by Lucy Score
He studied the fresh beer Ed dropped in front of him. “Fine. But I’m already reconsidering our friendship. You’re very annoying.”
She gave him a swift, un-Emma-like kick to his bare shin.
“Ouch! Okay,” he grumbled, rubbing his abused leg that immediately went into spasm. “It started a few months ago. I have the perfect life. Everything I’ve been working toward I already have. My job is interesting. I live in an overpriced loft in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I date beautiful women. I can buy just about anything I want.”
Emma polished off the last of her martini but said nothing.
“And then one day, I woke up, and none of it felt like what I wanted anymore.”
“Ouch,” she winced.
“Exactly. Work went from this creative, high-energy experiment to me shooting on autopilot. The women I’d enjoyed seemed to lose all their color and appeal. I felt like I was shooting—and dating—clothes hangers.”
She grimaced.
“Yeah? Imagine how I feel. My whole life revolves around photography and—” he shot her a glance. “Women. But it feels as though the interest just dried up and disappeared.”
“And you thought coming here would…” she prodded.
“If you repeat this to Summer, I will murder you and feed your dismembered body to a variety of farm animals,” he warned.
Emma scooted closer. “Tell me,” she demanded.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I thought if I came here, spent some time on the farm with Summer and the kids, that I’d remember how lucky I am and get excited about my own life again.”
Emma’s eyes were dancing with amusement. “You’re slumming it in your best friend’s life to feel better about your own choices?”
He clamped a hand over her mouth. “Why don’t you yell that a little bit louder?” he hissed, looking over his shoulder. “I just thought getting out of my own life for a bit would remind me how much I actually enjoy it.”
She pried his hand off of her face. “And you’re hoping that comparing diaper duty and working in the fields and going to bed when you’d normally be heading out for dinner and drinks is going to reawaken your creative energy and your appreciation for beautiful women?”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “When you put it that way, it sounds stupid and elitist.”
“It’s not,” Emma laughed. “It’s really not. I actually get it. I’m just trying to imagine Summer’s reaction if she ever found out that you’re using her life as a scared-straight ‘thank God my life doesn’t suck like yours does’ comparison.”
“You’re not going to tell her are you?” Niko begged.
“Of course not,” Emma replied, indignant. “I will, however, hold the information over your head and torture you with it whenever possible. It’s the right thing to do.”
“And I’m back to regretting this friendship.”
Her playful expression had something stirring inside him, something that felt a lot like interest and want.
“Well, don’t you two look cozy?”
Niko noticed that Emma recoiled from him at the chipper greeting from the woman who approached. Dressed in pinstripe slacks and a boxy blouse, the only hint that the brunette was a Blue Moon native was the peace sign belt she wore.
“Rainbow,” Emma’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “What are you doing out with the rest of the night owls?” She gave Niko’s shin a nudge with her sneaker.
Rainbow? She’d warned him about someone named Rainbow. In any other town, he’d assume that this woman was the only one. But he just couldn’t make those assumptions in Blue Moon.
Rainbow held up an empty wine glass. “Board of directors meeting ran late, so I thought I’d sneak in a chardonnay before bed. What are you sneaking in?” she asked, turning her appraisal to Niko. “Rainbow Berkowicz, bank president,” she said, extending her free hand to give Niko a firm shake. “And you are?”
“Nikolai Vulkov, visiting photographer.”
“He’s my—”
“Friend,” Niko interjected before the word “cousin” could come out of Emma’s mouth.
“He’s just visiting Summer and Carter for a few days before he heads back to the city,” Emma explained hastily.
“We’re having a post-workout drink if you’d care to join us,” he offered and enjoyed the scarlet flush of rage as it rose high on Emma’s cheeks.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to intrude on your date,” Rainbow announced with the slightest upturn at the corner of her unpainted mouth. “I’ve got an early morning.” She put her glass on the bar and walked out, whistling.
“Craaaaap.” Emma slapped a hand to her forehead. “Crap. Crap. Crap.”
“What just happened? Why are you afraid of someone named Rainbow?”
Emma dropped her hand and snatched his beer from him. She drank deeply and shot Ed a dirty look when he smirked at her.
“What the hell is going on?” Niko demanded.
Emma handed him his beer. “We just became targets.” She slid off her stool and reached for her wallet.
“Targets of what?”
Ed leaned gleefully over the bar. “The Beautification Committee.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Niko felt the weight of Summer’s judgment when he hobbled into the farmhouse’s kitchen the next morning.
“Someone got home awfully late last night,” she said conversationally to Carter, who was enjoying a cup of coffee at the island while the twins mashed bananas and strawberries between their fingers on their highchair trays.
Meadow spotted Niko and squealed a greeting to him. He booped her nose, stole a piece of banana from her brother, and limped over to the coffeepot.
“Someone’s also walking funny,” Carter observed. “We’re going to have to ask. It’s the neighborly thing to do.”
Summer nodded. “So, Niko. How was your night? Anything you want to tell us about?” She blinked her wide blue eyes in feigned innocence.
