by Lexy Timms
“Already on it,” Bryan said as he heaved the new window into place.
“I’ll make sure of it, Offic—I mean, Mike.”
“What I suggest is you go home. Put up a sign for anyone who comes by to let them know you’ll be closed until the investigation is done. Get it repaired, get your head right, and then have a grand reopening. Come back stronger than ever. You’ve developed quite the reputation in this city. People will come out to support you.”
“Thank you, Mike,” I said as tears rose to my eyes. “I’ll take all of that into consideration.”
I watched as the man walked out of the gallery. Bryan was finishing up the window, sealing it in place before he came back inside. I could feel his eyes on me as his arms wrapped around my waist, and in an instant, his finger was underneath my chin and raising my eyes to his.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“Because we’d just talked, Bryan. We’d just had that conversation. I didn’t want to do or say anything that would push you further away.”
Tears tracked down my face, and he pulled me into his body. He held me tightly while I closed my eyes, trying to block out everything that was happening. I felt numb and on fire at the same time. I felt heavy with regret and burning with anger at the same time. Bryan’s hands ran up and down my back, trying to quell my shaking body while his lips bathed the top of my head with kisses.
“Come on. Let’s get you back to my place. I’ll get you set up, and then I’ll come back with another guy and start on some other things,” Bryan said.
“You sure there isn’t anything I could do to help?” I asked.
“Hailey, all I want you to do right now is rest. Let me do what I do best, so we can get you back in business, okay?”
I pressed a small kiss to his chest before I allowed him to lead me out to my car. I followed him back to his house, my mind swirling with a number of different things. Why would Max do something like this? What was he so angry about? By the way he talked, I was the only platform outside of the internet that was selling his paintings. Why would he go and destroy something like that?
But all those questions flew from my mind the moment Bryan tucked me back into his bed. He kissed my cheek before he smoothed the hair from my face, and I smiled up at him.
“Get some rest. I’ll be back this evening with dinner,” he said.
“Stay safe, okay?” I asked.
“Always,” he said. “I’ll always stay safe.”
Chapter 23
Bryan
I called up Drew and told him what happened. I enlisted his help to get the gallery cleaned up as best as I could and was settled with how quickly it came together. Drew brought some things from our company warehouse to use, saying we could write it off as a donation. I had him start on filling the hole and taking care of the indentations in the wall while I scraped the paint off the floor. Then, I set to fixing the counter before I threw the ruined paintings in the dumpster behind the gallery.
It made me sick to throw these things away, even though I knew they couldn’t be salvaged.
Drew and I worked through lunchtime, letting the filler to fix the holes dry so we could paint the walls. I pulled the door Drew had brought from the warehouse, making sure it would fit before I fixed the seal around it. It was almost three o’clock by the time I got the doorframe fixed and the door replaced, and by that time, Drew had opened up cans of the cream-colored paint Hailey had on the gallery walls.
“If we double-team this paint job, we can finish this sucker up tonight,” he said.
It sounded like a good enough idea to me, so I grabbed a roller and got to work.
Every once in a while, I texted Hailey. I could tell she was still upset, but more so because none of her paintings could be salvaged. She was relieved that she didn’t have to alert any of her outside artists that their paintings had been ruined, but I could feel the heaviness of her heart radiating through her text messages.
I wanted to get home to her as soon as possible.
“Why don’t you call her?” Drew asked. “I got this shit, man. Ten more minutes to let it dry, another coat, and this thing’ll be done.”
“You sure?” I asked.
“Yeah. Go. Call her, dude.”
I dialed Hailey’s number and was relieved when she picked up. She didn’t sound like she’d been crying or anything, and I smiled as my name rolled off her tongue.
“Hey, Bryan.”
“Hey there, beautiful. How’re you feeling?” I asked.
“Tired. Hungry. Want me to fix something?” she asked.
“Nope. I want you to stay in bed and rest. I’m driving by that Korean barbecue place to get us something to go.”
“The place where we had our first date,” she said.
“That’s the one.”
“How’s everything coming along?” she asked.
“That’s actually the good news. I got Drew over here to help me. In about ten minutes, we’re gonna slap one more coat of paint on the walls, and you should be back in business whenever you wanna be.”
“Wait, are you serious?” she asked.
“When you’ve got men who are skilled like Drew and me, fixes like this don’t take long.”
“How much do I owe you two?” she asked.
“We’ll talk about that later, but it most certainly won’t be two thousand dollars.”
“Oh my gosh,” she said breathlessly. “Bryan, I’ve got absolutely no idea how to thank you.”
“I know one way you can start,” I said, grinning. “Call Jennifer. Pitch her that story. We still need to get up and running for John’s showcase.”
“I can do that,” she said. “I’ll call her right now.”
“Let me know what she says. And Hailey?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s all going to be all right. Okay?” I asked.
“Okay.”
