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“I heard that,” Ian’s uncle...Lewis? said. Yeah, Lewis. Maybe. Or Louis. Oh, fuck it. She was buying them all name tags for Christmas.
The family lined up along the walls of the elegantly appointed formal living room as Ian’s father stood in front the Christmas tree as several reporters took pictures.
“You have a reason for inviting us?” one reporter asked Dean Asher. “Or did you just miss us?”
“I missed you, Joe. You have no idea how much I’ve missed having you at my house. When was the last time?”
“Four years ago,” Joe the reporter said. “Last time you announced you were running for the senate.”
“You’re stealing my thunder,” Dean said.
“So that means you are running for reelection?”
“No,” Dean Asher said.
“No?” Joe said. Everyone in the room went silent. This was not the announcement everyone had been expecting.
“Instead I’m running for the House of Representatives. You know, the big one. In DC.”
“Oh, holy shit,” Ian breathed. The entire room heard.
“Thank you for that, son,” Dean Asher said. “My first endorsement, everyone.”
With that, everyone in the room applauded and cheered wildly. Under the cover of the noise, Ian leaned in and whispered in her ear.
“Second floor,” he said. “Last room on the left.”
“What is?” she whispered back.
“My old bedroom. Slip out while nobody’s watching us. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“You’re really going to fuck me at your family’s Christmas party?”
“Do you even have to ask?”
“You know, Mrs. Scheinberg said you had a big Christmas present you were going to give me tonight. Is it your cock?”
“I can’t tell you that. It would ruin the surprise.”
“Okay, I’m going,” she said. “But if you show up with your dick in a box, it’s not going to be a happy holiday.”
Flash slipped out of the living room while Ian’s father was launching into a speech about why he was ready to go to Washington. She didn’t feel too bad about missing out on the speech. First of all, Ian had ordered her to go upstairs. And second, Dean Asher already had her vote. Not like she was going to vote against her boyfriend’s dad.
Trying to look as casual as possible, Flash headed up the stairs with a purposeful stride. If anyone saw her and wondered where she was going, she’d simply tell them she was looking for the bathroom. Too much champagne. That excuse worked every time. She made it to the second floor and found it much cozier and homier than the downstairs. No fancy oil paintings on the walls up here. No leather sofas and libraries that looked like something out of an English manor house in one of those mystery movies where the murder is always solved by the unassuming old lady. She peeked in on one room and found a simple yellow guest bedroom. Another room was nothing but labeled file boxes—years and years of tax returns for all of Dean Asher’s business ventures. Boring. She couldn’t wait to see Ian’s childhood bedroom. She hoped it was full of embarrassing stuff like photographs of him at prom or posters for stupid movies he’d been obsessed with as a kid or old Playboys or something good. Something she could tease him about mercilessly for as long as they lived.
She opened the door and flipped on the light switch.
Her heart fell to her stomach and stayed there.
Standing right in the very center of the floor of Ian’s old bedroom was a sculpture. Her sculpture. The sculpture he’d inspired her to make while talking about his mother.
“You son of a bitch,” she said, choking back tears. Ian did the one thing she told him not to do. He was the one who bought her sculpture from the gallery. This was supposed to be the amazing Christmas present he’d gotten for her? She had never felt more pain, more disappointment. She’d been on cloud nine for two days feeling like her life as an artist had finally begun and there was proof it had all been fake. An art collector hadn’t seen her talent and bought her stuff. Ian had bought it so she could move in with him. The sense of betrayal tasted like copper in her mouth. There was nothing for it—she would do what she’d told Ian she would do if he dared buy one of her sculptures.
She would n
ever see him again.
* * *
