The Genius and the Muse

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “Do I look like Dr. Phil? Work this shit out, Reed.” His voice lowered and took on a more serious tone. “You two have dealt with worse… just work it out, man.” He paused again and Kate heard Reed’s voice, calmer and sounding more collected. “Yeah… call me tomorrow. Not too early.”

  She parked in front of Chris and Dee’s house and waited for him to finish his call. When he finally snapped the phone shut, he turned and looked at her with a grimace.

  “I am not Dr. Phil.”

  She shook her head seriously. “No, you’re not. You still have all your hair… for now.”

  He just rolled his eyes and walked over to grab her hand. Suddenly, he stopped on the walkway and pulled her in for a fierce embrace.

  “Javi—”

  “Please don’t ever try to protect me by not telling me things, Katie,” he said quietly. “Do you understand?” He pulled away and looked into her wide blue eyes. “I don’t ever want you to not tell me if something’s not okay.” He frowned as he smoothed a strand of hair away from her face to tuck behind her ear.

  “Fair enough. Same to you.”

  Frowning a little, he nodded. “I know we’re not… I mean, we’re not them, but—”

  Kate cut him off with a gentle kiss. “Nothing wrong with learning from your friends.”

  Javi cupped her cheeks with his hands and placed a lingering kiss on her lips before he backed away, taking her hand in his and walking up the path.

  “Boring Chris.” He sighed. “He’s going to end up talking all night about the thrill of capturing the two-toed horny woodpecker in its natural habitat or some shit like that.”

  Kate suppressed her laugh. “Shut up and be polite, you cranky old man.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Crestline, California

  November 2010

  Reed could see her bundled in a blanket and sitting on the end of the dock when he pulled back into the clearing in front of the cabin. His immediate thought was that it was too cold for her to be sitting on the water like that, but then he imagined the scathing comment she would make about him being “overprotective” and decided not to say anything.

  Instead, he walked up to the porch and grabbed another blanket before walking out to join her. When he got close enough, she turned and he could see the tear tracks on her cheeks.

  “I thought you were going to Javi’s.”

  “He said he’d kick me out if I showed up. I think he likes Kate more than me now.”

  Reed saw Sam’s mouth curl up a bit at the corner, and he went to settle next to her. Instead of sitting, he lay down on his back with his head almost at the edge of the dock so he could look into her face while he looked at the stars.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, looking down at him. “I should have told you.”

  “I’m sorry, too. I hate to think of you going through that alone.”

  “I wasn’t al—”

  “Sam,” he bit out. “You’re making excuses.” It hadn’t been her cousin’s responsibility to help her through her depression. It had been his, and it was going to be a while before he wasn’t mad at her for hiding it from him.

  He had spent their first week back together apologizing for kissing another woman, something he still felt guilty about, but it wasn’t until she had confessed the depression to him that Reed had felt the true cost of their separation. He felt concern first, then a resurgence of grief, and tonight he had finally reached anger.

  “How would you feel, Sam? If you knew I had gone through something like that and not allowed you to help me?”

  “I’d be angry,” she whispered, nodding as she looked across the cold lake. “I’d be—”

  “Furious. You’d be absolutely furious.”

  She sighed. “I know.”

  They both stared into the dark night around them as they processed their thoughts.

  “I can’t apologize anymore, Reed. I can’t. I feel like we’re going through the same arguments over and over. I messed up. You messed up. We both messed up. A lot. We’re both guilty. We both assumed things. We’re both stubborn about listening to our friends. So what do we do? Do you want to move past this? Or is this it?”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “You heard me. We have to forgive each other… really forgive each other, or just say goodbye.”

  “Forget that,” he snorted.

  “What?”

  Reed reached up to grab her chin so she had to look at him. “I lived four years without you like some kind of zombie. I’m not letting you go again. We were both miserable.”

  “Fine.” She reached down to frame his face with both hands. “Then I forgive you, Reed O’Connor. For everything. And I apologize for hiding things from you, and for running away instead of trusting you. And I don’t want to ever bring it up again.”

  He placed one large hand on hers to hold it to his cheek when he responded. “I forgive you,” he said in a hoarse voice. “And I’m sorry for breaking our trust in a foolish moment. I’m sorry for letting you go too easily and not seeing what you were going through. And I don’t ever want to bring it up again, either.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay… but you have to promise not to hide stuff from me.”

  “And you have to promise not to wrap me up in protective packaging when you get scared.”

  He nodded. “I can do that.”

  “Okay. No hiding stuff. And no bubble wrap.”

  “Sounds fair.” He finally smiled. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  They sat quietly in the moonlight for a while longer, Reed cradling Sam’s hand against his face as he looked at the stars, and Sam staring out at the dark tree line.

  “I want you to move back to New York,” he whispered.

  Sam looked at him and tried to pull her hand away, but he pressed his hand over hers more securely and refused to let her break contact.

  “You came here to heal,” he persisted. “You’ve healed. Don’t you think it’s time to move forward?”

