He brought me home for Christmas, but even there, we pretended we were just good friends acquainted through S&S. His mom had noticed my ring, but I did the oldest trick in the book, and pretended like I hadn't heard her so I could avoid a direct lie.
Lane and I had secretly kissed a total of five times over the months, And believe me, I was keeping count, because each time, it became more and more difficult to stop kissing him and just go on with my life like I wasn't madly in love.
It was now late February, which meant we only had five-and-a-half months left. I was counting the minutes, but it helped that the documentary had premiered the week before, and I had been extremely busy with that.
Those of us who starred in it had a spot on the Today Show earlier in the week, which was a dream come true since I knew all my friends in their respective beauty shops and the other artists at S&S were all watching it live.
As it turned out, the viewers of the documentary became fans of my train series. Just last evening, I auctioned twenty-one of the paintings, and they went anywhere from six to twenty thousand dollars each, which meant I made almost two hundred thousand in total. Of course, that was before I paid taxes and the gallery's commission, but still, it would be a pretty hefty little pay check, and it was a far cry from ten and twenty dollars at Fran's.
I was too nervous to watch the action, so I had no idea who bought them all, or what price was paid for which painting. I didn't want to know any of that because I thought I might overanalyze that type of information, and try to conform my art to the more popular pieces.
Lane told me the price ranges and the overall total, but he didn't give me any other details just because he knew I didn't want to know. I knew it had gone well, and I knew I had a monumental payday coming, but that was about all.
Either way, it was cause for celebration, and that's just what I was doing. In fact, I was supposed to leave in fifteen minutes for a nice dinner with a few of the people I'd become closest to at the collective.
Lu was finishing some things at the front desk, and Macy and I were both standing in the gallery, talking to her. Macy had moved out of S&S just after we finished shooting the documentary, but we had just seen each other the week before when the documentary crew came in for the premier, and we decided to meet again for dinner to celebrate my auction. At that point, we didn't know how it would go, but thankfully, it had been a success, and I was excited to take my friends to a nice dinner. I wanted to thank them for being so inspiring and wonderful to me.
There were six of us going, including myself and Lane, but so far, it was just Lu, Macy, and me, and we were standing by the desk, talking. There were two people browsing in the gallery, but they were occupied and far enough away that they couldn’t hear us.
It seemed like a completely normal evening, and that's why I was utterly shocked when Rhett Newman walked into the gallery, looking angry.
"Good," he said, seeing that I was standing by the desk as he walked inside. "Maybe you can tell me where those last three paintings are."
It took me a second to figure out what he was talking about, and even then, I wasn't sure. I gave him a cautious glance. "Are you talking about the train series?"
Rhett looked at me like he thought I was being dense on purpose.
"Are you?" I asked.
"Of course I am!"
"Do you think I want a series, minus three (cussing) paintings?"
"I didn't sell those paintings as a series," I said, feeling my face turn hot as I spoke.
"Yeah, I know, and it was a hassle to buy them one by one."
He interjected some profanity in his statement, and my heart started pounding in a horror movie way when it dawned on me that he was saying he bought more than one of that collection—specifically all of them.
"I watched the auction site all night, waiting for the missing ones."
"I'm not selling them," I said, feeling sick at the thought that Rhett might have bought all of the others.
"What do you mean, you're not selling them?" he asked.
"I mean they're not for sale."
I saw Lu cautiously take the phone off of the receiver and push the button to ring Lane's office, all without Rhett noticing.
"I'm keeping them," I said, just so my voice would make enough noise to drown out Lu's movements. "They weren't sold as a set, I made that clear before we auctioned them."
"I'm buying them as a set, though. They're stupid alone."
Again, profanity was spewing everywhere, and I felt hot blood rush to my face at his aggression.
"Okay, that's enough," Macy said, stepping in.
"Just tell me how much you want for them, and we'll settle on a price," he said. "I want the collection, and I know we can come to an agreement on the price of the last three."
"Zoe already told you they're not for sale," Lane said from behind us.
I turned to see him walking toward me at a good clip. He glanced at me to make sure I was okay, but mostly kept his gaze focused on Rhett who let out a long string of cuss words aimed at Lane. There were literally more cuss words than other words in the sentence.
"You need to leave," Lane said.
Rhett looked at me. "Just say your price and give me those other three," he said. "The collection is (cuss) without them."
I glanced at Lane with an expression of fear and found that he had glanced at me just in time to see me do it. He looked at Rhett with a warning glance.
All twenty-four paintings were hanging in a line on the front wall of the gallery, and Rhett shifted to look at them. "Here they are right here." He looked back at us. "I want them all. They should be a set. This is stupid."
"You knew they were separate pieces when you bought them," Lane said.
"That doesn't change the fact that I want them all."
"You're not getting them."
"Then no one is," Rhett said.
The next segment of time felt very surreal. It all seemed to happen in this horrible version of slow motion. All at once, Rhett grabbed something out from behind his back and turned to begin walking toward the front of the gallery. My first instinct was that he was grabbing a gun, so I already had my shoulders crunched up and my arm over my head when I saw that Rhett was heading toward the collection instead of us.
