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Our gazes clash.
“Did you really think I made you move back home just so I could stand on the sidelines and watch you struggle to open this gallery all by yourself?”
“You didn’tmakeme do anything. I decided for myself,” she chides.
A chuckle falls from my lips. “Of course you did.”
Her eyes narrow to slits, which makes the grin playing at my lips grow even wider. For some time, no words are exchanged between us. I glance down to notice my thumb making tiny circles along the vein of her wrist.
“Why are your knuckles bruised?” she asks suddenly.
Shit.
I didn’t want her to see the bruises from my fight. She thinks underground fighting is something I did once or twice years ago.
“I forgot to wear boxing gloves in my gym class this morning,” I lie, hating the twist of guilt in my stomach.
Her eyes narrow on me. But the café employee bringing us our meals interrupts her thoughts.
Neither one of us pulls away even as the employee has to reach over our entwined hands to pick up the dishes.
“The space,” I say, getting us back to the more important topic.
“No,” she finally says. “It would cost too much.”
“I’ve got it to spend,” I quickly retort.
“You’re not pulling money out of your inheritance to help me.”
“It wouldn’t come from my inheritance.” As a Townsend, inheritances are a part of all of our lives. I first received access to it three years ago at the age of twenty-five. But every five years, I receive a larger sum.
“Or from your income.”
“It’s not from my income either.”
She pauses and looks at me with a question in her eyes.
“It’s been close to six years since you first mentioned opening your own gallery one day. Do you remember what you said when you told me?
“You said,” I start without giving her a chance to answer, “all artists deserve to have a space to feature their work. All of them.”
“You remembered,” she says, smiling.
Her eyes dip, and I fight the urge to tip her chin to make her meet my gaze head-on again. Even though she’s sitting right across from me, her hand still firmly in mine, I miss her when she’s not looking at me.
For a brief moment, I wonder how the hell I survived all of these years with her living so far away for so long. I don’t even want to remember the hell I went through when she told me she was getting married.
“Since that day, I started saving money to invest in your dream.”
“What?” she screeches.
I tighten my hold on her hand when she attempts to pull it away.
“No, you haven’t.”
“Would I lie?”
Stilling, she meets my eyes with hers. I can tell the exact moment she recognizes the sincerity in mine because my name falls from her lips in a whisper.
