by Jolie Day
Maya chuckled, crossing her slender arms over her chest, pushing up her gorgeous tits, (I tried not to look down), as she leaned in a little closer to another painting to admire the way the “thick application of paint had created little ridges on the canvas”—her words.
“I know it’s kind of silly, but I live for the Met Gala. I’ve watched it every year since I’ve been old enough to change channels on the TV. It’s just so beautiful, and I love watching everyone showing off the costumes they picked to go with the theme. It’s like my Oscars.”
“Would you like to go?”
Maya gave me a blank look.
“To the Gala,” I added. “It’s in a few weeks.”
“I know it is.”
“The theme this year is The Celestial Sphere. Stars and orbiting moons and the blackness of space, things like that.”
“I know that, too.” Maya blinked herself out of her shocked stupor and shook her head. “Ethan, you’re pulling my leg.”
“No, I’m not. I was there last year… it’s a great time, but better if you have someone to go with. Donors are always encouraged to go, seeing as it is a fundraising event, but to be honest, I felt a little out of my league. You could talk art history with all the museum higher-ups and save me from making small talk about topics I don’t have the slightest idea about.”
“Tickets to the Gala are—”
“About thirty-thousand dollars, give or take.”
Maya just continued to shake her head, gnawing on her lips, then she turned to look back at the painting. I suspected she was doing whatever it took to avoid my eyes, and I wondered if maybe I hadn’t sprung this little surprise a bit too soon. I didn’t want to make a big deal about it and overwhelm her, but a nice invitation over dinner was better than stealing her from work and asking her out in the middle of the Impressionist gallery.
Well, I wasn’t asking her out out. It was more like… a business arrangement. A mutually beneficial social engagement between friends. Right?
“I’m sorry,” Maya said. “I just can’t accept that.”
I cocked my head. “And why not?”
“It’s exciting, all right, but it’s just… It’s too much, and I could never accept it, besides, I would feel so out of place… I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I probably couldn’t even make it through the front door without passing out. God, what would I even wear?”
“It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant. And as my plus-one, I would be happy to provide the dress, of course. I don’t expect you to have run-of-the-mill, white-tie digs just hanging in your closet.” I couldn’t help but visualize her in a beautiful midnight-blue dress that accentuated those perky tits and that perfect ass.
“Don’t you hear how crazy this whole thing sounds? Besides, people would see us together and think… well, they would probably assume—”
“Assume what? That we’re sleeping together? Good! That you were a side-chick, or a secret wife, or my long-lost sister? Who cares?”
Maya looked at me.
“Let people talk,” I continued. “I’ll warn you that the food isn’t that impressive at these things, but the cocktails more than make up for the shit food.”
But Maya had made up her mind. Her mouth was set in a determined line that appeared to let people know that negotiations were over, and she wouldn’t hear anything more on the subject.
“Sorry, but I just… I can’t. I think I’ll just catch the Gala on TV this year.”
She glanced down at her watch, and I noticed the tips of her ears were almost as red as strawberries. Had I embarrassed her? I still couldn’t wrap my head around why she would refuse. I’d never been stingy about accepting what other people offered me, but maybe Maya was one of those do-it-yourself types who cringed at anything that looked like a freely given gift, or worse—charity.
“I should get going. My supervisor will blow a gasket if I’m late getting back to work.”
I nodded once. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
She rushed back across the tiled floor with her hands stuck in her pockets, and I couldn’t help but watch the way her long hair swung above her flawless tight ass. That hadn’t gone at all the way I’d hoped. Strike one.
I pulled out my cell and dialed my interior designer, tapping my foot, waiting while the call rang through. Mira’s voice, smooth and lightly colored by a Spanish accent, greeted me from the other end. In the sea of designers that was New York City, she was one of the best and certainly the most professional.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Gladwell. How can I assist you today? Everything’s still to your liking at the apartment, I hope.”
“Everything’s perfect,” I said. My eyes drifted down the hall to catch one last glimpse of Maya disappearing into the crowd. “Actually, I was wondering if you could give me the name of a good art dealer.”
“Of course. Are you interested in antiques or something more contemporary?”
“Antiques. What do you know about the Spanish Impressionist school?”
8
Maya
Working as many shifts as possible at the café during the week was good for my wallet in the lean weeks right after I got out of school, but it was hell on my feet. My mother had always struggled with fallen arches, and I suspected I was growing into her aches as I aged. After one particularly grueling day carrying paninis to and from the café kitchen, I collapsed onto the butter-smooth leather couch in the living room of the apartment. I kicked off my cheap black flats and began to massage the aching arches of my feet. I was kicking myself for volunteering to open tomorrow and then work a double shift.
I rotated my neck slowly, trying to work out some of the tension. Then my eyes fell on a painting hung discreetly on the accent wall separating the living room from the kitchen. It was of a modest size and simply framed, but I recognized the lines of the picture immediately.
