I just needed to keep on hydrating, make it through the rest of the day, and go home to sleep this off, I told myself. As long as no customers came in and bothered me, I could hopefully pull this off.
The morning drifted by, mercifully free of intrusions or old ladies tromping into the gallery and breaking the silence with their loud questions. As lunch approached, I started to hope that maybe, just maybe, I'd manage to make it to the end of the day, get past my hangover, without interruption.
Just as this thought popped into my head, however, I heard the ring of the bell above the front door. With a groan, I lifted my head up from the desk's surface, plastering my best attempt at a fake smile on my face to greet whatever senior citizen had decided to step inside.
But instead of a white-haired senior citizen, a slightly rotund man in perhaps his middle forties, well dressed, with sharp, strong features, stepped inside. He gave me a nod, and I frowned at him. Something about him looked strangely familiar...
He kept on holding the door, and I saw a second shadow approach from outside. I instantly recognized this second newcomer as he stepped in through the door.
"Richard!" I exclaimed, hopping up to my feet. The sudden motion made me wince at how my view shifted alarmingly, but I managed to suppress the faint urge to vomit from the rolling motion. "It's good to see you again! What brings you in here?"
"Well, this guy does," Richard replied, nodding to the first man, the one with the strong and strangely familiar features.
I turned my attention back to him, trying to figure out how I knew him. He had black hair, tangled and dense but recently shorn short. He also had a thick but short-cropped beard, trimmed to a dense rectangle around his chin and reminding me vaguely of an Amish patriarch. His face didn't look like it normally spent much time smiling, but his lips turned up every time that he glanced over in Richard's direction, looking almost shy...
And then, like a bolt of lightning, the connection finally clicked in my mind.
"No," I gasped, feeling my eyes widen as I stared at him. "It can't be - de St. James?"
"Perhaps you should just call me Dean," de St. James nodded, as the smile that had been dancing around his features finally broke free of its bonds and stretched into full life.
"I- but- you look-" I couldn't even finish a sentence. What had happened? When I'd last seen de St. James - Dean - just the afternoon before, he'd been a wreck, unshaven and dirty and wild-haired, practically a shell of a man! I could barely reconcile my mental picture of the artist with the smiling, shyly happy man who now stood in front of me. Just by cleaning himself up, he'd made himself look years younger.
"He looks much better, doesn't he? I certainly think so," Richard commented, stepping over to de St. James. As I goggled at both of them, Richard reached down and slid his fingers into de St. James' hand, holding it tightly. The smile grew even wider on de St. James' face as he held onto the fingers of his partner.
"You two - you're back together?" I finally managed to get a question out. "How? I mean, how?"
de St. James glanced down at his feet, looking a little self-conscious, but Richard showed no such reservations. "I don't know what happened, to be honest!" he confessed, moving forward and leaning on the counter. "I was sitting at home, reflecting on our conversation from that afternoon, and wondering if I ought to give Dean another chance, hoping that he might still be doing alright. And then, you'll never believe who called me, right at that moment!" He turned around and beamed at de St. James. "It was like fate!"
"But why?" I asked, turning to look at de St. James. "I mean, when I left yesterday afternoon, you were telling me that it just seemed so hopeless!" I hastily glanced over at Richard. "Not your relationship - I mean yes, but I wasn't putting you down - that is, not really-"
"Don't worry," he cut me off, his smile never wavering. "Dean told me everything. He told me how, in talking with you, he'd realized just how much he missed the idea of the two of us together, how much he still cared about me and how he'd realized that it was his fault that we didn't work out."
de St. James nodded, holding onto the hand of his partner like he couldn't bear to imagine letting go, even for a minute. "And Richard told me that he'd still been thinking about me, too, after all this time. I'd convinced myself that he'd already moved on, that I had no one left - and he was there, waiting for me, the whole time."
