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head that this was a bad idea.
Something tugged at me as I followed Ramses on and we took the route in the direction of his house, but whatever it was didn’t seem strong enough to keep me from following him. We jogged the one or two blocks it took to get to his house here near campus, and I wasn’t surprised to see a property so modern and handsome.
Ramses had mentioned a duplex set up, and though the condo had been that, there was nothing traditional about it with its upscale design. Multi-level, the property stacked on top of a three-car garage, all gray brick and dark wood paneling. It was one of many in a luxurious neighborhood donned with sculpted trees and driveways lined with soft lighting. Evening was starting to set in, and we should probably wrap up this jog quickly anyway.
The words continued to scream at me, a bad feeling I really couldn’t place. I thought maybe because I knew this was wrong. What we were doing, what I was doing, but I still followed him up the driveway and through the garage. His sleek Mercedes was inside when he opened the garage door and the space immediately hummed with heat. My sneakers the same when they touched down. He either had heated floors or the garage was just that warm.
“In and out,” Ramses assured, like he knew too. He unlocked the door and let me into his space.
And what a space it was.
A foundry type feel to the place and an underground look with the high brick walls and open space. He had large glass windows, which gave views of the entire neighborhood, a fireplace he summoned on with a click. It gave the room a soft glow, so he didn’t have to turn on the lights, and when he slipped off his shoes, I did too.
“Laptop’s upstairs,” he said, backing inside. He didn’t bother to take off his coat, and why should he? We were supposed to be leaving soon. He palmed his keys. “Make yourself at home. If you need a drink, kitchen’s down the hall, bathroom near that if you need that.”
I nodded, not going to make myself at home. We were supposed to leave soon.
That unsaid, Ramses directed a thumb back in the direction he planned to head. An uncertainty lined his features that hadn’t before, and I wondered if he too realized this was a bad idea. That we hadn’t really gotten to this point in our friendship. That it felt weird, but I guess now that we were here, we both had to deal with the decision.
“Be right back.” He disappeared up a set of spiral stairs, but rather than make this weirder than it already felt, I did decide to look around.
I started with the living room, taking off my gloves and shoving them into my fleece. The place was completely decked out, very masculine and mature. I wondered if he had a designer come in because even I had used the advice of a catalog when designing mine.
One thing I noticed were his sculptures, like so many and all weaved and wrapped in hard metals. He had some near the fireplace and his leather couch, more down the hall and passed the kitchen. It seemed I’d found his vice when I observed even more in an open space toward the back of the condo. He had quite a few back there. Though, not displayed like the others. It was almost like they were ready to go, some still in tarps, but the foundations told me they were the same metal pieces like the ones displayed around the property. Ramses might be some kind of collector.
Or an artist.
An easel stood by one of the back glass windows, oil paints stacked and arranged on a stepladder beside it. He had the easel covered, but a drop cloth and paints beneath and around told he was working on something. There were also shop tools around like maybe he did make some or all of these sculptures.
Are you keeping something from me, Midwestern boy?
The secret life of an artist, a passion he’d maybe not shared with everyone. I felt like I was getting a sneak peek into a secret world.
I approached the canvas and though completely not my business, I tugged at the cloth he had over it. I just saw the edge of gold paint before the floorboards creaked, and I whipped around.
“Ramses, you’re—”
A girl I’d seen before. A beautiful girl with dark hair and porcelain skin. She’d been a lovely girl in a luxurious white gown.
Not in a towel in the middle of Ramses’s condo.
Which she was, in a towel and standing there, feet bare and fair skin flushed. She had it tucked and secured above her rather abundant rack, lips a natural red like Snow White. She did look like Snow White, hair so dark almost raven black like mine. What I didn’t quite understand was why she was standing in the middle of Ramses’s condo—basically naked.
“Oh. Hello,” she said, like actual Snow White. Seriously, the girl was just missing the birds to pick up her cape. I actually snuck a peek around her to make sure they weren’t flanking her like an enchanted entourage. She grinned. “Are you a friend of Ramses—”
“December?”
Not alone now, this party suddenly three.
Ramses stood with his laptop, the Mac secured under his arm. His gaze volleyed from December to me.
December.
I obviously knew this was her. I’d seen her, but she’d been getting married back then. Not half naked in Ramses’s condo.
And so the sick feeling I’d felt upon going with him, coming here with him, was confirmed. Something had tugged at me that this was a bad idea, and here I was with foreseen bad idea. It flashed at me like a feature presentation. But before I could act, or react, to any of it, Ramses cut between the naked girl and me.
After placing the laptop down on a table, he got a hand behind me but faced her. “Hey, uh. Did you find everything okay?”
