Better Luck Next Time

by Denise Grover Swank

He shrugged, trying to keep a straight face. “It’s a legit question.”

  “I’m sure Stella will be happy to tell you when you escort her to the art show.”

  “Are you coming?” Stella asked as she clomped across the gazebo’s wooden floor.

  “Uh, sure. That’s why we’re here,” Adalia said, starting to move closer, but Finn remained in place.

  One of the goats was climbing onto the gazebo, and it started chewing on a painting that was resting on the floor against a post. It was of a goat and a pig on a tandem bike that had a chicken trapped underneath its wheel. Stella seemed to ignore the animal as it chomped down on the frame.

  Adalia snagged Finn’s wrist and tugged, whispering, “You brought me here. You’re participating.”

  They walked into the gazebo, dodging goats, and got a good look at the eight other pieces that were propped up on a handrail on one side—all paintings of goats and chickens, some with a few pigs thrown in. In every painting but one, the animals were using various modes of transportation, and several of them depicted the animals in the throes of violence.

  “My art is representative of man and his war against nature.”

  Adalia thought they had more of a Planet of the Apes vibe, minus the human slaves, but art was left for the viewer to interpret.

  “There aren’t any people in those, are there?” Finn asked, whispering in Adalia’s ear.

  Fighting a smile, she poked her elbow into his stomach. She would not laugh at this woman and her work, but admittedly she couldn’t believe Dottie had recommended her. Unless her paintings sold for a lot of money…then bring them on.

  Another goat had wandered onto the gazebo and started sniffing Finn’s pants pocket. He tried to brush it away.

  “And the goats roaming around are your inspiration?” Adalia asked. “I didn’t know you could have so many within city limits.” She and Finn shifted to the other end of the gazebo, but the goat followed Finn, now trying to chew on the flap of his belt.

  “I’m sure you can’t,” Stella said, then cocked her head, “but this is my own sovereign nation. Stellaland.”

  “You don’t say.” Then, because Adalia couldn’t help herself, she asked, “Do you have your own flag?”

  Snorting, Stella said, “What self-respecting country doesn’t have a flag?”

  But she made no offer to show it to them.

  “Uh…” Finn had shuffled to the side in an effort to dissuade the goat, but it just followed him as he stopped in front of a painting that seemed darker than the rest. It showed a chicken lying on the ground with specks of blood, while a dozen or so other chickens were in the process of stabbing it with forks.

  “Oh,” Stella said, pleased that Finn was studying it. “You’ve found my favorite. I call that one Dinner.”

  Adalia covered her mouth and fake-coughed to hide a laugh. She had been exposed to all kinds of art and artistic interpretations over the years, but this was by far the craziest thing she’d ever seen.

  “Well,” Finn said, taking a step back and bumping into another goat that was chewing on a paint-covered brush. “I think we’ve seen enough.”

  “So I’m in?” Stella asked as she tried to wrestle the paintbrush from the goat’s teeth.

  “Well…” Finn shot a panicked look at Adalia, and she decided to ignore the everyone-for-themselves motto and help him out.

  As if there had ever been any doubt that she would.

  “Stella, while your paintings send quite a message, I’m not sure they’ll be a good fit for the first show.”

  “Why the hell not?” Stella asked, propping a hand on her hip as she continued to wrestle with the goat.

  Adalia screwed on her best professional face. “The first charity is for a no-kill animal shelter. I’m sure a perceptive woman such as yourself can see how some patrons might find it…slightly offensive.”

  “What?” she asked with a confused look, then rolled her eyes. “No one appreciates good art these days.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Adalia said. “Thank you so much for showing us your pieces and we’ll definitely keep you in mind for future events.”

  Stella winked at Finn. “I can wrap that one up for you if you like. All for the low price of twenty-five hundred dollars.”

  Finn’s eyes widened, and Adalia looped her arm through his.

  “He’s sworn off making impulse purchases. A little too much online shopping.” She tugged him, but the goat had a firm bite on Finn’s belt.