Kicking my shoes aside, I moved in breathless anticipation across the living room to the painting. Despite being out of place among Ethan’s more contemporary furnishings, the watery brushstrokes and charcoal lines of the painting blended in with the blues and grays of the apartment. I recognized it immediately as a natural scene from one of the lesser known, but no less talented Spanish Impressionists. It was a sketch, half-finished and painted-in only lightly, but it was breathtaking and beautiful.
“Ethan?”
My voice was louder than I anticipated, and it echoed throughout the apartment. Ethan appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Is everything all right?”
I could hardly speak. I looked from him to the painting and back again, mouth hanging open. Ethan settled into a self-satisfied smile and began to make his way down the stairs.
“Oh, right. The sketch. What do you think?”
“What do I think?” I ran my hands through my hair. “What do I think? Is this authentic?”
“It’s an early work by one of the artists’ students, hardly worthy of a museum showcase, but it has watertight provenance.”
He was leaning against the banister, watching me with interest. I felt a little disoriented, like the ground was tilting beneath my feet. Was this some sort of gesture meant to please me? I felt just as overwhelmed as I had when Ethan had casually brought up Gala tickets last week. The spontaneous offers or casual comments that felt so flippant coming from Ethan always managed to floor me, and I could never make out what he meant by them. Was this some kind of peace offering for skipping town on Ricky and me all those years ago? Or… some kind of flirtation?
“Is this—?” My voice sounded strained, and I tried in vain to steady it. “Is this for me?”
Ethan slowly crossed the living room toward me, admiring the painting as though seeing it for the first time. He came to stop at my side, close enough that the sleeve of his tailored sports coat brushed against my goose-pimpled arm. “It certainly can be, if you’d like. Our tour of the Met made me realize the lack of art on the walls in
here. I called my designer and asked if she could find something a bit like what we saw with her magical art world connections.”
“Do I even want to know how much this cost?”
“No. But isn’t it beautiful?”
It was all I could do to nod. I suspected I would be drawn to this painting many times over the next few days to marvel at its existence and lovingly memorize the lines of the sketch.
Finally, I managed to tear my eyes away from the piece of art and turn them toward Ethan. “I haven’t seen much of you lately.”
“I’ve been working.”
Ethan, like me, was always working, but I could see by the tired dark circles beneath his eyes, that whatever had been calling him away from the apartment so much, was also impeding his sleep. I had heard him arguing with someone on the phone over some kind of deal that had stagnated and was eating up all of his time. Even though he was careful to keep up his impervious front around me, I was concerned for his well-being. No one could live on five hours of sleep a night forever.
“Maybe you could benefit from a break.”
Ethan made a snorting sound at the absurdity of my statement, but then he glanced over to me, wheels turning behind his eyes. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. When’s the last time you let yourself sleep in, or booked yourself a massage?”
“Never.”
“There’s your problem.”
Ethan shifted, uncomfortable with this line of questioning. Was he really so averse to admitting that he might need to take a step back from his work? I wondered how long it had been since someone had checked in on him. I realized that I didn’t even know of anyone who was close enough to him to know if something was really wrong.
“I’m… not the best at taking time for myself.” His voice lowered, dropping down to a mutter. He sounded like a teenager who had been caught in a lie, arrogant but embarrassed all at once.
I cocked my head at him. “Maybe you should consider it.”
“I’m not really the vacation-day type.”
“It doesn’t have to be a whole day. It could just be a few hours. The only catch is, you have to do something unrelated to your job. And that doesn’t include reading finance books on the treadmill.”
“What do you suggest?” He raised an amused-looking brow in question.
I thought for a moment. My go-to decompression activities, going out with friends and painting my nails, weren’t really applicable here.
“Well, baking always calms me down. How do you feel about brownies?”
He glanced into the kitchen with a wary look on his face, and I couldn’t help but giggle.
“You’re not afraid of a little flour and sugar, are you?”
He smirked and crossed his arms. “Well, my baking projects have always ended in disaster. Setting off the fire alarms, scorching the inside of the oven, you know the drill. It’s not my thing.”
Something about this admission pleased me. It was satisfying to see perfectly put-together Ethan flounder in the face of such a simple activity, and even better, an activity I was good at.
“All the more reason to pick yourself up and try again.”
I patted his shoulder and slipped away into the kitchen. “We’ll start with a really simple recipe, I promise. There’s nothing to be scared of. It’s just a couple of ingredients dumped into a pan. How hard could it be?”
“You’re gonna eat your words when you see what a mess I make of things.”
I quirked a brow, holding back a laugh. “Then go put on some clothes you don’t mind ruining. I’m not afraid of getting dirty.”
Ethan looked absolutely dismayed, standing in his kitchen with my seafoam green Millennial-targeted recipe book open in one hand, a cup of sugar balanced dangerously in the other, and a dusting of flour splashed across his dark blue button-down. The sleeves of his Henley were shoved up as far as they would go, but he’d still managed to stain it sixteen ways to Sunday. I was sitting on the counter, popping semisweet chocolate chips into my mouth and offering gentle encouragement.
