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I clear my throat and follow Violet out the door. “Bye, Maria. Hope we never meet again.”
“Same, Gage. Same.”
* * *
“Thisis where you live?”Violet asks as she steps out of the elevator into my apartment. It’s a glossy new building in the area south of Central Park often referred to as Billionaire’s Row. I bought it for the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over Manhattan.
“How many bedrooms does this place have?” she asks, tilting her head up to stare at the modern chandelier in the entryway.
“Enough.” I watch as she moves around my space. Most people comment on the view, or the designer furniture, or ask for a tour. But the thing that interests Violet most is the art.
She goes from one tasteful, expensive piece to another, her face impassive. “Who picked these out?”
“Why do you assume it wasn’t me?” I say.
“Even you don’t have taste this boring,” she says.
I’m not sure if I should feel complimented or insulted.
Violet wanders out of the room and down a hallway, unimpressed with every piece of art she passes. She opens the door to my office.
“Wait, don’t go in there—”
But she ignores me and steps inside.
I follow her and see her standing in front of a simple painting of a clear blue sky. It’s the only piece of art in this entire place I actually care about.
I bristle, prepared for her snobby, self-righteous art criticism.
Instead, her face breaks out in a smile. “Oh.ThisI like.”
She checks the artist’s signature in the corner. “I’ve never heard of this painter.”
“They’re from Colorado Springs,” I say. “I don’t know what the actual title of the painting is. But my dad always called itBaseball Weather.”
Her face softens. “This was his?”
“Yeah.” I shrug. I don’t really want to talk about how much I love this painting. How it makes me think of those spring mornings when my dad took a break from work, and we’d go watch a game. Sometimes if I look at this painting long enough, I can still hear the crack of the bat and smell his aftershave.
“It’s beautiful, Gage.” The way Violet’s looking at me, I think maybe she senses some of what I’m feeling. She reaches out and touches my arm. “Really beautiful.”
I look down at her, and for some reason, my chest feels tight. I don’t normally show any of my visitors this painting. It matters too much.
I know Violet thinks I’m a rich, selfish asshole. She’s made that abundantly clear. But right now, she’s looking up at me like maybe there’s more to me than she thought.
My heart thuds, heavy and cracked in a way I don’t quite know what to do with.
Her mouth looks so damn soft. Her tongue might be sharp, but I get the feeling that right now if I kissed her, she’d taste nothing but sweet.
Without thinking, I lean toward her, and her eyes darken.
Some distant part of me is aware of the sound of the elevator arriving and the door to my apartment opening, but the rest of me is fixated on Violet’s soft, parted lips.
“Gage,” my mom calls, her voice drifting through the apartment. “Are you here?”
Shit.
It takes me a second too long to jerk my mind away from fantasies of Violet’s mouth. Because the next thing I know I can hear my mom heading through the apartment toward my office. She knows that’s where I spend most of my waking hours in this apartment.”
