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“No one does and you had a lot of weight on your shoulders back then too,” Hudson said.
“I think I spent all the time I needed letting it go,” he said. “It’s nice to be with someone that doesn’t demand much from me.”
“But you want her to, don’t you?” Hudson said laughing. “Admit it.”
“There is part of me that wishes she needed me a bit more, but that is just the male ego.”
Hudson snorted. “I know that feeling too. I went through it with Delaney. There isn’t anything wrong with being with an independent woman.”
“Nope,” he said.
He thought of everything Laine had gone through with her father. And then how Caleb told Carson it was his turn to watch out for his daughter.
He’d been honest when he’d told the man that he was the backup dancer.
“When is Laine going to Chicago?” Hudson asked.
“Tomorrow afternoon. She has a showing tomorrow night and Saturday and will be home on Sunday afternoon. Then it’s Manhattan for the same thing. Friday night and Saturday night, home on Sunday. She’s going to have Egan or Lincoln bring her to Manhattan.”
He liked that she thought to do that and would be gone less time. Not that a few hours made much of a difference with him working and not being able to go. She said she didn’t have anything else scheduled for a year.
That she’d cut back on the number of paintings she was doing. Or feeling as if she had to. In the past two years she’d painted more than normal because she felt the urge to.
He liked she didn’t plan it out. She did what came to her and the showings were fun and something she did to meet people and make contacts. To get more established.
“That’s a good idea. Maybe you can try to go to her next one.”
“She doesn’t have anything lined up for a bit. I think she’s getting tired of doing it as much.”
“Or she has someone at home she wants to be with,” Hudson said. “Did you ask her that?”
“No,” he said. “No reason to. She’d tell me if that was the case. Laine does what she wants when she wants. I don’t know if she even has a reason for it half the time. She could change her mind too. She told me that she sold over fifteen paintings last weekend and she has four potential commissioned pieces lined up. It just seems to me that she’s made a name for herself already.”
“At a young age, you can’t beat that,” Hudson said.
“She’s so good at teaching,” he said.
“Do you think she’d want to do that at a college level?” Hudson asked.
“It’s never come up. I don’t know if she’d be good with the structure of that,” he said, laughing.
“Good point. She does seem to be that free spirit without rules.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, grinning. “But she loves this island. She’s said it more than once. That she found the place that she can call home.”
He’d been thrilled to hear her say that her childhood homes didn’t feel the same to her as her small place on Amore Island.
“Sounds like you are one step closer,” Hudson said.
“Don’t make me rush,” he said.
His twin laughed. “You do what you want when you want too. Guess that makes you two perfect for each other.”
At the end of his shift, he was thrilled that it’d flown by.
Before he undressed for a shower, he sent Laine a text that he loved her and would like to have dinner if she could break away. If not, he’d make sure he stopped to hug her before she left.
She replied back fast that she’d make dinner work tonight before he went to work.
