Blake chose their seats, nodded at the people around them and took one of the proffered flyers. “I’ve never been to a reading before. One of my friends suggested this.” He handed her the slip of paper.
Before she had the chance to glance at the information, the woman in the next seat over tapped her.
Luna turned toward her.
“Excuse me. May I ask you a question?” The lady, older, conservative in a beige skirt suit smiled. “I just had to ask where you got this jacket. I’ve been watching you since you walked in, and I just have to know.”
In her entire life no one ever asked her about her clothes. From behind her, Blake cleared his throat.
As if she were telling a secret, she leaned over to the woman but made sure not to whisper. “This is a Blake original. The collection isn’t even out yet.” Yes, a bit of pride tinged her voice, after all she was his billboard.
“Blake.” The woman breathed the name and typed something into her smartphone. “It’s just gorgeous. How did you get it, if you don’t mind me asking?”
In answer to the lady’s question, she sat back and pointed. “I know the designer.”
“What the beautiful woman next to me neglected to tell you was she is my muse.” Blake wrapped his arm around her.
The lady broke out in a huge smile. “Are you going to be showing at LA Fashion Week?”
“That is the plan.” Blake gave Luna’s shoulder a squeeze.
The excitement radiating from him over showing his work was evident. She wondered what it would be like to walk in public and someone comment on anything she created.
“Enjoy your evening.” The lady opened her handbag and handed Blake a business card. “I manage a small local woman’s group. Please let me know when you show.”
“Thank you.” Blake put the card in his jacket pocket and pulled Luna in tighter. “I suppose I should say you are not only my muse, but my good luck charm.”
“Well, all in a day’s work.” With the crowd settling down, she finally got the chance to read the flyer. The second she read the name of the presenter, she tensed.
“Are you all right?” Blake put his cheek by hers and looked down at the paper.
Before answering, she inhaled, wanting to make sure she didn’t sound strange. “Dora Washburn is the poet speaking tonight. I thought it would be amateurs.”
“Do you know her?”
“Sort of. It’s a boring story.” Boring as in the woman won the scholarship she was up for, and basically being told she lost because she wasn’t true to herself. It was when she tried to force out a literary style and it failed miserably. Now Dora was a professor and multi-published poet, while she floundered only submitting here and there.
“I don’t think anything about you could be boring.” He chuckled and kissed her behind the ear.
Thankfully, before she had to offer any more of the stupid story of her failure and rejection, Dora walked out onto the small stage.
Well, if anyone stayed true to themselves it was her. Though they never were friends in school, Luna decided she looked the same with scant little makeup, long hair to her waist, and wearing a caftan accessorized with strings and strings of beads.
The crowd went into a tasteful round of golf claps.
Blake practically pulled her onto his lap, but said nothing. Nevertheless, after a quick glance at him, she almost laughed, he seemed pale. She supposed caftans weren’t his thing. Every one of his designs was tailored to fit the female form.
Dora propped herself against a stool, adjusted the microphone and lifted her pages. “Death.” She reached out her hand.
Everything, every person went absolutely still and silent.
“It surrounds me. I breathe it in. I need it to live though it kills me.”
Luna nodded. Was Dora speaking of words? Experience? Love? Her own poems were more literal.
“It surrounds mother earth. Heating the cold. Chilling the beasts. Drowning.” Dora continued.
How did one put together words in this way? Is this what Dora learned with the scholarship?
Blake took her hand turned it over and studied her palm.
“I’m suffocating. It leaches into my soul, my cells, my essence.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she spied Blake. He slightly flared his nostrils as if he smelled something bad. Luna prayed it wasn’t her from all her sweating earlier.
“None of us are free from its talons, yet we are blind to its poison.” Dora stood.
The word talons reminded Luna of her necklace and she glanced down at the griffon pendant. In turn, Blake resumed studying her hand.
“The universe cries for help. Save the offspring of its loins. Yet the toxin spreads.” With a bit of theatrics, Dora raised her arms to the sky and looked up. “Will no one hear my pleas? Will no one save me? Who will save you?”
Blake ran his hand through his hair.
“Time passes. Nothing happens. It chokes, makes one last garbled beg.” Dora lowered her voice.
The poem seemed to be coming to the climax. Luna waited for the identity of the killer to be revealed.
Dora paused and took the microphone out of the stand. “Save me. Save you. Save the planet.”
Blake lifted his head.
Luna balled her free hand into a fist at his reaction and at the end. Not that she didn’t appreciate the planet or anything, but really? Not a jilted lover, not an axe murderer? Holding back the commentary, she bit the inside of her mouth. If Blake felt something for this poem, it would be the reason she failed. No way could she create these images with words.
Again, the audience went into a round of light applause.
“The planet?” Blake growled under his breath.
She turned to him.
“Are you starving?” As if trying to send her a message, he widened his eyes. “I mean we can stay and that’s totally great, but if you’re starving I understand if we need to leave.”
She swallowed back a laugh. Were they speaking some secret couple language? Wait, they weren’t a couple, but she still decided to give him a reprieve. “With all the packages arriving today, I forgot to eat. In fact, I’m starving.”