“I went to the gym.” He poured the coffee and fought the tremors in his biceps. His body felt like a tractor trailer truck carrying every flu virus known to man had hit it. He’d never had a workout decimate him like this before.
“Not the answer I was expecting,” Carter admitted.
“What did you do at the gym?” Summer prodded.
“What the hell do you think I did at the gym? Learned to macramé? I worked out and overdid it. Happy?”
Summer was unfazed. “You went to the gym by yourself in the middle of the night and pushed yourself so hard you can barely walk.” She eyed Carter. “I think we’re missing part of the story”
Playing along, Carter pointed an accusatory finger at Niko. “Were you alone at the gym?”
“I went there alone,” he hedged.
“Aha! You ran into a hot girl there and tried to impress her with your gym prowess!” Summer was triumphant in her hypothesis.
“And I’m paying the price now. Happy?”
“Did you at least get a date out of it?” Carter asked.
Niko shook his head, sipped the heavenly caffeine. “Struck out.”
“Who could turn you down?” Summer demanded. She opened a cabinet by the refrigerator and fished out a bottle of aspirin.
“Apparently the female population of Blue Moon is immune to my charm,” Niko said.
“No, seriously. Who would you have worked so hard to impress, and who would say no to all that perfection?” she frowned.
“Your husband is sitting right there.” Niko pointed to Carter.
Carter stroked his beard. “Hey. He’s right. I am right here.”
“Oh. My. God. It was Emma, wasn’t it?” Summer yelped. Meadow copied her mother’s tone and shrieked.
“Don’t worry, honey,” Carter said to Meadow. “Mommy’s just being nosey and excitable.”
“Oh, I am so winning this bet,” Summer rubbed her hands together.
“What bet?” Carter asked, plucking Jonathan from the high
chair.
“I’ve got action on Niko getting a date out of Emma.”
“How many units?” Carter asked.
“Two.”
He let out a low whistle. “Let’s hope you can pull this off, Romeo. We could use a win.”
“What the hell is a unit around here? A skein of wool?”
––—
Emma locked the front doors of the brewery behind Rupert and Lila as they headed out to their cars. For a Monday night, the crowd had kept them busy enough that Emma’s dinner was still sitting under the heat lamp on the expo line.
Julio had left her an overly generous serving of shepherd’s pie that she was looking forward to finishing over paperwork with a beer now that everyone else had gone home.
Not that the paperwork needed to be done tonight. She could just as easily come in half an hour early tomorrow if she wanted to do something… else. She’d thought of her Saturday night with Niko more often than she cared to acknowledge. And not just because of the lingering soreness from overdoing it at the gym that still had her clomping around with the grace of a drunken Clydesdale.
It also wasn’t just his sweaty form that replayed over and over again in her head, though that certainly wasn’t absent. She’d given his confession a great deal of thought, too. He was a man in the middle of an artistic crisis, or a life crisis, depending on how one looked at it.
And she had an idea on how he could begin to shake it.
Of course, that would involve seeing him again. And given her physical attraction to him, it probably wouldn’t be wise to tempt herself with more alone time with Niko.
She stared at her phone debating for a solid minute before she decided. Emma called up Niko’s contact information and typed up a text.
Hey, night owl pal. Interested in some shepherd’s pie and some unsolicited advice?
His response was immediate. Yes definitely and possibly. When/where?
Brewery. Back patio in ten.
She wasn’t setting the scene of a seduction. Emma scoffed at the thought as she lit the fire in the brewery’s patio fireplace and set up a tray stand behind the Adirondack chairs that faced the fire.
It was the warmest night of the year that Blue Moon had enjoyed since last summer, and she wanted to take advantage of the clear night sky.
Back in the eerily silent kitchen, she divided her dinner onto two plates, which she left under the heat lamp, before heading out to the bar to choose two drafts.
She trayed everything up and was carrying it out onto the concrete patio when the dark shadow of Niko appeared around the side of the building.
“A midnight picnic?” he asked, climbing the stone steps to take the tray from her and settle it on its stand.
“A friendly midnight picnic,” she corrected him in case he’d gotten any objectionable ideas since Saturday.
“Is there any other kind?”
“You have your choice of an IPA or a lager,” she said, gesturing at the pint glasses and ignoring his question.
He chose the IPA, and they took their plates to the chairs by the fire. They ate in silence for a few minutes, staring into the flames and enjoying the background chorus of crickets and frogs that sang from the fields and creek.
The inky night sky sparkled with a thousand stars. A sky full of stars was something Emma hoped she never grew accustomed to, never took for granted.
She finished her meal and leaned back to stare up. “You know how some people say that looking at the stars makes them feel small?”
Niko set his plate aside, nodded. “Insignificant specks. How do they make you feel?”
“Like I’m part of it all.”
“A significant speck then.”
She laughed lightly at the way they slid back into the rhythm of intimate conversation despite the fact that they were little more than strangers. “That’s exactly it. I am a significant speck and part of the cosmos.”
“When’s the last time you left Blue Moon? I’m worried about what they put in the water here,” Niko teased.