  Trying not to laugh at Finn’s panicked expression, she yanked his arm, pulling him free, then dragged him down the steps to the yard.

  “You’re an online shopper?” Stella screeched, as though it was synonymous with being an ax murderer.

  “We’ve got our work cut out for us with this one,” Adalia called over her shoulder.

  Then she got them the hell out of there.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “You saved my life back there,” Finn said once they were safely in the car, heading away from Stella’s goat farm slash studio of horrors. They’d walked and then run, both of them laughing (once they were at a safe distance), hands linked together. God, he’d wanted to swing her around and kiss her, but he’d silently repeated his mantra—just friends, just friends, just friends—and opened the door for her instead. “I won’t forget that. We’re linked for life now.”

  “Weren’t we already?” Adalia said, referring to the reading. They’d avoided talking about that, like maybe it was bad luck, although he wasn’t sure what it was they were trying to skirt around: the possibility Lola could be right or that she might be wrong.

  “I guess so,” he said. “But now I owe you one.”

  “Ooo,” she said, lifting up her hands and tapping her fingers together in the universal gesture of evil overlords everywhere. “I like the sound of that.”

  And if that didn’t shoot a wave of lust through him…

  To distract himself, he said, “Are we really going to risk going to the next appointment?”

  “Of course,” she said. He shot a quick glance at her and saw a wicked glint in her hazel eyes. They gleamed like gold. “Would you really miss it? What if they only get crazier as we go along? If we stop now, we’ll never know.”

  “There are two left,” he said, hesitant. “Let’s decide on number three after we see the next one.”

  “And potentially miss out on the most insane experience of our lives? Never.”

  He found himself laughing, a near constant with her. He’d never laughed this much with any of his exes. Then again, he hadn’t really been friends with any of them. Probably the egg salad therapist would have had something to say about that, about how he was repeating his parents’ pattern or something. Except hopefully this whole mess—the articles and his professional slump and his dip into depression—had broken him out of that.

  Or maybe Adalia’s the one who’s helping you do that.

  He shook the thought off and reminded himself of the whole just friends thing.

  “You do have a point,” he said. “We ought to give our biographers something interesting to work with.”

  “You would assume someone’s going to write a book about you some day.” But she said it with quiet amusement. There was no accusation or heat behind it, and he found he didn’t mind at all.

  “I like that you get me,” he said with a grin. “Luckily, the next two artists have studios in the same building, so we won’t have too far to travel.”

  “On the minus side,” she said, “it will be harder to run away. So, who’s up next? Please tell me it’s a performance artist. How awesome would it be if someone wants to sit in a box in the brewery for a month? Do you think my brother would go for it?”

  “There’s one way to find out. Unfortunately, our next up, Ms. Enid Combs, is a textiles artist.”

  “So knitting and weaving?”

  She sounded genuinely excited about it, and he had to laugh. “I guess so, although I couldn’t t
ell you what’s so artistic about a sweater.”

  “My mother used to knit us sweaters for Christmas every year, I’ll have you know,” she said. “And I wore mine with pride. Lee, not so much.”

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

  “Apparently, he thought the guys at school might beat him up for wearing something with a reindeer’s face on it.”

  Finn grinned. “He might have had a point.”

  “He kept them, though,” Adalia said, her voice softer, sweeter. “He kept them all. He showed them to me the last time we got together. They were all there in a box, every last one.”

  The love in her voice, the bittersweet melancholy, the sorrow of being on the outs with a brother she clearly loved…it moved him. She moved him.

  “She must have been an incredible person,” he said, and meant it. “I don’t know what it’s like to be loved like that.”

  He hadn’t intended to say that. He hadn’t meant to rip himself open for her. God, he was acting so pathetic lately, so soft, and for some reason it all seemed to come out in front of Adalia.

  But her only reaction was to look at him and say, “She was incredible. And I’m sure that’s not true. Family isn’t always the people you’re born with.”

