mother growing up. And there had been a lot of that. But Ryan abandoning me had been the worst, because I’d loved him so much, and I thought he’d loved me too.

  But now, with him standing eighteen inches from me, when I should have wanted to hit him, all I could do was drink in his familiar features – more defined and more masculine than they’d been when I’d known him, but they were his features nonetheless. The lips that had kissed me countless times and the arms that had held me when I’d cried or laughed or felt an overwhelming sense of happiness just from being near him. And then there were his blue eyes that had gazed into mine as he’d told me he loved me more times than I could count.

  And although we had a lifetime between us, it felt like time had stood still.

  Slowly, I stood and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him close to me, as his familiar scent I thought I’d forgotten had me traveling back in time. After a few seconds, his arms encircled me, as well.

  “It’s really good to see you,” I told him.

  He squeezed me back. “It’s good to see you too, Harper.”

  And the way my name sounded on his lips made my chest hurt. He’d said my name a thousand times, but it had been so long that it made my heart ache. I’d missed him, and I hadn’t realized how much until that exact moment.

  When I finally pulled away, I looked at him and smiled. He was wearing a blue button-down shirt that made his eyes even bluer.

  “Now that was what I should have done and said when I saw you last week,” I told him.

  He smiled back and shrugged. “It wasn’t the first time I’d seen you puke. Don’t worry about it.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. And it felt like the tension was finally broken between us. There was so much we didn’t say, but maybe it was better that way. Why play old tapes?

  “Have a seat,” I said gesturing to the barstool next to me.

  He sat down in a huff and let out a long sigh before turning to the bartender. “Can I get a Rogue Dead Guy Ale,” he asked and turned to me. “How’s your day been?”

  I shrugged. “I worked last night, so I slept in this morning, met my friend Kelly for lunch and then went to work again. Now I’m here.”

  “Do you have to go back to the shop?”

  I gave him a funny look and gestured to my drink. “I don’t make it a habit of getting drunk and sticking people with needles. I know my profession may seem laid back, but precision is kind of a must when you’re tattooing someone.”

  He nodded in understanding. “Makes sense.”

  I decided to cut him som
e slack. “Truthfully, my staff vehemently ordered me to go home. I haven’t taken a lot of time off lately, so they’re trying to force me to when they can.”

  “You work a lot, don’t you,” he asked, as the bartender set his beer in front of him. He lifted the glass to his lips and downed half of it in three gulps.

  “Yeah, I do, but I love what I do, so it’s worth it. Thirsty?”

  He chuckled. “I was up at five, at the office by seven, and then I had a lovely afternoon with my mother, before going back to work for a few hours, so yeah, I’m thirsty.”

  Poor guy. He’d had a full day before I even got out of bed, and the sarcasm in his tone was palpable as he spoke of a woman I despised. When we’d dated, his family wasn’t a fan of me, and his mother wasn’t subtle about it. I hated her with a passion, but back then he’d tried to play the go-between, doing his best to please us both. I had a feeling things had changed since then based on how he sounded.

  “Oh, what is Lydia Carson up to these days?” I asked, my tone full of false good nature.

  “Sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong and wishing her son was someone she could be proud of.

  His response surprised me.

  “Since when is she not proud of you?” I asked, knowing he’d always been the apple of her eye, could do no wrong son back when he’d been dating me.

  “Well, ever since . . . the thing with us . . . ,” he said, unsure of how to label it, it seemed, and I wasn’t sure what to say either. I was surprised he’d even mentioned it in the first place. “Ever since then, I’ve sort of been the failure of the family.”

  I reeled back in surprise. “How is that even possible? Aren’t you some big, successful banker?”

  He sighed. “Yes. I landed the big job, made the big bucks, and now that I’m marrying Trish, I was hoping to get back into my mother’s good graces, but it seems that’s never going to happen. I’ve done wrong too many times, and today I apparently failed her yet again.”

  I took a sip of my drink. “You did? How?”

  “I told her you were coming to the wedding.”

  My eyes went wide. “You did?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I had to. I wasn’t going to blindside her with that.”

  I had sort of been hoping that no one would remember or recognize me, and there was a good chance of that since it had been eleven years since I’d seen any of them. Well, it had been eleven years since I’d see his family outside of his sister, Lisa. It had been about ten and a half years since we’d come face-to-face, and I was not looking forward to seeing her. In fact, if provoked, I might do something regrettable to her.

  “And why does she care that I’m coming to your wedding?” I asked, finally feeling the effects of the first martini I’d consumed quickly before Ryan showed up and the half of the second one I’d drunk since he’d been sitting next to me.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s weird like that.”

  We both knew why, but he was being a gentleman by not stating the obvious. Lydia Carson thought I tried to ruin her son’s life, because she thought I got pregnant on purpose to trap him. But a lot of time had passed. What happened between Ryan and me was so over, and she shouldn’t have cared. Unless she was afraid I was going to bring up his past during his wedding, and I wondered then if his fiancé knew that he’d fathered a child.

  And then I wondered if Ryan would even ask me about the baby he’d given up. He knew I’d kept him, because his sister had told him, and sure, he’d officially signed over his rights as a parent, but wasn’t he the least bit curious? Not that I wanted to talk about Tyler, but I was a little pissed that he wasn’t asking.

  “Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” he continued when I didn’t say anything. “You’re coming, and she’s just going to get over it. I’m not telling Brandon he has to pick a different date. He can bring whomever he chooses.”

