She burned through the other paintings, eating them up like they were the sweetest treat imaginable. She couldn’t resist, her appetite for them was insatiable. I couldn’t wait to share the news with Niko.
But when I got to the door, he looked pissed. He was holding his mobile, his eyes fixed on the door, burning a hole through it, through me. Something had happened and I could feel my breath coming in short.
“Malynda called,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Yeah?” I said, suddenly nervous. “Shit, what did she say?”
“Said you were brilliant,” he said. “Absolutely loved you.”
“You’re kidding?” I exclaimed. “Ah! I thought it had gone well but didn’t expect her to call you so soon, this is so fucking exciting.” I put the canvases down by the door and got myself inside. “She was great Niko, honestly, I had no idea she was going to like them so much. I thought she’d maybe like them a little bit, give me some feedback, tell me what I could do to make them better, but she really went crazy for them.” I caught sight of his face again. “Why aren’t you happy? Has something happened? What else did she say?”
“Not much,” he said, a light chuckle coming through that didn’t quite translate to his face. “Just that she liked you a lot and couldn’t believe that you were my neighbor and what a stroke of luck, or fate, whatever, that we’d ended up living next door to one another.”
“What?”
“Is that all I am to you, Slater?” he shouted. “Am I just your neighbor? Or am I your lover? Or your fated mate? Which is it today, because I’m starting to get really fucking confused and I don’t like it, not one bit.”
“What are you talking about?” I couldn’t get my bearings, like the entire world had been knocked of its axis in that moment.
“Are you just using me?”
“Where the fuck is this coming from?”
“You told her I was your neighbor, Slater, I am not your fucking neighbor, I haven’t been your neighbor for the last month!” he barked, tears bursting from his eyes and rolling down his face. But these weren’t sad tears, these were angry tears.
“That’s what I said to her because I wasn’t sure what you would have told her about us,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking, all I was really thinking was that I didn’t want to put you in an awkward position if she didn’t know. I was going to wait for her to mention it but she didn’t so, when she asked how we met I told her we were neighbors, which we were when we met. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing so I went with the closest version of the truth that I had. We didn’t talk about it before I left so I-”
“So this is my fault?”
“No, Niko, that’s not what I meant.”
“Oh my god.”
“What the hell, Niko, aren’t you happy for me?”
“Happy for you?” he echoed. “How can I be fucking happy for you when you seem so determined to leave me behind.”
I couldn’t believe this was happening, my entire perfect life that had been falling into place just a few moments ago was slipping through my fingers and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. It was like holding onto smoke, it was just disappearing into the air.
“Niko, please, listen to me,” I said. “I didn’t want to hurt you with this. That’s not what I meant to do, I just didn’t want to say the wrong thing. I wanted to tread carefully on that part of the conversation so that she would still want to exhibit my paintings. I couldn’t lose this opportunity.”
“But you’re more than happy to lose me?”
“That’s not what I said!” Why was he twisted my words like this?
“Look, I don’t know if I can even be around you right now,” Niko said, wiping his face on his t-shirt. “I need to be somewhere else.”
“Niko, you have to believe me, I don’t want to hurt you,” I was losing footing, scrambling to stay on my feet. “That’s not what I wanted at all. You’re my mate, my partner, my fated, don’t do this.”
“If I’m all of those things then why doesn’t Malynda know that?” he said, his voice so quiet it barely reached across the now cavernous space between us. “You’ve reduced me to nothing more than your neighbor, minimized our relationship to the point where I’m starting to thing it didn’t even exist for you in the first place.”
“Niko, no, I-“
“That’s how it feels for me, Slater,” he said. “So I’m going to go.”
“What? Where? Back next door?” This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t let this happen. “Niko, don’t do this. I want you to stay here, I want you to live with me. God, I said that already. I said it a long time ago. I want you to be here, with me.”
“Not next door,” he sighed. “Somewhere else, I don’t know, Nyle’s maybe.”
He walked away from the living room and to the bedroom. I followed him, watching from the doorway as he pulled open drawers and piled his things into a bag.
“Niko, please don’t do this,” I said, walking into the room and reaching for the rucksack. “Don’t go.”
“I’m going, Slater, I’ve made up my mind,” he growled. “Let me go.”
“I’m not letting you go,” I shouted. “How can I let you go?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You tell me.”
He closed the rucksack and left the bedroom. I heard him grab his keys off the counter, the scrape of the metal on the countertop sounding so harsh, so final. Then the door slammed and I felt my heart shatter in my chest.
My legs crumpled beneath me and I found myself sat on the edge of the bed, staring out the open door, the front door only just in view. I willed it to open again, willed Niko to have changed his mind and decided to come back.
Come on Niko. Come on Niko.
But nothing. It stayed closed and I felt the tears coming to my eyes. How could this have happened? How could it have unraveled so quickly and so out of nowhere?
I’d hardly gotten a chance to breathe, hardly gotten a chance to tell him what was happening, what I was feeling, how I hadn’t done any of this to hurt him, but he wouldn’t hear it. It had all fallen apart before I’d had a chance to stop it. Before I’d opened that door it had been so perfect, we were going to be okay, more than okay. I was going to have a family and be able to provide for them, now where was I? I was alone.
