Page 154

Ali watched her go a second too long before snapping out of it, hurrying to her bedroom, skirts of her black dress swishing around her legs. She shifted the lamp, set the vase down, gave it a little shake to make sure it was steady, then bent to kiss Willow’s head, promising she’d be back soon.

Ali knew something was wrong before she even managed to leave her apartment.

One, Charlotte wasn’t where she left her.

Two, the way she stood beside the car, posture rigid, shadows swallowing the black of her slacks into the black of the door, didn’t match the woman who just brought her flowers.

Ali hurried down the steps and slipped into the passenger seat.

Three, the way Charlotte shut the door was a little too firm. A slam by no means, but hard enough to leave no question that it was in fact secure.

Ali buckled her seatbelt, hands folding neatly in her lap as she stared at Charlotte.

Four, her grip on the leather steering wheel was verging on vise-like.

She waited, but Charlotte never met her gaze as she pulled away from the curb and drove them down the street toward the main road that would take them to the gallery. Ali waited, her mind beginning to race. When they had gone three blocks with nothing, she caved.

“What’s wrong?”

Charlotte’s grip tightened. Leather creaking under the pressure.

“Your apartment is empty,” her tone was careful, measured, like she was trying not to break or lash out. Ali wasn’t certain which.

“Yeah. My lease is up and I have to be out by Monday,” Ali said, twiddling her thumbs for something to do that wasn’t a tic. “My landlord wouldn’t give me a short-term extension, so...”

“I see,” Charlotte said, pulling up to a red light.

“So, I have to put everything in storage,” Ali continued, desperate for some sign of what she was meant to say. “Because I have to be out.”

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

“You didn’t go into detail about your lease being up.”

Ali let out a nervous laugh. “I kinda forgot. I was originally just going to renew, but that didn’t really make sense with me leaving in January.”

Charlotte’s lips moved, barely parting, the words coming out thin and raw. “January.”

“What’s going on?” Ali whispered, holding her breath for a reason things were going south. “You seem really upset.”

Surely Charlotte wasn’t surprised she’d taken the residency. She’d said it herself at dinner. Of course you’re going.

No, that was Ali making excuses for herself. The truth was she’d been too scared to talk to Charlotte about it. The longer she put it off, the longer she could delude herself that her getting the residency hadn’t changed the entire tone of the conversation they’d put off for months.

“I’m just… waiting,” Charlotte said at last as they neared the gallery.

“For what?”

Charlotte didn’t answer right away. She parallel parked, shifted gears, and cut the engine instead. Ali fought the looping thoughts that threatened to crop up. A deep, instinctive certainty told her to listen. This was it. This was the moment everything tipped.

“For you to tell me what you want,” Charlotte inhaled slowly, eyes fixed on the bumper of the car in front of them. “For you to tell me that what we have isn’t enough. That I’m not enough.”

Ali’s breath hitched, heart clenching at the certainty in Charlotte’s tone. She questioned everything she knew about Charlotte’s sense of self-worth.

“That you want to leave,” Charlotte went on quietly. “That you don’t want to stay here and build a life with me.”

Ali’s mind couldn’t compute. Her gaze drifted toward the polished gallery windows, where twenty-two paintings of Charlotte waited inside. Each one of them a moment she’d fallen a little more in love.

And yet… Charlotte didn’t think she was enough.