"The shaved, cleaned up version of you, mind you," Richard jumped in, reaching up and playfully tweaking de St. James' beard. "I don't want to see you ever wear a bathrobe, not after finding you in that disgusting, ratty thing! How long had you been wearing that dreadful excuse for clothing?"
"Too long," de St. James replied immediately. "And if you don't want to see me in a bathrobe, I'm sure that will be okay." He grinned wickedly, and Richard burst into laughter as he pretended to slap at him.
After a moment, de St. James pulled his eyes away from Richard with an effort, turning back to me. "Anyway, when I got out of the shower-"
"His second," Richard cut in primly. "And I had to go get that anti-flea shampoo they use on dogs."
"Oh, shut it, you. Anyway, after I got out of the shower this morning, Richard told me that you'd called and left me a message. Something about some papers that I needed to sign?"
"Oh, yes!" I exclaimed. I paused. "I mean, if you're still interested in letting the gallery here carry your art? I know that you said yes to me yesterday, but that was before..." I paused, not sure how to politely state that, when de St. James agreed, he'd been deep in depression, to the point where I feared for his safety.
"Before I called Richard," de St. James finished my sentence for me. "I think that's all we need to say. I was at a low point, and I was fortunate enough to make the right choice."
"I'll say," Richard murmured back, as the two men turned and smiled into each other's eyes, the rest of the world - including myself - clearly nothing but background noise to the two of them in that moment.
I waited patiently for the two of them to come back down to the real world before I provided the necessary papers for de St. James to sign. "If you want to take them home, read them over, negotiate on any of the terms," I started, but he waved a hand to cut me off.
"Not necessary. Besides, you certainly completed the three tasks that I assigned to you - especially that third one." His hard face once again spread into a smile; it still looked strange to me, seeing a smile on his cleaned-up face. "I'd happily agree to whatever terms you want, after what you did for me."
A minute later, he handed the papers back to me, his signature scrawled across the bottom of each page. "And some other good news," he added. "I've got quite the backlog of pieces that need to get moved out of the house."
"That's right!" Richard jumped in, practically bouncing up and down on his toes as he beamed at me. "To make room for me!"
"Oh! Congratulations!" I clapped for them, as Richard leaned in and dropped a kiss on de St. James' lips. "You two are moving in?"
"Well, clearly someone has to take care of this guy," Richard commented, reaching up and ruffling de St. James' hair. I heard the bell to the front door ding behind them, but I couldn't take my eyes off of the happy gay couple. "And I need you to take a bunch of these sculptures out of the house, so that I can find enough room to move around in there!"
"I can definitely help with that!" I agreed, smiling as I thought of the possibilities for promotions. We could hold some sort of gala event to announce that we'd added de St. James as a new artist to our gallery, invite all sorts of local celebrities and business owners, and hopefully get some high-profile sales. We could also write up the event, get notifications in local papers, which could bring in even more interested customers...
Speaking of customers, hadn't someone else come in? As I collected the signed papers back from de St. James, I leaned past the two gay men, trying to see who'd opened the door.
Sure enough, another man had entered. Not a customer, however.
Carter smi
led at me as he slipped a pair of sunglasses off of his gorgeous, chiseled face. "Hey, Becca. How are things going?"
Chapter Twenty-Six
*
For a moment, looking past de St. James and Richard at Carter as he stood just inside the front door to the gallery, my mind went blank. He was here. He was talking to me, smiling at me, like nothing was wrong. What was going on?
Had I hallucinated last night? Had he somehow not seen any of my messages? Maybe he'd decided that I'd been suffering from temporary insanity, and had just deleted all of the texts I'd sent him without reading them.
I realized at this point that I'd been standing behind the counter and looking at Carter for several seconds without saying anything. Even de St. James and Richard were frowning at me, wondering what was going on. I hastily opened my mouth, not at all sure what to say.
"You're here!" I finally exclaimed, well aware that this greeting lacked a certain something. "Um... I've been calling you for a while!"
