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I had zero desire to talk to my best friend and worry her, but Lucy Dennings and I had known each other since undergrad at NYU. I put on a smile and hitanswer.
“Hey, Luce. What’s up?”
“Just checking in on you. How are you doing?”
Lucy had been at my grandmother’s funeral and knew it had hit me hard. There was nothing I didn’t tell her, but I was grateful this wasn’t one of our usual FaceTime calls; she’d be able to see the despair wrapping its tentacles around me.
“I’m okay,” I said, “How are you? How’s Cas?”
“He’s great,” she said, and I heard the smile in her voice. “Yeah, he’s…”
“A dream come true?” I teased.
“Something like that.”
My best friend had been as single and lonely as me until the mysterious Cas Abisare dropped into her life. I didn’t have the whole story from her—she was uncharacteristically cryptic about certain details—but she seemed deliriously happy with him. It was as if, she’d said, some missing part of herself had been restored.
“What about you?” she asked lightly. “Any new potential love interests on the horizon?”
“Nope, I’ve sworn off men, remember?”
“But it’s been three years. He really hurt you, didn’t he?”
TheheLucy referred to was Scott Laudner, my first boyfriend upon arriving in London from New York. Like a dope, I’d fallen for him hard and fast, even though he’d told me explicitly that he didn’t believe in a “heteronormative construct of monogamy.” I tried to compromise, but when he wanted a three-way with another guy he’d been dating, I couldn’t go through with it.
“That was my fault,” I told Lucy, sitting on the edge of my single bed in my tiny soon-to-be-ex-room in my flat. “Scott told me from the start what he could give. Stupid of me for wanting more. I’m old-fashioned, I guess.”
“That’s not old-fashioned,” Lucy said. “You want one person to be your only person. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Yeah, well, I have bigger problems than my love life,” I said.
Like impending homelessness.
But before Lucy could ask—and be more worried—I cut her off. “But my friend Vaughn wants to hook me up with his agent. There’s a new gallery in Chelsea. That could be something.”
I glanced at the paintings stacked against the wall of my tiny room, all done during my time at the Academy. I was a portraitist, seeking to capture an intimate likeness of my subject. Everyone’s face told a story, and I wanted to be the one to tell it. But commissions were hard to come by. I’d taken a bartending job at Mulligan’s so that I’d have time to paint and do all the shitty “networking” I hated—and that Vaughn Ritter was so good at. To put my work out there, which was like casting a fishing line into a vast ocean.
So far, no bites.
I rubbed my chest that felt tight while Lucy squealed in my ear.
“Cole, that’s fantastic! Youhaveto tell me when your exhibit will show and I’m there.”
“I don’t know if it’ll get that far…”
“It will. You’re brilliant. But exhibit or not, I was thinking of coming for a visit. Cas and me. Or maybe just me, if you prefer. I really want to see you. I miss you.”
“I miss you too, but now’s not a good time. I’m going to get a new place. A fresh start,” I said, wishing I had a shred of optimism to go with my declaration.
“Uh huh. Cole, are you all right? Tell me the truth. Are you sleeping at all?”
I both cursed and loved how my friend knew me so well.
“Not really,” I admitted. “It’s just kind of a lot going on right now. But as soon as I get settled, I’d love to have you and Cas here. I need to meet this mysterious stranger. I haven’t had a chance to vet him, make sure he’s good enough for you.”
“I want you to meet him too.”
Lucy’s voice was warm with love for this guy who’d swept into her life and rescued her from the loneliness that had been starting to worry me. I’d been at the Academy then, editing the arts magazine, my future seemingly bright and busy. Now, I stared out the window to the cloudy London afternoon. Fall was fast giving way to winter. A metaphor, I thought. My life had been summer green and sunny and was fast morphing to cold, barren, and gray.