  “I love this place,” Sam blinked the tears from her eyes. “I have a life here. I have family, I have—”

  “You’re alone. Hiding. Just like I’ve been.” He sat up and angled his shoulders toward her. “You’re in the middle of nowhere, and I’m surrounded by people, but we’re both still alone. You love this place? Fine, we’ll come back. We’ll spend summers here. God knows it’s nicer than Manhattan in August. But Sam”—He hugged her to his chest—“aren’t you ready for the people again?”

  She closed her eyes and leaned into his embrace. Reed’s memory flashed through a thousand mental pictures of her in the city they had loved. Sam laughing with Lydia in a cafe wearing a cappuccino foam mustache. Sketching a busker in the subway as the musician danced and grinned. Sitting with an old man, smiling and tossing crumbs for pigeons in Central Park as Reed snapped pictures. He remembered flashes of her stretched out on the bed in their studio as the afternoon sun poured in through the high windows and made her skin glow like she was lit from within.

  Reed held her, willing her to remember as he did. “Please, Sam, I need you back. I can’t go back without you.”

  Finally, her hand lifted and stroked his temple, as if maybe she could see the pictures in his mind’s eye. He held her close, relaxing into the anchor of her touch. Reed felt her pull away from him, but her hand remained stroking his hair. When he finally looked her in the eye, he smiled.

  “Yeah,” Sam said, “I think… maybe I am ready.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Pomona, California

  March 2011

  “Katie!”

  Javi called toward the back corner where he had seen Kate heading to work.

  “Yeah?” she called back.

  “Where are you?”

  “In the back by the pipes. Why?”

  He rounded the corner where he saw the glow from the light kits she had set up. Kate was in the corner sitting inside a giant concrete pipe he ha
d salvaged from a building site. She was curled up and only wearing a thin t-shirt and a pair of panties with the camera trained on her. He uttered a muffled groan when he saw her; his reaction toward her bare skin as strong as the first time he’d seen it, eight months before.

  She sat up in surprise as she spotted him out of the corner of her eye. “Hey,” she called, but the movement left her off balance, and she toppled over backward.

  “Oh, shit!” she cried.

  Javi rushed forward, panicked by her sudden fall. “Kate?”

  He heard her small voice from behind the pipes. “I’m okay. I pulled a mattress back here 'cause it happened before. I’m not hurt. Just… sort of stuck.”

  Relief flooded him when he heard her, quickly overtaken by the hilarity of the situation, as he burst into laughter.

  “It happened before?” he gasped. “What have you been doing back here?”

  “It’s that layering thing I was talking about. I do the same pose wearing… you know what, just shut up and help me get out of here.”

  Still laughing, he looked around where she had her equipment set up. He was hoping the camera was on a timer and had captured that fall.

  “Uh…Javi? A little help, please?”

  “Yeah, I’m working on it. Do you have a blanket or something? So you don’t scratch your legs up?” Marring her perfect legs would be a crime.

  “No. I have my jeans over there, but there’s not really room to put them on, I’m sort of wedged—”

  “Okay, just…” Still snickering, he walked over and peeked through the pipe to the other side where Kate was wedged between the corrugated wall and the pipe. “Hi there.”

  “At least you didn’t call the ambulance this time.”

  “I just thought about calling them, Katie. I didn’t actually do it. And thought you had stabbed yourself with rebar.”

  “As fascinating as this conversation is, can you maybe get me out of here?”

  “Hold on,” he muttered.

  Javi climbed into the pipe and reached a hand down for her to take. She didn’t appear to be hurt, but there was no way she would have been able to climb out herself.

  “I think you can just grab onto my arm and—”

  “Yeah, I think I have it. It’s a good thing you’re so strong,” she said breathlessly.

  Feeling a little bit like Superman, he felt her fingers wrap around his bicep, and he tried grasping her arm, only to brush up against what felt a lot like a pert breast. He heard her let out a soft whimper, and he let his fingers wander. “Hmm, is it cold in here?”

  “Help me out and I’ll let you know, you perv.”

  “You’re so mean to me.” He laughed. “Here, just grab on. Both hands…”

  “Okay, I think I have it.” Javi heard her grunt before she grasped his arm firmly, and he pulled her up toward him as he braced himself in the pipe. He lifted her with one tug, so she was lying soft, warm, and almost naked in his arms.

  Well, that worked out better than expected.

  Kate’s legs lay across his own and her right arm came up to grasp his shoulder. They were both breathing heavily, and he felt his hands grip, as if he was keeping her from escaping. Their faces were only inches apart as they sat curled in the pipe, and he could feel her warm breath on his cheek.

  “Hey,” he said, looking at her lips as her tongue darted out to lick them.

  “Hey yourself.” She wiggled on his lap and Javi groaned.

  “Clumsy, stubborn little girl…” He slowly drew her closer, and his callused hands trailed down her smooth shoulders, grazing the sides of her breasts before they rested at her waist. Kate shivered, but he only smiled, enjoying his playful seduction.

  “Cranky, bossy old man…”

  “You gonna say thank you?” Javi’s head tilted slightly, and he saw her eyes dart down to his mouth before her lips reached up to meet his own in a burning kiss.

