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I don’t think I ever shaved clean again after she’d told me that.
The gallery is small, white-walled like most of them and filled with paintings from another century by artists I don’t know. I’ve never loved the older pieces. Sure, they can be beautiful, and they have their place, but Kate always appreciated it much more than I ever could.
“You’re the one who says we need to speak through our art,” she’d chided after a particularly long day at yet another art museum she’d dragged me to. “All these people died before we were even born, and we still get to hear their stories. Don’t you find that the slightest bit interesting?”
“I want to experience art, not stare at it all day. Boring, Katie,” I’d added.
“Hating on the classics doesn’t make you special, asshole.”
“Yeah, you keep reminding me of that.”
It’s why Kate went to art school, and I went everywhere else. She could see the special in all those old paintings, see the beauty in the stories they were telling. I wanted to tell my own stories.
The laugh is what pulls my attention.Herlaugh. It drags me deeper into the gallery, past pockets of people and paintings and towards a back room. When I see her a fucking fist clenches at my chest and for a second, I’m holding my breath. Because goddammit she looks good. Blond hair tied back, black dress hugging tight to her body, perfect smile, perfect everything. Fuck.
“Katie,” I say, my voice raspier than I’d meant it to be.
She freezes, her attention shifting from the conversation she’d been having before leveling her eyes to mine. Wide eyes, shock maybe, but they quickly turn angry. For a moment, we’re both frozen and neither of us speak. We stare, take each other in. The fury in her eye not dissipating even when I throw her my most charming smirk.
A man beside her clears his throat, breaking the spell. “Ethan Donahue,” he says, holding out his hand. He’s a little shorter than I am, his hair a light brown, his face clean shaven, his jaw square. “I’m, ah, Kate’s fiancé.”
I shake his hand, and he gives me a hard squeeze, sizing me up, but I don’t squeeze back. I didn’t come here for that. I came here forher. “James Ryan.”
Kate still says nothing. She stares. I stare. We stare. The two others who’d been talking to her move on to the next painting, and so it’s just me and her. And Ethan.
“Tell me about the paintings,” I say, and Kate finally finds her tongue.
“Restoration project. Done by the school,” she says, and her tone is curt, her voice cold. “All these pieces were damaged in the floods last spring, and our students restored them for the gallery.”
“I see. And this one’s yours.” She nods, but it wasn’t a question. I already know it’s her work, not only because of how she hovers around it, but because of all mylightInstagram stalking. She’s been posting pictures of this for months. “Working on anything interesting?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Thisisn’t interesting?”
I smile. “I mean what are you working on that’s yours.”
“Nothing,” she snaps, but Ethan interjects.
“That’s not true, babe.”Babe.I used to call her that. “You’ve been doodling in that little sketch book you carry around with you.” He shakes his head and turns his attention to me. “Wish she’d stick to pencils instead of charcoal. Or something a little less messy. Keep finding black fingerprints all over my furniture.”
I’d kill to have Kate’s black fingerprints on my furniture. Or on my chest, my sheets, my everything. A new piece of fabric we could stain, one I could hang in my loft like I do the one I keep in my suitcase.
“Nothingserious,” Kate corrects, and then she says, “If you’ll excuse me. I’ve got to check on a few things.”
I barely wait a beat after she’s left before I follow. Her pace is brisk, but I’m tight on her heels, and when she barges into a small storage room, my foot finds the door before she can slam it and I’m quickly pushing in with her and locking it behind us.
“That’sthe guy you’re marrying?”
Her voice comes out angry. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Just visiting,” I say casually.
“Since when do you visit? And who the hell are you to say anything about Ethan? You literally just met him.”
I scoff out a laugh. “Doodlingin yourlittlesketch book? Is that a fucking joke?”
She purses her lips. “He just… he doesn't get the whole… art thing.”
“The whole art thing? You mean your career? Your passion? Your life’s work? The thing that breathes life into your fucking soul? Yeah, alright Kate, go ahead and doodle in your silly sketchbook.”