“We should go then. One of my dad’s has hypoglycemia. It’s no laughing matter.” He basically pulled her up.
“Are you leaving?” The woman who loved her jacket called to them.
“Dietary issue. I’ll be in touch.” Blake kept hold of her and scurried them both out of the coffee shop.
Neither of them spoke as they rushed back to the parking lot and to the car. Once more he opened the door for her, let her in and then ran around the car and slipped inside.
“I’m sorry.” He took hold of the steering wheel and stared straight ahead.
“For what?” No doubt she had to hear this reasoning for him saving her.
“You are very accepting of my art, and I couldn’t sit through one poem.”
“You sat through one. We got to the end.” She laughed. “I would like to ask you one thing though.”
“Anything.” At last he faced her.
“What didn’t you like?” Just like artists wanted to know what connected someone to their work, it was important, though painful, to hear when they didn’t make the connection.
“Please don’t get me wrong, I think the planet and the environment are very important.”
“I think anyone interested in living would agree with you.”
With a tilt of his head, he continued. “I just felt it could have been about anything, and she put the planet in there to be trendy.”
There was something to be said for being attracted to someone’s mind. Right now she wanted to take both his gorgeous face and his amazing brain to bed. She licked her lips wanting to devour him.
“There is one other thing, and I’m probably going to sound like a tool.” His eyes focused on her mouth.
“Tell me.” She ran her tongue along the bottom of her teeth.
He swallowed. “Aren�
�t poems supposed to rhyme?”
“Blake.” This may be better than his foreplay.
“Yes.” He looked into her eyes.
“Will you please mess up my lipstick?”
“God, yes.” He pulled her in and kissed her.
The moment their mouths merged, an electric sizzle ran through her. They wasted no time in soft, sweet kisses and headed straight for deep and passionate.
Right before her hands headed for his belt buckle, he broke the kiss and pressed his forehead against hers. “Luna.”
“Yes.” She touched his red stained lips.
He panted. “What are we doing?”
“What do you mean?” At his question, her intense arousal was instantly replaced by a wave of nausea.
“Us. What are we doing?”
No, she didn’t feel any warmth behind her eyes. In fact, the nausea was only because she hadn’t eaten, not because this sounded suspiciously like the talk.
Wait. Her mind screamed. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the experience and if this ended the experience, so be it. She didn’t care if she saw him or not. Well, the clothes were amazing, as was the sex. This wouldn’t be the first time a man kissed and ran, and it wouldn’t be the last. “I think you should tell me.”
“I can’t think, that’s the problem. Every time I try to think, you’re there. How did that happen?” He cupped her face in his hand.
“It’s only been four days.” Dare she tell him the same thing happened to her?
“It doesn’t matter. How can a number matter? My fathers told me they went on one date and it never ended.”
“That sounds like poetry.” She closed her eyes.
“Don’t shut me out. Look at me and tell me.”
Against her better judgment, she opened her eyes and stared into his. “My poetry rhymes.” It was the only thing in her life that ever made sense.
“I kept the poem you threw away after our first night.” He nuzzled her neck. “What would you say about right now?”
Once more she shut her eyes. Her mind replayed the piece she was working on earlier.
“Do I remain distant, or allow the gap to close? Whatever the decision, it’s my path I chose.”
He slid his mouth up to her ear, taking the lobe between his lips.
The last two lines filled in for themselves. “I hide from my heart I have to admit. No matter the risk, we just seem to fit.”
“Now that’s poetry.” Again, he kissed her.
She braced herself for the experience.
Chapter Eight
“I THINK I’M ACTUALLY NERVOUS.” Henry paced back and forth in Blake's studio. “What if she doesn’t like us?”
At his design table, Blake wrinkled his nose. Earlier, his father decided he needed a change of clothes and asked for a suit, but then chose not to wear it because he didn't want Luna to think meeting them was a formal affair.
"She is going to love you, she is going to love me. We are the epitome of lovable," From behind a book, Joshua mumbled.
"Our son has never allowed us to meet any of his women. This is a milestone." Again, Henry made his way around the room.
Blake continued to watch this ping pong between his dads. Not only did he invite everyone here for a very important purpose, but more than his fathers meeting Luna, he wanted Luna to meet his fathers. Maybe she would finally get the idea they were more than dating. He’d been trying to tell her, even called her his girlfriend at their two week anniversary, and she seemed to gloss over their milestone entirely.
"That’s the way with boys. You didn't meet my mother until we were living together." Joshua turned the page. "Relax, it's not like he's getting married."
Both his fathers stopped and looked at him.
Blake looked over his shoulder and back to his parents. "What?" He couldn’t get his girlfriend to acknowledge she was his girlfriend, how could they get married?
"Are you pregnant?" A smile crept up on Henry's face. "You said you had something important to tell us."
Joshua put his book down. "We've been waiting for this."
"No!" Blake jumped out of his chair. "How can I be pregnant?" The second the words left his mouth he wanted to grab them and stomp them out before they reached his parents ears.