  He was surrounded by her, his right hand reached up to grasp the hair at the nape of her neck and his fingers flexed in the warm flame. His other hand gripped her waist, dragging her into his chest. Her hands moved from his solid shoulders, up toward his neck, and she pulled him closer, pressing her body against his. Javi inhaled her soft breath and stroked her tongue when she opened to him. A soft whimper escaped her throat, and he backed away from her, only to have her pull his mouth back to hers.

  “Katie,” he murmured, as her lips left his to trail along his jaw. Her swollen mouth nibbled at his jaw, and her hands reached down his neck to spread under his t-shirt as she scratched her nails along his skin. “I swear I came back to tell you something and not just rescue you from your own photograph and fool around.”

  “Thanks, by the way.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  “Javi?” she whispered before she tucked her face into the crook of his neck and nestled there. Her fingers trailed along the orange and yellow flames that tracked up from his collarbone and covered some of the scars along his neck.

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you.”

  He smiled. “I know.”

  She looked up so suddenly, she knocked his head back against the pipe.

  “Ow!”

  “What?”

  They both spoke at the same time.

  Rubbing the back of his head, he grinned. “Did you know you talk in your sleep?”

  Kate’s mouth dropped open and her face turned beet red. “I do not!”

  He burst into laughter, unable to do anything except nod and hold her tightly to prevent her from climbing off his lap.

  “I can’t believe—how long?” She punched his shoulder when he wouldn’t stop laughing.

  “Oh…” He was still laughing. “Maybe… September?”

  He snorted when she hit his shoulder again. He was a little bit afraid she would hurt her hand if she kept punching him.

  “I’ve been saying ‘I love you’ in my sleep for over six months, and you didn’t say anything?”

  Javi grabbed her fist and kissed it. “Who says I didn’t say anything?”

  She paused, the blush rising in her cheeks again, and smiled shyly. “So… what did you say?”

  He kissed her hand again, smoothing it out from a clenched fist. “What do you think I said? You know I love you.”

  “Yeah?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Of course I do. Now, can we get out of here?”

  Kate cocked her head to the side and looked at him sympathetically. “That arthritis acting up again?”

  She squealed when he pinched her thigh, and she almost fell out of the pipe again. Laughing, Kate scrambled down and went to put on her jeans and check her camera, which was still set up. Javi watched her, thinking of any number of ways he could distract her since he was done with his work for the day and wanted her done, too.

  “So what were you coming back to tell me?”

  “Oh, that’s right.” He lowered himself down. “Reed and Sam got married yesterday.”

  Kate’s eyes lit up and she smiled. It was the same smile she got when she captured the exact light she was hoping for or completed a project she was working on. Javi loved all of her, but he especially loved that smile.

  “Well,” she said with a grin, “how about that?”

  Part Twelve: Two Lovers

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Pomona, California

  April 2011

  “It’s going to be good.”

  “But what if it isn’t?”

  “It will be.”

  “But—”

  “Kate,” Javi scowled, “why are you being like this? You’re one of the least insecure people I know.”

  Her eyes wandered around the bustling art walk on the second Saturday of April. Her first gallery show would be in two weeks at one of the bigger galleries in the Pomona Arts Colony. Lydia wanted to play up the local angle and had taken care of most of the details, leaving Kate with little to do but worry about the reception of her series of self-portraits taken
in Javi’s studio over the previous nine months.

  “It’s important. Really important, and you and Reed and Sam and Vanessa and everyone are going to be here, and because you’re all going to be there, all these journalists are going to be there, and—”

  “Do you not want everyone to come?” he cut her off. “Say the word and I’ll tell everyone to butt out and stay home.”

  “No!” She turned to him and put a hand on his chest. “That’s not it. I want you all there, it’s just the expectations. What if it’s not as good as everyone expects?”

  Javi frowned, pausing to think before he tugged on her arm to start walking again. “Your stuff’s good, Kate. Very good. But you never know. You might be right.” Kate came to a halt on the sidewalk, but he only grabbed her hand and kept walking past a group of people who waved and nodded at them both. “It’s possible the critics aren’t going to like it. Or they’ll say something nasty. Or just write something rude because they can. That’s kind of the way it works sometimes.”

  She tried pulling away from him, annoyed that he couldn’t just make her feel better for once, but he tugged her back to his side and tucked her under his arm. They continued walking through the streets, stopping at the same taco stand as they had their first night together. They sat down on a curb and Javi cracked open her drink and handed it to her. Kate leaned over, kissing his rough cheek before he gave a reluctant smile and started eating.

  As frustrating as it was, Kate knew Javi was never going to be a man who told her what she wanted to hear just to reassure her. And she could also admit it was one of the things she loved most about him. When it came to her photography, she trusted his opinion implicitly because she knew he would always tell her the absolute truth.

  “Thanks. I’m still nervous, but thanks. I know you’re right. I’m just scared.”

  “You going to stop taking pictures if they hate it?”

  “No.”