“All right, you’re holding a heaped cup, so you need to tap off the excess to get one true cup of sugar.”
Ethan tapped the metal measuring cup against the marble countertop awkwardly, sending a waterfall of sugar spilling across his workspace. I tried to keep from giggling, covering my mouth with my hand.
“Good enough. Now pop that in with your dry mix.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to take over?” Ethan grumbled.
“No! You’re doing fine. Besides, how are you supposed to learn if I do everything for you?”
“I don’t see why I should learn how to do all this since I have private staff to do the baking and larger cooking projects.”
“The satisfaction of being able to do something yourself and, more importantly, relaxation, remember?”
“Right,” Ethan said in a monotone voice. “Relaxation. I’m so relaxed now, Maya, thanks.”
He took a wooden spoon to the dry ingredients in his mixing bowl and gave it a couple of stirs, somehow managing to get more white powder outside the bowl in the process than he managed to keep inside it. He looked anxious and a bit terrified in his casual shirt and pajama bottoms, which he’d changed into in order to preserve his expensive day clothes, and I had to admit, it made a delightful picture.
I pushed myself off the counter and padded over to him on bare feet, chuckling to myself.
“Oh, you think this is funny?” Ethan asked me, affecting an injured expression. I didn’t buy it. There was a smile in his voice, and I suspected he was having fun, despite his protests to the contrary.
“I think it’s hilarious. Here, let me help.”
I sidled up beside him and put my hand on the spoon, grasping it just above where he was gripping it like it owed him money. His hand slipped up to wrap loosely around mine in the process, and I pretended not to notice.
“You have to keep the spoon closer to the bowl and don’t beat it so hard. It looks like you’re angry with it.”
“I’m frustrated. Baking is hard, and I suck at it. It takes subtlety and patience, and a head for chemistry, things I’ve never had the capacity for.”
“Always time to learn a new skill,” I said, picking up a dish of melted butter with my free hand and drizzling it into the dry mix. “I’m surprised baking doesn’t appeal to you, considering how much math is involved.”
“I like math as long as money is involved. Measurements and fractions, I can take or leave.”
We continued to mix in silence for a moment, and when I was satisfied with the way Ethan had relaxed into the slower speed and lighter touch, I moved away to pluck up two eggs. I spoke casually as I cracked them against the counter, careful not to appear too interested and spook Ethan away from one of his least favorite topics.
“Well, you seem to be very good at managing other people’s money, so I don’t think not being able to easily translate ounces to cups is hurting you.”
Ethan swayed toward me, lightly bumping me with his hip in an affectionate way. I bit my lip to keep from smiling. I’d been doing that around him more and more lately, but the appearance of the painting in the house had me feeling a little light-headed about him. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that Ethan was gorgeous and well mannered, and wealthy, and any girl would be a little smitten by that. Even more so if Ethan insisted on acting as their protector, as he did with me from time to time. But the knowledge that he’d really listened to me and paid attention while we were in the Museum, that he’d enjoyed one of the artists I’d shown him so much, that he had invested in a painting for the apartment… It felt like a little more than run-of-the-mill Ethan Gladwell charm. It felt quietly lavish—the sort of gesture people only extended to those very close to their hearts.
Was I close to Ethan’s heart?
Part of me was thrilled at the possibility, but another part doubted its likelihood. The only thing close to his heart, as far as I could tell, was his high-
powered career.
“Business seems to be booming as of late,” I said, still wary that he would abruptly change the subject if I got too close to asking personal questions. But he nodded with a haunted look in his eyes, as though I didn’t know the half of it.
“It’s always feast or famine in this line of work, which I’m fine with. I’ve learned to ride the crests and prepare for the shallows. But it’s the tense days on the edge of a huge payout that could go through or fall apart at any moment that gets to me the most. You have to be on 24/7, putting forward 110 percent with no guarantee of it paying off.”
“Yikes. Give me my hourly wage any day. I never had the stomach for commission work. Is that… how this all works? You get a commission for the deals you broker?”
“When I build portfolios for people or invest their money for them, yes. Or a service fee. When I’m investing my own, it’s a lot more touch and go.”
I spared a glance his way. “And what is it that you’ve been investing in?”
There it was, out on the table, along with the whisk and the baking powder. I had entered the proverbial West Wing of Ethan’s mental castle, the place where he kept the only two topics he refused to discuss: our past, and his investment ventures.
Ethan stopped stirring and opened his mouth as though to tell me that his business was his own, and private, and that money didn’t make for polite baking conversation. But then he turned back to what he was doing, blending the gooey eggs into our ever-thickening brownie mixture, his face smooth and untroubled.
“I’m a short seller.”
He might as well have spoken in Latin, as far as my knowledge went of what that meant. He stole a glance at me, eyes sparkling with mirth. It was the same mischievous light that had glimmered in his eyes when he’d revealed his career aspirations to me in his car, right before he kissed me. The memory made my heart beat faster.
“What was your guess?” he asked.
I shrugged. Honesty seemed like the best policy here. “Day trader.”