"When the woman is pregnant, the man or men are pregnant as well," Joshua explained.
And so it began. The story of his fathers’ pregnancy. In a manner of speaking.
"From the moment we conceived the idea of you and then conceived you, it was as if we were pregnant along with Suzanne." With a nod, Henry turned to his mate.
"That's very nice, and I’m in full agreement that the man or men are just as involved, but even if Luna was pregnant we wouldn't know yet. We've only been together a little over two weeks." Why was he entertaining this? More importantly, why was he entertaining this without breaking out into hives?
"Would you like your father and I to run to the drugstore? The advances in at-home pregnancy tests have improved greatly. They’re like little computers and you can have a digital readout that will give you the results days before your first missed period." In a flash, Joshua whipped out his smartphone to no doubt get the exact statistic.
"Stop!" Blake rushed around his desk and toward the set of over eager grandparents. "Luna is not pregnant, we are not pregnant, I am not pregnant."
"That's good to know. If you were, I’d have to make an honest man out of you."
At Luna's voice ringing through his studio, all three of them turned. Both his fathers straightened up, their excitement vibrating through the room.
She gave him a quick wink, put an oversized bag down on the floor, and went straight to his fathers, putting her hand to her chin and assessing each one of them.
With matching wide eyes, his fathers stared at her.
Her gaze traveled between the two, and at last she held her hand out. "Henry Owen."
"Oh, you're good." Handshaking didn’t exist in the house of Owen-Blakeney. His father swiped her hand away and yanked her in for a hug.
Blake practically cheered when Luna hugged him back.
"It's my turn." His other father shoved himself into the mix.
Luna turned. "Let me guess, Joshua."
"You are a genius!"
His girlfriend became absorbed somewhere between his parents. Somehow, he needed to get her to acknowledge her role. In the girl handbook, he thought he remembered reading how the female of the species went wild with the girlfriend title. Her lack of reaction troubled him.
"She’s just gorgeous."
"Gorgeous and smart."
"Gorgeous, smart and well dressed."
While his father's discussed her among themselves, Blake decided it might be time for a little reconnaissance mission. He joined the festivities and extracted Luna, pulling her into his arms and giving her a chaste but proper kiss. “Of course she is gorgeous, smart and well dressed. She is with me, and she is wearing my first stab at a ready-to-wear outfit.” Wanting to take her all in, he held her out at arms’ length. Today, she wore a more toned down wrap-around dress in a steel grey with his line’s signature fastenings. "Are you comfortable? Do you think you could work in those clothes?"
"Absolutely." She glanced down at herself. "But I did bring a less couture outfit to change into before work."
Though he tried to have no reaction to her mention of her work or changing clothes, he definitely winced. An actor he was not. Right around the time he decided they were a couple, he also wasn't so sure about her chosen line of work. Also, anytime she wore another designer it felt as if she were cheating on him. Sam and his crew could barely sew fast enough to keep up with the collection and his needs for Luna. Only the other day he had to get rid of yet another intern.
"Until I become a world famous supermodel, I need a job." At having had this conversation with him before, she raised her eyebrows in warning and turned to his fathers. "I suppose my future is in nightclub waitressing for the duratio
n."
Both his fathers laughed at her joke. The only problem was that she wasn't joking. He wanted her to believe in herself and them the way he believed in her and she believed in him. Maybe that's why she wouldn't acknowledge them. He went up behind her and bent down to her ear. "I think your future is in creating and writing and us."
She shuddered against him. For a brief second she almost melted back into him, but as if she caught herself giving in, she tensed. "Well, whatever my future is, you called everyone here for something important, and since we know you're not pregnant, I am dying to find out the occasion."
"Yes son, let's hear it." Joshua motioned toward him and his other father nodded.
Apparently, they all sensed her discomfort.
"Yes, well as my family and my muse, I wanted you to be here for this critical moment." He corralled all of them around his desk. "I am officially hitting send on the application to LA Fashion Week with the Luna Collection."
His fathers clapped.
Luna gasped as he took her hand and pressed the button on the computer mouse with her. "Blake." She hid her face in his chest.
He took her into his arms. “How many times to I have to tell you, you’re my muse. There is only one name the collection could ever have.” Once more, he took his opportunity to remind her.
Silence took over the room, but at last she raised her head, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him down for a kiss.
Over the years he’d kissed many girls. Too many. Way too many. In hindsight he knew he tended to want to overcompensate for his parents, his chosen profession, and the accusations thrown his way. When he realized his motives, he went cold turkey and then Luna came into his life with a second rate bottle of wine and everything changed. However, of any woman, in fact of any thing he ever tried, he had the most challenge with her.
Even with his fathers standing right there, his body surged and he pulled her in tighter, deepening the kiss.
“I think this may be more of a private celebration.” Henry patted him on the back. “We’re very proud of you, son, and we are thrilled to have met the namesake to your collection. Let us know if we can help with anything.”
Come Undone: Romance Stories Inspired by the Music of Duran Duran Page 7