I hung up the phone and walked back inside to help Drew with the last coat of paint. We set up a box fan to sit overnight on the wall so the paint would dry quicker, and I made a mental note to come back for it in the morning. Drew and I studied our handiwork, impressed with how quickly we got all of this cleaned up and back in tip-top shape.
Then, Drew looked over and asked the one question I knew he would.
“I take it the two of you are doing better now?” he asked.
“We’re doing just fine,” I said, smiling.
“Good. Because Anna’s moved into town, and I wanna hit her up.”
“What?” I asked.
“Yeah. Ran into Anna at the store the other day. She looked radiant, man, a lot happier than she was back in July. But I didn’t wanna call her or anything because of the bad blood between you and Hailey.”
“Why’d she move into town?”
“She said something about starting over, but I didn’t really catch it. Her eyes are too pretty, dude.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, grinning. “Well, you have fun with that. I’ve got to pick up dinner for Hailey and me.”
“Get outta here, man. Go. I’ll lock this place up,” he said.
“Thanks, Drew. Seriously.”
I strode to my truck and got in right as Hailey called again. She seemed frantic, rattling things off a million times a second as I held my phone to my ear.
“Wait, slow down, Hailey. Start from the beginning,” I said.
“Don’t get dinner yet. We have to go to the police station,” she said.
“I’m on my way,” I said as I pulled out into the road. “What’s going on?”
“They pulled the footage from that camera across the street this afternoon. They want me to come take a look at it. I was hoping you’d go with me.”
“Of course, I’m on my way home now.”
“I also called Jennifer,” she said.
“Oh, really? What did she say about the story?”
“She loves the angle, and she’s going to run it. She’s even going to keep John’s death
out of it. She’s only going to mention he’s a posthumous artist.”
The smile that spread across my face matched the one I knew Hailey had spreading across hers.
“That’s fantastic news,” I said. “I’m about fifteen minutes away from you.”
“I’ll be standing outside when you get here.”
The moment I pulled up into my driveway, Hailey slid into the seat of my truck. For all the stress she’d been under and all that had taken place today, she looked incredible. I took her hand and brought it to my lips, kissing her knuckles as her smile bloomed.
“Let’s take a breath before we get going, okay?” I asked.
We sat there collecting ourselves while the sun slowly set over the houses of San Diego. Hailey’s thumb was tracing small circles on top of my skin, and every single hair on my body was standing on end. I knew there would never be a point in my life where I wouldn’t crave her, where I wouldn’t want her every second of every day in my life.
“You ready?” she asked.
“Yeah, are you?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
We arrived at the police station, and Mike was there to greet us. He led us over to a computer with a black and white picture pulled up onto the screen. It was a close-up of Hailey’s gallery with a man who looked to be kicking in her front door.
The anger I thought I’d squashed quickly rose up my throat as Mike pressed a few buttons.
“I’m going to back it up a bit. Take your time, Miss Ryan. Let me know if you recognize this man,” Mike said.
She backed it up and played it a few times while her eyes darted across the screen. The man was gangly and tall, with long limbs and a thick head of hair. The picture was a bit grainy, but higher quality than I’d expected from a telephone pole camera in the middle of a run-down part of town. The more Hailey backed it up and played it, the more I got the sense she was trying to digest more than she was trying to figure something out.
And the saddened look in her eye told me she knew who it was.
“Hailey?” I asked as I rubbed her back. “You know who that is?”
She swallowed hard and my heart lurched for her. Tears rose to the rims of her eyes as her fingers reached out for the screen. She was dancing over the picture of the man, her fingertips stopping right at the man’s hands.
“His rings,” she said breathlessly.
“His rings?” Mike asked.
“That’s Max Wentmore,” she said. “I know that’s him. His rings, I’ve always seen him wearing them whenever he comes in. That’s who that is.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I know it’s him,” she said as she turned her watering gaze toward me.
“Where does he work?” I asked.
“Bryan, just calm down. We’ll handle it from here. We’ve already questioned him and—”
“Where does he work, Hailey?” I asked again.
“Bryan,” Mike said.
The look in his eye was serious, and I drew in a deep breath through my nose.
“We questioned him today. We now have a reason to bring him in, so that’s what the police will do,” he said. “You hear me?”
Hailey was looking up at me with her desperate eyes, her hands curling around my throbbing fists before she raised up and planted a kiss on my cheek.
“Let’s go home. I’m hungry. We can pick up some food on the way back.”
My gaze sat heavily on Mike’s face as he rolled his shoulders back.
“Sounds good,” I said as my lips kissed her forehead. “We can cuddle up and watch a movie.”
“Sounds like a solid plan,” Mike said.
“You keep us updated on everything,” I said. “And I mean everything.”
“Miss Ryan’ll get a phone call every step of the way. Our next step is to bring Mr. Wentmore in for questioning,” Mike said.
“Let’s go home,” Hailey said again. “Please?”
I wrapped my arm around her and ushered her out of the police station, no longer capable of standing there and being told I couldn’t do anything. My body was humming with anger and a nasty taste for revenge. I wanted that asshole to know exactly who he’d messed with. How dare he treat Hailey with that kind of disrespect? How dare he attempt to destroy one of the only other spaces he was advertising his artwork in?
