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“Twenty minutes,” Nic says after the slightest hesitation.
She turns to me. “Come on.”
“I really am sorry,” I say as I follow Jessie upstairs. I don’t know if she believes me. Sincerity never sounds authentic from my mouth.
She walks into a room that she’s turned into an art studio. “I love Nic. He loves me. You couldn’t have changed that. Maybe you could have ruined our day, but you couldn’t have driven us apart. See that board with the green tape? Bring it here.”
I glance where she’s pointed, and against the wall spot the board and the piece of paper taped to it. When I hand it to her, she sets it on the easel and hands me a brush. “Are you familiar with watercolors?”
“Why aren’t you mad at me?”
“I’m not happy, but your plan failed so spectacularly you fell in love with another man and to be honest, you look like shit. It’s hard to be angry with someone whose heart is broken. So slap some paint on that canvas and tell me the truth about you and Gabriel Sinclair. The whole story.”
I stare as she pours water from a pitcher into a glass and sets it on the tray below the easel, alongside a row of colors in a rectangular box. A few little squares are empty of color.
“Mix colors here,” Jessie says, tapping her brush on one. “More water will dilute the color, and paint whatever. It doesn’t have to be anything.”
She goes back to her easel, and after a moment, I dip a brush and wet the pink paint. Then I tell her everything, from the moment Gabe walked through that door to the moment I handed him the fruit basket and left.
I paint a pink sky while I talk. Reddish-brown mountains. A black ribbon of a highway. A six-year-old could paint better, but for a few minutes, I can feel the wind in my hair and Gabe’s hand on my leg.
Reality sucks.
Nic calls upstairs that dinner is done, and Jessie drags me to the washroom, helping clean me up. I have paint on my face from wiping at tears, but she goes one step beyond, pulling out a makeup kit and doing what she can because I do look ghastly. I can’t remember when I last had a good night’s sleep.
Jessie insists I stay for dinner and makes the three of us squeeze together for a selfie.
“I should’ve been a better cousin when we were kids,” she says, putting her phone away. “It might not help a lot, but we can stand together as a family now. After you tell your story to the vultures, I’ll post this and let the world know there are no hard feelings.”
“Are there hard feelings?” I ask, terrified of the answer.
“No,” she says, pulling me into a hug. “But if you ever come for my man, I will end you.”
I can’t tell if she’s joking, but I promise her I have no interest in Nic.
Nic, for his part, remains leaning against the stairs. Distant and aloof, as always.
“I’ll talk to my parents,” Jessie promises. “Timothy and Amanda, too, so they know we’re good.”
“Thank you,” I manage, tears springing to my eyes again. Christ, I’ve never cried so much in my life.
When I return to LA, I light the match and torch my life.
Ashley Foley’s Attempt at Seducing Nic Fontana—At His Wedding!
It’s like watching dominoes fall as every outlet picks up the story. As it grows and gains speed, Gabriel Sinclair all but disappears.
Chapter thirty-two
Gabe
“You’lldojustfinehere.”
I can’t escape Ashley’s voice or the dejection in her eyes or the crushing sensation that’s been locked around my heart since I broke up with her.
“Did you know about this?” I ask David when he turns up at my apartment on Sunday. His day off. When he takes one glance at my phone and the images of Ashley’s trashed house and gives a curt nod, I nearly lose it. “You should’ve told me.”
The things people have said about it…
