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“Probably just sparkly white wine. They’re new. I don’t think they have the budget for champagne and waiters.” She took him to a table covered in white at the side, and they took two glasses.
“To you,” he said then clinked his glass with hers.
She introduced him to Eddie and his boyfriend, and they walked around, looking at the paintings and reaching hers at the end. She had three hanging there, among dozens of others, most of them in a completely different style.
Hers were easy to tell apart from the rest, and Finn could tell what she had depicted—the families’ beach of Riviera View, the sand peeping from among a sea of colorful beach umbrellas; a balcony overlooking the ocean with an empty, rumpled bed reflecting on one of the glass doors that opened to the view; and another was of a woman floating on her back with a pink swimming cap in a vast blue ocean.
“This one is kind of sad,” he said, unable to remove his eyes from her paintings, especially the one with the empty bed. He wanted to know everything about her life in San Francisco, everything about her.
“It all depends on how you look at it and how you interpret it,” she said.
“How did you interpret it when you painted it? And, why is this woman floating alone?”
Jane chuckled. “I’ll tell you on the way home.”
“Already? Come on; let’s stay. I want to hear what these people are saying,” he whispered, leaning closer to her. Her hair brushed his face, and her lemony scent filled his lungs.
They moved aside as a group of four stopped to look at her work.
“You see, they like your stuff,” he whispered to her after eavesdropping on the group.
When those people moved on, he went to get them both another round of wine. “Let’s play a game. Every time someone says something artsy-fartsy, we drink.”
She chuckled and clinked her glass with his. “Just say you want to get drunk.”
He laughed, but he was already drunk. On her.
They went to stand close to another group and listened to their conversation that included a repetition of the term “avant-garde” on what looked to Finn like a beheaded panda. This group alone had them finish their glasses, so they refilled them while moving to stand behind a couple who were talking about one of the statues.
Jane and he looked at each other with muffled laughs and drank again.
He was about to take a sip when another couple commented on the statue, but Jane listened attentively. Then she looked at him, smiled mischievously, and they drank.
“I actually agreed with the second couple, but I was thirsty,” she whispered to him, chuckling. Her breath on his skin made him harden in his jeans.
In another instance, she looked at him, her lips hovering over the glass, and he waited for her verdict, his eyes on her lips, his heart and cock envying the glass until she gave him a nod and a look of oh, yeah, they’re full of it, and they both drank.
“They’re playing our song,” he said when an acoustic version of “Whiter Shade of Pale” played in the background.
Jane narrowed her eyes as she tried to distinguish the notes from the general buzz of the gallery space. She then nodded and smiled as she recognized it. “We have a song? And it’s a jumble of unconnected sentences that no one understands?” Her smile widened, and she skimmed her eyes over his face as if she was trying to read his mind.
If she could read minds, she’d find that he wondered what she tasted like everywhere and why his heart throbbed at the thought that this evening would soon end.
Eddie approached them. “We haven’t sold anything of yours yet, but there’s interest.”
“You see? There’s interest! You might just make a fortune out of it,” Finn said after Eddie left them.
“Only if I die young in some tragically embarrassing circumstance and it suddenly takes off,” she muttered.
“God, I love you,” he blurted out as he laughed.
She laughed, too, but he realized what he had just said. They looked at each other. The words came right out like they had been ready on his tongue. They had only met again the day before. Only exchanged one earth-shattering kiss four years ago. Only shared a friendship for one year in high school. Yet, the words he unthinkingly uttered rang true.
When they left the gallery, neither one of them was fit to drive. They giggled their way to a diner that was still open and sat there for a cup of strong coffee.
“Your work was the best there,” he said.
“It was the only one you understood?” She winked at him.