Who the fuck did this guy think he was?
I held Hailey’s hand as we drove through a fast food joint and got ourselves some dinner. We hunkered down onto the couch as I spread a blanket over us while the television mindlessly droned in the background. I had to press Hailey to eat something before I could even think about eating myself, and by the time she got her dinner done, she was already closing her eyes and falling asleep against me.
At least she still felt safe with me, and I’d do anything and everything I needed to in order to make sure it stayed that way.
Chapter 24
Hailey
Things were slowly settling back into place. The police arrested Max for vandalizing the gallery, and we ended up figuring out that he was simply jealous. He was going to be responsible for paying for the work Bryan and his company had put into fixing my gallery, plus he would have to reimburse me for all the paintings he destroyed.
Honestly, it wasn’t shocking to me when I figured out it was him. Art can both inspire and consume. When an artist feels their art isn’t striking the population the way they wish, it can sometimes drive them crazy. Art has a way of bringing people together as well as dividing the masses in times of war and famine, and every time Max walked into my studio I could tell he was allowing his obsession with becoming famous consume him.
I knew I shouldn’t hold his jealousy against him, but part of me was incredibly relieved he was no longer going to come around anymore.
Jennifer Skyles ended up running the story, but there ended up being a catch. Even though she told us she wouldn’t state the fact that John had explicitly died of an overdose, she did insinuate that’s what happened. The article was wonderful until Bryan and I read that John died “because every man will always have his weaknesses.” It wasn’t overt, but for an article that already stated the fact that drug thugs were after me, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.
I was shocked at how well Bryan took it, though.
He told me it was more important for him to know the truth and for people to see John’s art than it was to try and blast the truth to the masses. I still had a hard time swallowing the fact that the story had been run with something like that in it, but when I saw the interest the story was already garnering for John’s formal showcase, my anger slowly subsided.
Things sort of felt as if they were back to normal, though Anna was finally moving out. She’d found a place of her own on the other side of town, and she was excited to be moving closer to her part-time job as well as her vocal coach. Bryan and I were helping her move a few things into her apartment, and I was trying not to think about how lonely my place was going to be now.
But Bryan’s question pulled me from my thoughts as he set a box down on Anna’s new kitchen counter.
“Could I ask you guys a question?”
“Sure,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Question? We talking? Hold on.” Anna slammed down the box she refused to let Bryan carry and sat on it to catch her breath.
“You good, diva Anna?” I asked.
“Okay. Got it. Let’s go. Question time,” she said breathlessly.
“The last time I had dinner with my parents was just under a couple weeks ago. Usually, I have dinner with them a couple times a month, but the last time we were together, it was sort of finite.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Describe, good sir,” Anna said.
“I simply told them how I felt about how they dealt with John’s death, how my father’s monetary success changed them, and how I didn’t want them to contact me until they could apologize for how they’d acted and to not c
all me for dinners any longer.”
“That’s probably why you haven’t heard from them then,” Anna said.
“Wait, you told them all that?” I asked.
“Not in so few words, but yes. They kept taking digs at the life I was leading and the life Drew was leading and the life you lead now, and I sort of ...”
“Snapped? Got triggered? Raged out and flipped a table?” Anna asked.
“Something like that,” Bryan said.
“Honestly? I’m not sure we are the best people to talk to. Neither of us is on speaking terms with our parents,” I said.
“Not even Anna?” he asked as he looked over at her.
“Not since quitting my perfect job and moving out here to San Diego, no,” Anna said.
“I have no idea how the hell parents can be the way they are sometimes,” Bryan said.
“If it’s any consolation, you get used to it,” I said.
The look on Bryan’s face as his eyes bounced between Anna and me made me sick.
“Does this mean I get a question in return?” Anna asked.
“Good. I’m finally glad you’re asking someone other than me,” I said.
“What does that mean?” Bryan asked.
“She wants to know how Drew’s doing,” I said, grinning.
“I mean, you tell me. He says he ran into you in the store a week or so ago,” Bryan said.
“Wait, he asked about me?” Anna asked.
“You so have a crush,” I said, smirking.
“I do not. I think he’s a good person. He’s the first decent man I’ve met in a while. All the men in Phoenix just want to grope you underneath the table at the first date,” Anna said.
“I don’t know. It’s what I did to Hailey,” Bryan said, grinning.
“No, you did not. You groped me after,” I said.
“Well, those are things I didn’t need to know. Thanks,” Anna said.
“You started the conversation,” I said.
“And we derailed it,” Bryan said, smiling.
I knew Anna liked Drew. I could see it in her eyes. She’d come home from the store ranting about how she saw him and how she gave him her number. But, he hadn’t called or contacted her yet. I told her it was probably because Bryan and I were still on bad terms, but now that we had patched things up, I knew Anna was waiting by the phone in case he called.