  “Thank you,” I said, glad to hear him taking a stand. He never used to do that.

  “So you two met on a plane back from Boston, right?” I nodded. “What were you doing back there?”

  “My mother died,” I deadpanned, not sure how else to say it.

  His eyebrows rose. “Really? Wow. I’m sorry.”

  I waved his apology off. “It’s fine. As you know, we had a fairly strained relationship, which only got more strained as the years went on. I’d only seen her twice in ten years, and each time I did she was high as a kite on a cocktail of prescription and street meds, so I knew it was only a matter of time before she mixed up a concoction that killed her.”

  “She overdosed?” he asked, not able to hide the appalled look in his eyes.

  “Yup, she did. And I’m honestly not that sad about it.”

  “Yeah, but she was your mom,” he said incredulously.

  I shrugged. “She sure didn’t act like it. Besides, she treated me like shit and tried her hardest to make me feel about two inches tall at all times. She was kind of a bitch.”

  “True,” he said, no doubt remembering how many times I’d come crying to him after she’d said something particularly heinous to me.

  “And you don’t know the half of it. She kicked me out.”

  “When?” he asked, sounding appalled.

  “Right before I moved here – it was sort of the reason I moved. I really had no choice and no one else to turn to, so I called my dad who I’d never met in person, and he took me in.”

  I watched Ryan’s face fall. “I’m sorry. I know I let you down back then, but you should know that I regret a lot of things that happened between us.”

  I nodded, but I was not prepared to head down this particular memory lane. I needed to cut the conversation off before we started talking about what happened between us.

  That was not what tonight was about. It was about reconnecting with someone I used to know and finding closure. I would not let him into my world, because there were things he’d dismissed in that world that were sacred to me, and I wouldn’t let him taint them.

  “It’s fine. It was a million years ago, and it’s in the past. But what I don’t understand is why your mother is pissed off at you in the present. What have you done over the past decade to fall from grace, because you were always the golden child?”

  He laughed. “Oh, lots of things, starting with how I almost flunked out of Yale my sophomore year, and then I bummed around with Brandon for three years and slept with a lot of really unsuitable women. And then there was the incident in which I didn’t study as much for the GMAT as I should have and wasn’t able to get into an Ivy League school to do my MBA. So I decided to go to UMass, which my parents thought was completely unacceptable. They called it a subpar school, but while I was at this so-called subpar school, I also met a girl who my parents weren’t thrilled with. Then I asked her to marry me which really pissed them off, and then she cheated on me, and of course, my mother blamed me for not being able to keep her. It’s literally been one thing after the next that would only cause concern in my family.”

  “Yeah, I heard this is fiancé number two for you. You really got cheated on?”

  “Brandon has a big mouth. I might have to kick his ass. And yes, I got cheated on. She apparently liked her ex-boyfriend more than she liked me.”

  He was playing it off, but I could tell he was more affected by what had happened than he led on. But since I could tell he didn’t want to dwell on such unpleasantness, I decided to help him out and change the subject.

  “Brandon does have a big mouth, but that’s what I love about him. He’s so brutally honest. You don’t get that from most people.”

  He smiled at me. “No, you don’t.”

  I smirked slightly as I appraised the suddenly playful look on his face. “I wonder what that feels like.”

  I watched him almost do a spit-take with his beer. “Seriously? You’re asking what being brutally honest feels like, Ms. ‘I don’t give a shit about what anyone thinks about me’? Come on.”

  My mouth dropped open i
n mock offense. “I am not that carefree, and you know it,” I defended. “How many times did I cry on your shoulder in high school because those whores I used to call friends said something bitchy to me?”

  He cocked his head at me. “Yeah, but you never let them see you cry. You were always tough as shit whenever anyone else was looking.”

  I eyed him pensively, not sure I loved how well he still knew me, but a warm feeling spread throughout my body. And then my guard was suddenly up. Damn him for still being able to affect me like that.

  “You were the only person I ever let in,” I said softly and then changed tactics, knowing I had no choice. I had to protect myself. “But a lot of shit happened to me back then, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. Now I’ve learned how to deal, and I’ve developed a thick skin. Now I don’t let people hurt me.”

  And suddenly it was like the air had changed. We’d been playful and fun loving, but now it was like we’d turned a corner, and our past that we’d wanted so badly to bury was staring us in the face, and we couldn’t look away.

  “I think that’s pretty incredible,” Ryan said softly, and I watched his eyes drift to the star tattoos running down the side of my neck.

  And all I could think was that I didn’t want him looking at me like that. I didn’t want him to dredge up the old feelings that he was surfacing, I didn’t want him to remind me of how safe and secure I’d felt with him, and I sure as hell didn’t want to remember what it was like to have my heart ripped out of my chest. And that was exactly what he was doing in that moment.

  “You don’t like my tattoos, do you?” I suddenly accused, not sure why I was going that route.

  “See. Brutally honest,” he responded, smiling at me.

  “It’s fine, Ry,” I said, swallowing hard when I realized I’d inadvertently used his nickname.

  “What’s fine?” he asked, looking confused.

  I blinked as he appraised me, and I hated that it felt like he was looking directly into my freaking soul.

  “That you don’t like my tats, my décor, my art,” I answered smartly, because I had to drive him away, and I had to drive away the feelings that were starting to overtake me. “You don’t have to like them. It’s cool. They’re not for you or anyone else, and I like them.” And then I decided to shove the knife in deeper and twist, as I changed the subject on him. “Tell me about getting dumped. That must have sucked.”