Some kind of energy managed to overtake my body and I stood up, crossing the apartment to the studio where I reached for my headphones.
No I thought to myself. Today is not the day for headphones.
I turned on the speakers and started playing Soft Cell, the bass shaking the walls, the high pitched hits pinging around my brain, around the room, bouncing off of every window.
There was already a canvas set up and I attacked it with the paint like I never had before, going at it with an energy I’d never felt before, one of heartache, one of heartbreak, one of love, one of hurt, and I just kept on painting. Red mixed with black which mixed with pink and purple, neon splatters of bright amid a canvas of darkness.
I lost track of the time, lost track of how many layers it took to remove any trace of the white canvas, of the light in the dark, but I kept going, the song on repeat until I felt worn out, spent by the whole thing.
I cried. At some point the tears had just started rolling down my face, white hot tears of frustration, of anger, of pain, and I just let them. I stepped back to take in my masterpiece. Tainted Love. That seemed about right.
16
Niko
So maybe I’d overreacted a little bit. It was only in the next day or so that I realized I flew off the handle a little bit. But I knew I’d made the right decision to get out of there. I’d had to do that. I needed time somewhere else to collect myself, to try and put the broken pieces of my head back together. I hoped that Slater understood that and wouldn’t hold it against me. I struggled with all of this. So much had changed all at once that I couldn’t seem to get my footing.
“Good morning,” Nyle said as he came
down to the kitchen.
“Is it?” I grunted, not looking up from my phone. Why hadn’t Slater called yet? Didn’t he care that he was safe? I thought he would have called to apologize by now. I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to do that, I hadn’t done anything wrong. Oh, apart from maybe the overreaction part.
“Wow, someone’s in a good mood this morning,” Nyle replied, grabbing himself some coffee. “Look, I’m not trying to tell you how to be or anything, but how long are you going to be in this standoff with Slater?”
“Why, do you want your spare room back?” I sniped.
Nyle slammed his coffee cup on the counter. “Okay, that’s it,” he growled. “It’s been days, Niko. Look I love you, you’re my brother and I would do anything to help you out when you’re in a bind, but right now you’re getting on my last nerve.”
“Oh am I?” I growled back. “Sorry my pregnancy and the breakdown of my partnership is inconveniencing you so.”
“You’re ridiculous,” he snapped, taking a long drink of his coffee. He took a deep breath before he returned his eyes to me. “Look, you and I both know this is childish. You’re in a stupid fight with him and you need to get over it. You need to actually talk about it instead of flying off at him and trying to tear his throat out..” He sighed coming over to the kitchen table to sit with me. “I will help you whenever you need, you know that, but I am getting a little bit tired of saving your ass all the time when you’re supposed to be a grown ass wolf. When you were a teenager, that was fine, I was more than happy to do it, but now you need to start taking responsibility for yourself. The club was one thing, this is so much bigger than that and you need to fix it.”
He was right. I knew he was. I needed to do something so that Slater knew that I cared. Maybe I just needed to apologize. It was so unlike me. Apologizing wasn’t really part of my personal brand.
“How is the club?” I asked, feeling a little guilty that I’d pretty much abandoned him with an empty DJ slot. He didn’t seem to mind but the fact that he’d brought it up told me perhaps it was burning a little more than he’d like to let on.
“It’s fine,” he said. “Custom is still good and I’ve got Seph covering until you come back. If you want to come back that is, but Seph said he would be more than happy. Some shit about ‘what are best friends for?’ that was so cheesy I wanted to throw up.”
Nyle couldn’t keep the smile off his face when he mentioned Seph. It was sort of sweet. There was an alternate universe somewhere where the two of them just got over themselves and made it work. They would have been perfect together.
“That’s great,” I said. “I’m…” Let’s try it out huh? “I’m sorry I totally abandoned you.”
“You did not abandon me,” Nyle soothed, putting a hand on my forearm and squeezing it tight. “The only problem you gave me was finding someone who was half as good as you to cover.”
“Is Seph any good?”
“He’s all right,” Nyle shrugged. “But he’s not you, and you know that, stop fishing!” Nyle took a deep breath. “Is there any particular reason you’re feeling extra tense today?”
I shook my head. “No,” I lied.
“It wouldn’t happen to be anything to do with the exhibit at Artscapia tonight, would it?”
I blinked. “How did you know about that?”
“An invite came through the mail,” he said. “I’m obviously a prominent enough member of society that I get to go to such things. That and the fact I know Malynda pretty well.”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” I said. I couldn’t believe how fast everything was moving for Slater. I’d hardly blinked and he was part of a show at Artscapia. I mean, it was totally my fault that it had happened but that didn’t stop it from knocking me for six. I wanted to go. I had to go, didn’t I? I couldn’t just not show up. That would be enough to kill our relationship entirely. At least if I showed my face, we’d have a chance.
“Are you going to go?” Nyle asked.