Lane was already halfway across the gallery in pursuit of Rhett by the time Rhett made it to painting number one with his can of spray paint.
All of the females standing behind the desk shrieked or yelled in some way, as we watched it all unfold. It was like one of those nightmares where you couldn’t make your legs work right to run away from an enemy, only this was real life, and it was toward him I wanted to run rather than away. I was so stunned that I just stood there and watched as Rhett held the can in front of painting number one and began tagging it with neon orange spray paint.
I was helpless to do anything but watch him.
I was gawking at the orange paint as it hit my artwork when everything came to an abrupt crashing stop. Lane barreled into Rhett with the skill and precision of a linebacker. They toppled to the ground in a heap, and I cringed, praying Lane would emerge the victor. I instinctually covered my eyes, watching through my fingers. They rolled and struggled, but Rhett slipped out from under him and got to his feet.
"Seriously, thank you for doing that just now," Lane said, breathlessly. "Because it gives me an excuse to…"
Before Rhett had time to react, Lane hit him with a left-hand hook to the jaw. Lane used his whole body, pivoting at the waist before following through in a devastating blow. Something, some spit or a tooth or something, came out of Rhett's mouth on impact, and he stumbled to the ground, looking dazed and hurt. He grasped around for a nearby pedestal to get his balance, but he was definitely stunned.
"The police are on their way, and everything that just happened is on video, so that was pretty stupid. I'm actually glad you did it, you big moron. You're done here. You screwed yourself. We'll be pressing charges. Any contract
s we were under are now null and void. These paintings are no longer for sale—not to you, anyway. By the time we put them back up for auction, they'll be worth three times what you were gonna pay for them."
Just then, a police cruiser pulled up with its lights on. I absentmindedly wondered who called them, and assumed Lane did it somehow since he knew they were coming.
Rhett took off running. He busted through the front door before Lane caught up with him, tackling him to the ground again just as they made it outside.
The next half-hour or so went by in a surreal blur. Accounts were taken and charges were pressed, and just like that, the police were gone with Rhett in the back seat of the cruiser. Before he left, the officer gave Lane his card in case he had any questions or needed anything else.
Macy, Lu, Mia, and my friend Justine had all been planning on joining Lane and me for dinner. Macy and Lu had been present when it all went down, but Mia and Justine both showed up after the police had already arrived. Macy had been catching them up on what happened while Lane dealt with talking to the police.
Lane and I were the last ones outside, and we came back in to find all four girls staring at us. Macy started it, but one by one, they all applauded Lane for his bravery. He had been dressed nicely before everything went down, but something about tackling a person to the ground twice and engaging in hand to hand fisticuffs could reek havoc on one's attire. His shirt was stained and torn, and he had a scrape on his jaw that looked painful and handsome at the same time. He was perfectly disheveled, and I felt like a rockstar walking in next to him with everybody cheering for him.
"Oh, my gosh, Zoe, thank goodness you invited Lane to come tonight," Lu said. "What would we have done if Lane wouldn't have been down here?"
"She would never forget to invite me," Lane said. "I'm the one who told her she should plan a dinner in the first place.
"I didn't think she was gonna leave you out," Lu said. "I just meant it's lucky you were down here."
The police had taken pictures of the painting, and I had seen the damage already, but it was lying on the desk when we came over, and I looked down at it. It was number one, the one I had been planning on keeping for myself. I felt so mad that it was ruined, but I smiled at Lane who had come to stand right beside me.
"I'm sorry I didn't get to him sooner," Lane said. He was speaking to me with a certain tenderness that I knew didn't go unnoticed by the girls.
"You did amazing," I said softly as I shifted to stare up at him. He was standing so close to me that my face was less than a foot away from his, and I took in the scrape on his jaw. There were four people staring at us, but there was no controlling myself from touching his cheek near the place where he got hurt. "Did you get this outside?" I asked.
He nodded and smiled, and we stared at each other like nobody was watching. I heard someone clear their throat, but neither Lane nor I broke eye contact.
"I'm sorry about number one," he said.
"I'm not. How often in my life will I get to witness those kinds of heroics? I'll just paint it again. We have me doing it step-by-step Bob Ross style on Netflix if I forget."
"I loved that episode," Lane said. He broke eye contact with me to glance at the girls, who were listening to our every word.
"Are you two in L-O-V-E?" Mia asked, teasing us in a way that said she thought we'd deny it.
"Yes," Lane said. "We are. And I think it's about time we go ahead and own up to it. It's gonna mean Zoe moving out of the house, but that's fine. We'll figure things out. It's better than pretending."
I smiled and nodded at him, knowing as long as I was with Lane, things were fine.
Chapter 20
Some of the other artists had seen or heard the commotion with the police and were drawn downstairs out of curiosity. They waited till after the police left to come downstairs, so everyone rushed in just after Lane had confessed to Lu and the others downstairs that he and I were together.
We got interrupted so abruptly, that he and I went back to our business-like relationship by instinct. Lane explained what had happened to a big group of people in an impromptu S&S meeting before everyone went back to what they were doing, leaving the six of us in the gallery again.