Emma bit her lip. She hadn’t bothered taking any of the vacation time the Pierces had generously given her. When she’d started, there’d been too much work to do, and once she’d settled in, she’d talked them into expanding into catered events, which created even more work.
“Haven’t you heard? Once you come to Blue Moon, you can never leave,” she joked.
“They do seem to want to suck me in,” Niko agreed. “Summer sent me into town for diapers yesterday, and I ended up shaking hands with half of Beckett’s constituents who all pitched in to help me pick a brand.”
“Okay, that’s weird even for Blue Moon,” Emma admitted. Usually they’re nice to newcomers but not completely smothering. That happens after you buy property here.”
“I feel like the whole town is really invested in making me like it here.”
“Sometimes in Blue Moon, it’s best not to know why Mooners do the things they do,” Emma said sagely.
“Let’s talk about this unsolicited advice you’ve got for me,” he said, changing the subject.
Emma scooted her chair around to face his. “Before I get to the doling out part, do you remember why you got into photography?”
He nodded once, gazing into the flames. “I remember exactly why and when.”
Emma pulled her knees up to her chest and waited.
“When my mom died, the funeral home suggested we pull together our favorite pictures of her so they could be displayed at the viewing.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I dug through every album we had. Mom was the amateur photographer of the family. There were hundreds of shots of me, dozens and dozens of my father and me. Christmases, birthdays, first days of school. But nothing of her.
“My father and I never thought of picking up the camera and turning it around on her. Sure, there were a handful of shots here and there but nothing that would be considered a documentation of her life. We’d lost her, and without pictures, we lost all those memories with her.”
Emma reached out and laid a hand on his arm, her heart hurting for the young man and his father.
“We’d been lucky enough to have this wonderful, amazing woman in our lives, and neither of us ever thought to document her. To capture and keep her moments. And we lost the chance to when we lost her.”
“So you became a photographer.”
Niko nodded. “I was obsessed with it. Capturing the moments where you really see someone.”
“And that’s why you’re so brilliant at it.”
He shrugged, a desolate lift and drop of his shoulders. “It’s what made me good at it. But if I’ve lost it… Why are we talking about this?”
“Because I have an idea. And you haven’t lost anything,” Emma told him.
“You sound confident in that assessment.”
“You’re just having some kind of creative crisis, and it’s something that most artists struggle with from time to time.” At least, she assumed it was. She didn’t exactly have any strong data to back up her theory. “These stagnations usually occur right before the artist breaks into a higher level of their art.”
“I get the distinct impression that you’re bullshitting me.”
Emma waved away his concern. “Bear with me here. You haven’t suffered a physical trauma that would impact your skillset, correct?”
“I have not yet been kicked in the head by a cow, but Summer did let a goat chase me yesterday.” He shuddered at the memory.
“Traumatic, but your issues began before Clementine. Are you suffering from a drug problem? Mental illness?”
“No, and I don’t think so.”
“Then I think we can assume that your creativity hasn’t just collapsed in on itself leaving you with nothing but a black hole of nothingness,” Emma continued.
“You’re sure we can assume that?” Niko eyed her.
“Of course we can. You’ve still got your eyes and your shutter-pushing finger. What we need to figure out is how
to get you back to the point where pictures were about capturing moments.”
“And how do we do that?”
“My dad and Phoebe’s wedding is coming up.”
“Oh, no.” He was already shaking his head.
“They don’t have a photographer.”
“Uh-uh. I don’t do weddings.”
“You did Summer’s,” Emma countered.
“That was different. She scares me, and she made me do it.”
“You not doing weddings is the whole point,” Emma said in exasperation. “We can’t just shove you back into some fashion photo shoot. We have to take you out of what’s familiar to break whatever psychological crap you’ve got going on. Which means you need a new challenge.”
“I’ll admit that has the potential to make sense, but I don’t think adding the pressure of documenting the happiest day of someone’s life is going to help me break out of my shitty mental funk.”
“This isn’t some bridezilla who needs fifteen bridal albums of Photoshopped bliss. It’s Phoebe and my dad. They’re just thrilled to finally tie the knot. We can use that to help you.”
“We?”
It was Emma’s turn to shrug. “Friends helping friends.”
Niko rubbed his hand over the stubble on his jaw.
“Look,” Emma tried again. “My dad and Phoebe have been looking forward to this day for a long time coming. It’s the blending of two families. It’s the beginning of new history. You’re going to have moments out the ass to capture,” Emma told him.
“Exactly! This is a big deal. What if I say yes, I shoot it, and I have nothing but lifeless crap to give them because I now suck at photography?”
“Drink your beer, Nikolai,” Emma ordered gently.
He picked up his glass and sipped morosely.
“Look,” she began. “They didn’t want all of the traditional fuss. They just want to celebrate their special day with friends and family. You’re not going to be doing group portraits and wrangling ring bearers. You’re going to tote a camera around and capture the moment my dad sees his new bride for the first time. You’re going to shoot me and my sisters crying like babies when we stand up there next to our dad and all of the Pierce kids running amuck. You’ll have fun doing it. And that’s the point. Take the work out of it and just let it happen naturally. Just see what you find behind the camera.”