  She was right, and besides, it wasn’t like his parents didn’t love him. He knew they did. But his father’s way of loving was to push people into a mold he found pleasing, and his mother’s love always came from a distance. They might think they wanted him in Charlotte, but he suspected he wouldn’t see them any more often if he ever succumbed to their pressure and moved.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Lee doesn’t sound so bad either. Maybe you should reach out to him. Tell him what happened.”

  From his peripheral vision, he could see her narrowed eyes.

  “How did you know I hadn’t told him?”

  Oops, River was the one who’d said that. “River may have mentioned it,” he admitted, not wanting to lie. “It’s just…I didn’t tell River about the Bev Corp sale when I should have, and it changed things between us. Our friendship still isn’t the same. Maybe it’s worth letting him in. Lee, I mean, obviously, not River.”

  She was silent for a long moment, and he was starting to wonder just how badly he’d blown it when she said, “It’s not the same situation. If I tell Lee, it’s basically the same thing as telling my father. They work together. He’s basically in the man’s pocket.”

  “Are you sure about that?” he asked, because he really did have a big mouth.

  “You have a lot of opinions about people you’ve never met,” she said sharply, the message obvious. Stand down, idiot, or a bunch of eccentric artists will be the least you have to worry about. The Valkyrie in the car will burn you alive. “I’m not some project, Finn. I’m not something for you to fix.”

  That wasn’t what he was trying to do, was it?

  No, he did want to help her, though—he needed to in some strange way. But she was right about one thing: he could be a little pushy at times. In business, it helped him get ahead, but this wasn’t business, and Adalia wasn’t the kind of woman who liked being told what to do.

  “I know that,” he said. “And I’m sorry for interfering. I guess I really am the sort of busybody who forms strong opinions about people he doesn’t know. And isn’t smart enough to keep them to himself.”

  “Busybody?” she asked, drawing his gaze, and he saw one corner of her mouth had tipped up.

  “That’s what you’re latching onto?” he asked.

  “Count yourself lucky.”

  “Oh, I do,” he said.

  They sat in mostly comfortable silence for another couple of minutes, until he pulled into the parking lot for the studios.

  It was a large red brick building in the River Arts District, an intricate mural painted on one side.

  “These are all studios?” Adalia asked in a small voice. She was watching the building with wide eyes, her hand gripped around the door handle but not moving to open it.

  He reached for her other hand, realizing this was different for her than it was for him. The building was some kind of art mecca, and being here was loaded in a way a visit to the nutty goat whisperer hadn’t been. “Yeah. Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

  She looked down at his hand on top of hers, but she didn’t remove it. Glancing back at him, she said, “I wouldn’t miss meeting Enid for the world. Let’s go.”

  But she still didn’t move his hand. It was almost like she was waiting for him to do something. Did she want him to kiss her? Would she be mad if he did?

  Because she licked her lips, and he found his eyes following the progress of her tongue, his body reacting as if he’d seen something much more erotic.

  Yeah, the whole just friends plan was suffering some setbacks.

  You’re being selfish again, a voice advised him. You’re thinking of what you want, not what she needs.

  And it was that voice that drove him out of the car. He went around to open her door, but she was already out.

  “Why do you Southerners think a woman can’t open a car door all by herself?”

  She sounded a little pissed, but he had a feeling it wasn’t about the door.

  “Aren’t you technically from the South?” he asked wryly. “Beau was a North Carolinian, born and bred.”

  “Sure, but I hardly knew him.” She shot him a look as they walked toward the building, some of her sassiness reappearing. “I saved us last time, so you’re in charge of the exit strategy when things inevitably go south.”

  “Is that so?” he asked, opening the door to the building.

  She rolled her eyes as she walked through. “Yeah, that’s so.”

  He looked at the directory, seeing Enid was located in a studio to the left, last door down.

  “First floor,” Adalia commented. “Easy getaway.”