"I say we still go to dinner," Macy said. "I'm starving, and Lu can get us in at the restaurant where her hubby's eating."
Lu shrugged guiltily at me. "I was gonna suggest going to one of Sarah's restaurants." (Sarah was Lu's best friend who had married a prominent local restaurant owner named Collin Ross.) "Joe's over there right now, and Collin would see that we have the royal treatment."
I glanced at my train painting—the one with a huge, messy, drippy spray paint streak right across the middle. "I'd love some royal treatment," I said.
Macy clapped her hands together. "Let's do it."
Lu hooked up an amazing evening for us after that. With a couple of phone calls, she secured us a big round booth in an exclusive section of Collin's trendiest restaurant. Our decision to eat there was convenient for several people in our group. It was good for Lane because Joe was a software guru, and Lane had been meaning to get with him about some questions regarding an S&S gallery app. Lu liked the plan because she loved her husband and was happy to have dinner with him, but she didn't set it up for her own sake or even Lane's—she did it for the other girls in the group (mainly Macy). You see, Joe happened to be eating dinner with a friend of his, and this friend happened to be a heartthrob television star named Ethan Prescott.
So, the six of us, along with Joe and Ethan, were now sliding into a sweet corner booth at a place called The Purple Pea.
"How dare they! There's not a single pea on the menu," Mia said, picking up the menu and shaking it like she was outraged. She had gotten to her place at the table way before I did, so I hadn't even noticed the pea discrepancy. Lu explained something about the chef's last name being Pearson, but I wasn't really paying attention.
Lane and I hung at the back of the pack while everyone else filed into the booth and scooted to their places. I went in before Lane, leaving him as the person sitting on the edge. Lu was sitting on my other side, and I was so accustomed to ignoring my feelings for Lane, that I scooted really close to Lu and left lots of space between Lane and me.
He didn't ask me to scoot closer. Instead, he just took his hand, put it on the other side of my thigh, and manually moved me toward him. I looked at him with a smile, and he grinned and shook his head at me like I should have known better than to sit that far away in the first place. His sweet expression made me feel all lovey-dovey and I buried my head in his chest, rubbing my cheek against it for a second.
"Oh, my goodness, this is so cute," Lu said.
I sat up to glance at her, while still leaning against Lane.
Lu stared at us like she was really contemplating something. "I swear, on the documentary, when you told that story of someone you loved buying that easel for you, Lane crossed my mind. I don't know why. Did he get you that?"
I looked at Lane who nodded in answer to Lu's question.
"Wait, did you know Lane before you came to S&S?" Mia asked.
"No," I said.
Mia shook her head. "I'm lost."
"She didn't have the easel when she came here," Macy said. "She didn't have anything. I remember, because she had to borrow some of my paints. Remember, she told about that on the documentary."
"Yeah, but I don't remember the easel," Mia said. "For some reason I thought your easel was old."
"It is old," Lane said. "I got it from an antique dealer."
"Yeah, but when did you give it to her?" Mia asked, still looking confused.
"Mia, they've been in love this whole time," Lu said, slapping her hand to her forehead and making us all laugh. She looked at me as everyone continued laughing and talking amongst themselves. "I didn't see it with you two in the gallery. You did a good job of keeping your distance… but for some reason when I watched you telling the story about the easel, it was Lane who crosse
d my mind." She stared at Lane and me with a small smile, and I could tell she was taking us in as a unit. "I can totally see it now. And I'm starting to remember little things I should have picked up on."
"I knew it all along. I knew you two were in love from the very beginning," Ethan said in a serious, overacted way, from across the table. He had never met either of us before, thus he was totally joking, and we all cracked up at him.
"Even the gorgeous Doctor Morgan Craig knew about it?" Mia asked, referring to Ethan's character's name on the hit television show Bad Medicine. She fanned herself. "Wooo, I think I have a fever," she added. Mia was a little high-strung in the first place, and adding a celebrity to the mix obviously made it worse.
"She'll settle in once we get some bread in her stomach," Macy said, patting Mia's back and making us all laugh again.
Lane got a call from Theo, and because it was the first chance he had to talk to him since the whole thing went down with Rhett, he excused himself so he could talk to him in private.
Lu and the others asked me all sorts of questions about my feelings for and relationship with Lane. I went for the truth, telling them that I had been in love with him since day one and that the only reason I even agreed to hang out with Rhett at all was because I thought there wasn't a future for Lane and me. I even went so far as to tell about the promise ring, and the girls thought that was so sweet that they asked me to pass it around the table so they could all look at it.
I really had no idea if Lane was okay with me being so open, but he was gone, and they were firing off questions. It was by instinct that I gave honest answers, and it was only after I answered questions about it the whole time he was gone that I wondered if I had said too much. I felt like he was coming into a different scenario than he had left.
Lane had changed before we left, and I smiled at how handsome he looked as he approached. He always dressed nice, even when he was off work. He had on jeans with a button-down shirt tucked in with a belt. He walked toward me, looking like a dark-haired, light-eyed angel. I blinked in a secret apology that had him furrowing his eyebrows at me.
So Much for Boundaries (Shower & Shelter Artist Collective Book 3) Page 14