She laughed. “Stuff? What sort of stuff?”
Surely Christian, who had epitomized the definition of confidence since she’d first met him couldn’t be shifting around self-consciously in his chair.
“Up until now, a lot of crap, no doubt,” he finally muttered under his breath quietly enough so that Emily didn’t hear as she fed her doll.
She reached out and touched him. The sudden lost expression on his face had made it an imperative.
“It’s not. Whatever you’ve written, it’s good. I know it.”
“How would you know? I’m no Walt Whitman, I can tell you that,” he said bitterly.
Megan’s eyes widened. She’d been right. Christian didn’t miss much. The tone of his voice had been cutting and sarcastic. She pulled her fingers away from where they had been touching the back of his hand.
“How did you
know?” she asked after a moment, referring to the fact that he knew something as personal as the identity of her favorite poet.
“It doesn’t take a genius, Megan. You have two copies of Leaves of Grass alone, the one opened on your coffee table had a broken spine from being read so much,” Christian stated in an emotionless voice, but his hand flicked irritably at the lacy flounce on the tablecloth.
Megan didn’t know how to respond to his acute observation and changeable mood, so she didn’t say anything at all. They’d both focused on Emily until it was time to leave, speaking politely but irrelevantly to each other.
Megan was an artist herself, and had spent enough time around other artists to know that they could be some of the most sulky, temperamental individuals in existence. She wouldn’t have guessed that Christian would fall into that category, but what did she really know about him, after all?
* * * * *
Later that afternoon after she’d put Emily down for her nap, Megan entered her living room to find Christian sitting on her couch with her well-read copy of Leaves of Grass resting in his lap. His long legs were bent at the knee, thighs casually spread.
He’d removed his jacket and unbuttoned the top few buttons of his white shirt. Megan could see some springy, dark brown hairs on his chest at the lowest portion of the opening. A short gold chain was also in evidence, but Megan couldn’t make out the amulet. His unruly, burnished hair had heedlessly fallen across his forehead while he read with complete concentration.
For a minute Megan stood and watched him silently. Despite his size and solidity, his presence in her home seemed a little unreal to her. Surely he was temporary, ephemeral…like glimpsing a shooting star or having an especially good dream from which you were destined to awaken.
Megan’s life felt too small to contain Christian Lasher for long.
“Are you doing a study of me for a sculpture or are you waiting for me to apologize for being such a jerk earlier?”
She blinked in surprise at his muttered words.
He turned toward her. His hair fell back from his brow. The book dropped to the sofa cushion. His voice had sounded, gruff, slightly amused…self-deprecating.
Megan’s eyebrows rose in speculation as she moved over toward the other end of the couch from where he sat. “Were you a jerk earlier?”
He nodded slowly. “People tend to act like asses when they’re insecure about things. I’m not too secure about my writing—or my career—at this point in my life.”
“Why?”
He leaned his head back on the couch and raked his fingers through his burnished hair restlessly. “I want to make a change in…what I write, but it’s hard to change what’s been a success. People keep demanding I do the same thing over and over again but it’s old and it’s dried up and I’m sick to death of it.”
At the last, his facial muscles tensed noticeably.
Megan didn’t speak, waiting for him to continue. After a moment, the tension in his body lessened with an exhaling sigh. He seemed a little defeated, if resolute.
“I feel like I’m disappointing people who I care about, especially one person. I feel like I’m betraying him. But I just can’t keep doing what he’s asking of me. I won’t,” he added with a fierce glance.
Megan empathized with the pain and conflict she saw on his face. “Creativity is like that,” she said softly. “Once a vein has been mined until there nothing of worth left, you have to abandon it and let your spirit prospect elsewhere. To keep going at the old source is not only useless, it’s somehow hurtful…harmful to yourself…” She trailed off, deep in thought.
“But you have to find a way that takes into account both your creativity and the important people in your life,” she continued after a moment. “Some compromise.”
She realized that Christian watched her with eyes as sharp as drilling blue diamonds.