"You have?" Carter frowned. "Oh, I'm sorry - I've actually had quite the exciting last twenty-four hours, and not in a good way."
Next to me, de St. James cleared his throat. "You know, the two of us should be going," he stated, although I saw Richard wince. Clearly, de St. James' partner wanted to stick around and listen in, but the artist wasn't having any of it.
"Oh, but it sounded like such juicy gossip!" I heard Richard protest faintly, as his partner seized his arm and dragged him towards the front door. "We can just duck into the other room!"
"Just call me with whatever details you decide on, Becca," de St. James shouted, and then the front door closed after the two of them. Carter and I were left alone, standing in the front room of the Halesford Gallery.
I stared across at him, two competing ideas grappling for control inside my head. Part of me wanted to berate the man - why hadn't he called me back? Why had he ignored all of my messages and texts, only to now come strolling back into the gallery and casually greeting me? Was he trying to send some sort of message?
The other part of my mind, however, wanted to jump over this counter between us, lingering hangover be damned, and throw my arms around him. He'd come back! He wasn't going to just keep on ignoring me, break up with me and never see me again! My window of opportunity hadn't yet closed!
"You... did you get my messages?" I finally asked, still trying to make up my mind as to how I wanted to handle this situation.
Carter, however, just shook his head. "Nope. That's been part of the excitement." He stepped forward and set a shopping bag on top of the counter, pulling out a brand new smartphone, still in its box, from inside. "I'd forgotten how it feels to be cut off from the world, without a cell phone. It's certainly different, but I'm not eager to experience it again."
I frowned, the words not making sense. "What happened?"
"What happened is that I'm a clumsy oaf," Carter answered, rolling his eyes. "Yesterday afternoon, I tried to hop over this big puddle in the gutter with my cell phone in my hand. Instead of landing gracefully like I intended, however, I caught my foot, nearly ate asphalt - and my phone slipped right out of my hand to sink to the bottom of that gutter."
"Oh no!" I exclaimed, clapping a hand to my mouth. "And it was ruined?"
Carter nodded ruefully. "The guy at the phone store told me that the SIM card is still okay, so I don't need to deal with getting everyone's contact information again, but the phone itself was totally beyond saving. Water damage everywhere. I spent the next several hours waiting impatiently at the store as the guy called every single other place in the area, trying to find a location that still had my particular model in stock." He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Eventually, they found one, but told me that the phone wouldn't be in until this morning."
"So you just got..."
"Yup." Carter pulled the new phone out of the box. "Haven't even turned it on yet. So I'll probably get your message now, several hours too late." He held down the power button, and then glanced over at me as the phone booted up. "What did you want to talk to me about, anyway?"
"I, er..." I had a tough time trying to talk as I stared at the loading screen of the smartphone in Carter's hands. Suddenly, fractured memories of texting him last night came rushing back, and my eyes widened in panic. "Carter, wait!"
"Hmm?" He glanced up at me, but his eyes dropped right back down to the device in his hands as it started buzzing. "Whoa. I must have missed more than I realized - my phone's lighting up with text messages."
"No!" And, before I realized what I was doing, I'd jumped over the counter, trying to grab the phone out of Carter's hands!
I nearly made it. My fingers closed on empty air, just an inch short of the phone in his hands. Instead of snatching it away from him, as I'd intended, I had to flail my arms to hold onto the counter and keep from face-planting on the floor on the other side.
Carter looked down at me as I picked myself up from the floor, his eyes confused. "What's going on?"
"Put the phone down!" I burst out, still seized by the grip of panic.
He blinked in surprise, but reached out and set the still-buzzing phone down on the counter. It made a rattling noise as it continued to dance its way against the counter's hard surface.
"There, done. Now will you tell me what's going on?"
"I..." I paused. What could I say? "I sent you a couple of messages last night that I kind of regret. Can you let me see your phone, please?"
Carter, however, just grinned, sliding the phone further along the counter, out of my reach. "What kind of regretful messages? Pictures?"
