I glanced at Cole. “I didn’t know you painted.”
He shifted in his seat as if uncomfortable. “She’s exaggerating. I’ve only ever dabbled.”
“He helped paint the mural on the house when he visited us the summer I was working on it,” his mom interjected. “And I had found at least a dozen of his works hidden away a few weeks ago. Cole, you should show Adeline your pieces. They’re quite beautiful.”
“I’d love to see them,” I said, immediately curious. “What kind of stuff do you paint?”
Cole looked down at his lap, and I frowned. He definitely looked uncomfortable now, which didn’t happen very often. I shot Ezra a questioning look, but the drummer didn’t react.
“Mostly people,” Cole finally answered in a clipped tone. “But I haven’t painted in years, and I don’t have any plans to resume, so maybe you two could stop talking about things that are no longer a part of my life.”
The air had grown suddenly cold. Cole’s mom pursed her lips and resumed cutting her eggplant, while his dad took a long sip of wine.
What was that all about?
The silence hung for a moment too long before Ezra decided to come to the rescue.
“I forgot that congratulations are in order. You’re going to be grandparents soon,” he said, tipping his glass in the direction of Cole’s parents.
Just like that, a smile bloomed across Emma’s face. “Yes, thank you. We are thrilled for Ivy. Cole just came back from a visit and said that she’s doing great, right, hon?”
To my relief, Cole seemed to be ready to move on from the earlier moment of tension. “Yeah, it’s still surreal to think my baby sis is about to have a kid, but she’s doing well.” Then he added more reluctantly, “Her fiancé waits on her hand and foot.”
Emma was beaming. “I couldn’t be happier to hear the two boys have finally made up. The aggression coming from this one was just unbearable. I had to burn sage every day after telling him about Ivy’s news.”
Cole rolled his eyes even as a smile tugged on his lips. “The horror.”
We wrapped up the dinner and moved on to dessert, a decadent tiramisu that had more than just a little kick from the rum.
Cole’s parents asked me about how I was enjoying working with the band before inquiring about Through Azure Skies.
“Cole told us all about how they discovered you,” Emma began. “We used to go out to local shows a lot more often when we were younger, but in the past few years, we’ve become homebodies. Maybe we can come out the next time you play.”
I forced a smile. “Definitely, that would be great.” I didn’t mention that the band’s future was more than a little uncertain.
When it was time to clean up, Emma told me to relax and got Ezra to help her and Sirus. “You need to tell us about how your father is doing,” I overheard her saying to the drummer as they headed inside. Cole stood up from the table and walked over to the edge of the patio, looking out at the dense forested area at the back of the backyard. I walked up to him and put my hand on his shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
He quickly turned to look at me, his expression carrying a hint of bitterness. “Yeah. I’m sorry about earlier. It’s just that my mom has been on my case about doing something with those paintings ever since I’ve gotten back, and I’m tired of hearing about it.”
“Why don’t you want to do anything with them?” I asked in a low voice.
He lifted his face to the sky, closing his eyes. His profile was stunning—straight nose, a slightly pointed chin, and strong cheekbones that begged to be kissed.
When his hazel eyes landed back on me, my skin rose with goosebumps at the intensity in his expression.
“They’re all paintings of a woman I once loved more than anyone else. It was a consuming, destructive kind of love. When I was with her, I treated her like she was the only thing that mattered, and I hurt a lot of other people as a result. During those months, I had pulled away from the guys, even from Ezra. They tried to warn me, told me that she wasn’t good for me, but I didn’t listen.”
He crossed his arms, and I waited for him to continue. An uncomfortable sense of doom was building inside of me. This wasn’t a story with a happy ending.
“I asked her to marry me and brought her home to meet my parents. We spent most of our time in bed. When we weren’t making love, I’d paint her. A painting for every day she was here. The day she betrayed me, I was working on painting number twelve.”
My breath caught in my lungs. I wanted to reach out and comfort him, but instead, I stood frozen in place.
Cole shifted on his feet, his gaze once again back on the forest.
“She was married the whole time we were together. We met after a concert by accident, and what was meant to be a one-night stand turned into something more. I paid for her to come on tour with us and gave her money so that she didn’t have to return to a job she hated back home. She saw it as an opportunity to pay off her husband’s gambling debt. But it wasn’t enough, so eventually, she started spilling private details about me and the guys to gossip outlets. Our manager had suspected it and tried to talk to me about it, but I categorically refused to listen. It all came to a head when the husband showed up here at my parents’ place, apparently tired of having his wife being gone and demanding she come back to him.”
