Until I remembered that I threw her out into the night without her pants even buttoned around her hips.
Okay, maybe she had a bit of a reason to be hurt.
“I’ll give you a chance,” I said. “So, say what you have to say.”
I waited for her to get snotty with me. I waited for her anger to bubble up to the surface. I waited for her hand to crack against my cheek or her voice to start yelling, anything to alert me to the fact that I’d finally crossed a line. I was trying to find her line with me. I was trying to figure out what I could do or say that would finally make her step back and fucking move on already.
But instead, she simply threw her arms around me again and hugged me closer than she had just a few moments ago, and I couldn’t help but thread my arms around her back.
“Thank you for coming by,” she said into my ear. “Let me go get us some chairs.”
Chapter 14
Hailey
I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was standing there in my art gallery, taking stock of the art on my walls. I was rooted to my spot as I took him in, his broad shoulders rolled back while his eyes surveyed everything. I could hardly breathe, I was so shocked. There I was, trying to figure out where to put my newest additions I’d painted last week, and now I was looking at the man my heart still soared for, the man who still brought me to my knees.
I watched while he lost himself in one of Max’s paintings. It was the only one of his that was left, a nighttime scene of a man crying in the woods. The trees were painted crimson and the small glow of the sun was just barely cresting the tops of the trees. The story behind that painting was one I knew would call to Bryan, and I was stunned as he gravitated toward it.
That painting had come to Max in a dream, one that had left him breathless when he woke up, or so he’d told me. The man had been stumbling in the woods all during the night, attacked by rabid animals and being chased by his ghosts. Many people thought the man was crying with fear as the sun sank beneath the earth’s horizon, but the man was actually crying with relief as the sun rose above the treetops to usher in the day.
The painting was one of relief, not sorrow, and I was shocked as Bryan slowly walked toward it.
The way he looked at it, the way his eyes danced around it, it was as if the painting sang to him like the moral of the story he still didn’t quite see in its quick brushstrokes was pulling him in. I watched while his fingertips danced along the peaks of paint, the almost three-dimensional image popping off the canvas while his eyes devoured the scene.
I wanted to rush to him and tell him the story. I wanted to wrap my arms around his body and give it to him as a gift. I would gladly pay for the two-hundred dollar painting myself if it meant he could take home a piece of artwork he felt wholly and completely drawn to.
My body was pulled toward him like a magnet to its partner. I knew I should be angry with him. I knew I should be livid. I knew I should kick him out like he had done me and forbid him from every gracing this place of mercy with his merciless presence. But even in our darkest moments, even when it seemed like there was nothing more for us, he always seemed to find his way back to me.
We always seemed to be drawn toward one another, and all I wanted to do was hug him.
I threw my arms around him and pressed myself into his body. I clung to him for what seemed like ages before I pulled back. I studied the anger and distrust that was still in his eyes. The way he looked at me as if I still disgusted him. Guilt rolled around in my stomach, and I could feel the bile rising in my throat, and that’s when he spoke those beautiful words.
Even as he spat them at me, I could hear the beauty of his voice trickling down into my ribcage.
He was going to give me a chance to talk, and I threw my arms around him in joy.
I pressed myself against him, memorizing how he felt. I could feel his chiseled body pressed flatly against mine, and I was shocked when he wrapped his arms around me. His warmth flooded all the way to my toes, and I could feel the way his fingers splayed across my back, curling lightly into my skin as if he was attempting to hook himself into me. I could feel his body trembling within my arms as I pulled him closer, burying my face into his neck while I breathed in his scent.
“Let me go get us some chairs,” I said into his ear. “Then we can sit down and talk.”
The moment was soon gone as his hands grasped me by my waist and pushed me away from him. I swallowed deep, my heart leaping into my throat as I stood and studied him. His eyes seemed far away like he was looking past me instead of at me. But he stood there and waited, so I backed up and reached out for a couple of chairs.
His eyes held me in their grasp the entire time. I was so fearful that if I looked away, he would leave. I grabbed the chairs and brought them to the middle of the floor, not knowing where else to sit us. I planted us right beside the pile of paintings that had now been forgotten, and as we both sat down I saw his eyes drop to my lap.
My hands were covered in paint, and I was picking it off my skin nervously while they shook.
“You can begin,” he said blankly.
“I, um, I met your brother while he was still addicted to drugs.”
I studied his reaction, but he continued to stare mindlessly at my hands.
“He was still living on the street, and that was where I first met him.”
“On the street,” he said.
“Yes. In Los Angeles. At the time, I was only passing through. I’d just come down from Seattle, where my first attempt at an art gallery of my own doing had failed.”