"No, of course not!" I yelped. Right? To be honest, I couldn't remember if I'd sent him any incriminating photo evidence or not. I didn't think that I'd normally consider doing anything like that, but maybe after most of a bottle of wine, I might have convinced myself that a well-angled shot of my attributes might be enough to get him to call me back...
Carter kept on looking at me, perhaps trying to decide what to do. I glanced over at the phone sitting on the counter, wondering if I could surreptitiously scoot closer to it so that I might be able to snatch it away, but it was just a bit too far out of reach.
I sighed. "Come on, Carter, please. I don't remember what I texted you, but it's not going to be pretty."
He put his hand on the phone - but paused before offering it to me. "Is it about us?" he asked quietly.
"What? What do you mean?"
"Us. You and me. What we might, or might not, have together." His voice was low and steady, but the look in his eyes had shifted from joking to one of quiet intensity. "I know that you didn't want to talk about this before, but I think that we need to address it."
"And you think that now is the best time?" I asked.
"When we last had dinner, you told me that you needed more time." He shrugged. "You've had more time. Got an answer for me?"
"You really need one now?" I asked, trying to think. I did want to talk to Carter about this, I did, but I couldn't focus, not with that phone and whatever embarrassing, drunken messages might be hiding on it so close to me!
He nodded. "I'm tired of being strung along, Becca. And if holding onto this phone is the way to get you to talk to me, well..." He trailed off, but the implications of the rest of the sentence were clear.
"And you're going to use your phone as leverage to make me talk?" I couldn't believe this. I really did want to talk to Carter about where we stood, but this didn't feel like the right way to approach the topic.
For a moment longer he just looked at me, but then finally dropped his eyes with a shake of his head. "No, I'm not," he answered. He picked the phone up off of the counter, looked down at it for another second or two - and then held it out to me.
I darted forward and grabbed it out of his hands before he could change his mind. Even without unlocking the phone, I could scroll through all of the loaded but as of yet unread messages, and I already found myself wincing.
"That bad, huh?" he asked, leani
ng in a little and craning his head, perhaps trying to read some of the texts displayed on the screen despite them appearing to him as upside down.
I didn't say anything back, my eyes locked onto the long list of messages that I'd sent the man over the course of the previous night. Had I really texted him this many times? The messages ran the gamut from short fragments all the way to long and rambling sentences, with a horrible mishmash of spelling and grammar mistakes, as well as more than a few auto-correct errors. I even saw a few voicemail messages, and although I didn't want to listen to them right now with Carter standing in front of me, I didn't doubt that they were just as embarrassing as anything I'd written in text form - maybe even worse.
I opened the phone and quickly hit the button to delete all messages. "Are you sure?" asked a little pop-up, and my finger started towards the YES button - but then paused.
I looked up at Carter. "You really want to talk about us right now?" I asked him.
He shrugged, but a little smile flickered about his face, momentarily breaking up the serious look. "Seems like as good a time as any," he answered.
My gaze dropped back down to the phone. The idea that had popped into my head seemed crazy, almost certain to end in disaster. But at the same time, there was something very tempting about it, and I couldn't shake the strange feeling that, even though it all but promised to end in tears and more drinking, it was the right move to make.
"You realize that I'm crazy, right?" I asked him. Out of nowhere, I felt tears threatening to break out, and I sniffed a little as I reached up with one sleeve to dab at my eyes. "Like, really crazy?"
"Aren't we all?" he replied immediately, his smile growing a little bit wider. "We're just all looking for someone whose craziness happens to mesh well with our own."
Try as I might, I couldn't see Carter as crazy, unless maybe he insisted on occasionally wearing socks to bed or something. But that didn't hold a candle to the craziness that filled all the text messages on his phone, still in my hand. The "delete all" confirmation prompt was still open, just beneath my finger. It would only take a single tap to sweep it all away...
Sculpting Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 2) Page 16