“I have to,” I breathed. “I can’t not go, Slater would know it was me deliberately avoiding him.” I took a deep breath. “And I want to support him. He’s worked so damn hard for this opportunity, and he’s so good Nyle, you should see his work. It just makes you feel things. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain but just wait, you’ll…what?” He looked at me funny, a goofy smile on his face, a cheeky twinkle in his eye.
“Nothing,” he said. “But you should just see your face when you talk about him, you’re all lit up like a fucking Christmas tree, it’s adorable.”
“So you think I should go?” I asked.
“If you want to go, you should,” Nyle replied. “I mean, not that you really want or need my opinion, but you’re totally right that it would be a bit of a punch to the face if you didn’t show up at your fated mate’s gallery opening or whatever. That would be a dick-move for sure.”
“But I don’t have anything to wear,” I groaned, leaning my head forward on the table. I heard Nyle sigh.
“Is that a really bad attempt at a hint?”
“No,” I replied, raising an eyebrow at Nyle. “Is that a really bad attempt at an offer?” The truth of the matter was, I didn’t have a single thing to wear tonight one: being totally broke and having no income whatsoever; and two: being pregnant enough that any of my nicer clothes just didn’t fit. “Okay, fine, it was a bad attempt at a hint. Please Nyle, I’m broke and I want to look nice.”
“We’ll rent you a tux.”
“Do they do paternity tuxedos?”
“You’d better hope they do,” Nyle quipped.
Niko took me down into Howling Hills to a small, boutique tuxedo store he knew would have just the right thing for me. I tried on quite a few outfits, probably more than was entirely necessary, but it was sort of nice to spend an afternoon with Nyle where I wasn’t annoying him and he wasn’t pissed at how unbearable I was being. We actually got on sometimes and it reminded me of how close we had been when we were kids.
When I stepped out in a simple black tuxedo, the shirt tailored to my bump, the jacket hanging undone at my sides, I saw Nyle’s face light up. He grinned so broadly it infected me and I found myself smiling too.
“That one looks great on you,” he breathed. “Really. It’s…I don’t know, paternity chic.”
“Paternity chic?” I repeated, looking in the mirror. “God, you can tell that you run promotions for a club, look at you trying to sell me on this!”
But he was right. I did look pretty good in this one. It seemed to hug me in all the right places without making me look boxy and really freaking pregnant, which I was.
He appeared in the mirror next to me, looking at me and my bump, that smile still on his face.
“What?” I said.
“You look very handsome,” he said. “And I’m very proud of you.”
“Gross, stop it Nyle-“
“No, shut the fuck up, Niko, I am,” he interrupted. “Let me be proud of you, okay? You’re doing the right thing going tonight, trying to fix your relationship. You’re being a grown-up.”
I snorted. “Don’t say that, I’ll change my mind.” But the smile on his face didn’t waver, didn’t vanish, it remained and gave me a sort of strength I didn’t really know I possessed. “Thanks, Nyle. And thank you for doing this.”
He shrugged. “It’s my pleasure. Now, let’s get this rented and get you down to that ball. You’ve got a mate to catch.”
17
Slater
I paced nervously outside Artscapia down in Howling Hills. I’d been here for most of the day, setting up the paintings and making sure that all the paintings were in the right place and told the right story when you walked through them. Even as I said it in my head it sounded stupid, but Malynda had said it was essential to draw them in at the door and hide a really big gem nearer the back so people walk around the whole exhibit. It struck me that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
Niko was on the guest list, al
ong with his brother Nyle. But it was Niko’s name that really stood out, like it was screaming on the page. I didn’t care if anybody else came, really, I just wanted Niko there. This was the biggest night of my life and everything between us felt so broken between us I wasn’t sure he would show up. Fuck I needed him here; my heart called out for him, aching for him to come back.
I pulled my phone out and wrote a quick text, firing it off to Niko before I had a chance to change my mind or overthink it. Hey Niko. I know its been radio silence on my end but I wanted to say I was sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said. I don’t know what came over me. Please come tonight. I need to see you. I can’t do this without you. Xx
I didn’t sign it. He shouldn’t have deleted my number. If he had, then he had already dipped out of this and there was just nothing I could do about it.
Fishstick started weaving around my ankles, covering the cuffs of my trousers in white and black hair, purring intensely. He always knew when I felt stressed out or panicky. So naturally he’d been spending an awful lot of time rubbing himself up against me recently. Even if I didn’t have Niko, at least I had Fishstick.
I’d brought him along tonight for moral support, and to maybe steal some hearts of his own and help me sell some paintings. His black and white fur already looked like he was wearing a tuxedo; I’d just added the sparkly red bowtie so he looked extra fancy, which he did.
“You ready to see your adoring public, Fishstick?” I asked. He looked up at me, his face open, kind, sweet. Perhaps I was reading too much into it, but I swear my cat understood me better than most people. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
I stepped into the main gallery to find it already teeming with people, men in black tie, women in gorgeous dresses that trailed all the way to the floor. Fishstick jumped up into my arms.
“Fishtstick, I don’t think we’re in Furbitten Falls anymore,” I whispered, grabbing a glass of champagne off a passing waiter. “Thank you,” I said as he skittered away. I looked at the glass, my hand was shaking, I needed to get my shit together, this was not acceptable.
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