  “If the other exit isn’t blocked,” Finn said, pointing to an exit sign on that side of the building.

  “Good point. We don’t know the lay of the land.” She bent over the directory, studying it like it was a crib sheet for a test.

  A woman walked past them, her dark, curly hair pulled back in a colorful scarf. Finn couldn’t place her, but he knew he’d seen her before. She was lovely in a way that would have usually inspired him to angle for her number, but he felt no pull toward her. No interest. She glanced at him, an assessing glance, then continued on down the hall.

  “Let’s go,” he said, reaching for Adalia’s hand. When she gave it to him—acting like it was no big deal, this holding hands thing—he felt a surge of triumph in his chest, a feeling better than winning first place at last year’s Brewfest.

  They walked like that, hand in hand, until they reached the door at the end of the hall. It was open, albeit barely, communicating the message that the artist was prepared for visitors but perhaps didn’t want to be disturbed by loud walkers.

  “Ready to enter the lion’s den?” Adalia asked in a near whisper. She said it close to his ear, near enough to press a kiss to his flesh, and he felt a pulse of longing that she’d do just that.

  Just friends, just friends, he reminded himself.

  “Yes, I think I’m prepared to meet a geriatric old knitter named Enid,” he replied.

  “That’s what Dottie wants you to think,” Adalia teased. “She’s lulling you into a false sense of security.”

  Which was a fair guess, really. Dottie was known for her surprises.

  “I’ll go first,” she said, still in that low voice. “Since you’re our escape plan.” She released his hand, the absence of it hitting him center mass, and stepped into the room. The little gasp she released upon entering the space had him assuming the worst, but when he followed her, he realized it had been a gasp of wonder.

  Hanging from the ceiling were dozens of intricately knitted octopuses, each a bright burst of color. They were huge, probably two feet from top to bottom, and although Adalia could walk under them without worry, he feared their
trailing tentacles would catch in his hair. The walls were covered in enormous weavings, some of animals, some abstract pieces.

  “She likes to keep people guessing, that Dottie,” Adalia said in disbelief, shaking her head slightly.

  A woman cleared her throat delicately, drawing their gazes to her. She sat behind a desk in the corner of the space, in front of a piece in progress—a half-formed whale.

  “I was wondering if you were the people Dottie had sent,” the woman said. It was the woman from the hall—the lovely one with the bright scarf.

  “You’re Enid?” Adalia asked. Clearly he wasn’t the only one who’d expected a geriatric old grandma. “Wait. We saw you leaving the knitting store the other day, didn’t we?”

  Finn nodded briefly, placing her, and pure wonder filled Adalia’s eyes.

  “Probably,” the woman conceded. “I order most of my supplies online, but I like to support them. Most people call me Blue.” She offered no explanation, not that one was required, he supposed. It was far from the strangest nickname he’d ever heard.

  “Your work is amazing,” Adalia said, her eyes darting around the room like she was a kid in a candy shop, which was a pretty good analogy, actually. “I know a few people who work with textiles, and my mom was a home knitter, but I’ve never seen anything so intricate.”

  “I’m Finn,” Finn said, approaching Blue’s desk. She stood up and shook his hand, her hand like Adalia’s—callused in places from her work.

  Adalia, as if realizing she hadn’t introduced herself either, joined him at the desk and shook Blue’s hand after he did. Her eyes shining, she said, “Sorry, I guess I forgot to introduce myself earlier. I’m Adalia Buchanan. I’m your new biggest fan.”

  Blue smiled at her, a wide, disarming smile. Strangers didn’t usually smile at you like that.

  “Adalia,” she said. “Dottie thinks the world of you. She tells me you’re an artist too.”

  Adalia’s whole face flushed, something Finn hadn’t seen before.

  “I used to be,” she said. “Dottie’s much too kind. I’m not here to talk about me, though. Finn’s putting together an art show that will be hosted at my family’s brewery, and I’m helping him organize it. We want you to be part of it.”