None of us could believe it. It was everything we’d talked about. Kenny, Cory, and I had been daydreaming about this since we were all fourteen, and it had actually worked out for us.
It was a bittersweet time for me. Every time we celebrated another hit, all I could think about was who was missing from the revelry.
CHAPTER SIX
FIVE YEARS AFTER THE ACCIDENT
DANIKA
It was in the summer that I met the mysterious artist.
I’d gotten a memo that the boss had himself a girlfriend and that he was insisting on giving her a gallery showing. This was told to me rather snidely by the New York gallery manager. I knew she’d had her eye on James for herself, but she’d made an advance on him ages ago, and it couldn’t have been clearer that he just wasn’t interested. Still, I thought, as she told me over the phone about the new development, she must have been holding onto some idea that he’d change his mind. She didn’t say it aloud, but she was clearly more upset about the new girlfriend than she was about the fact that James was going to be sponsoring this mystery woman as some kind of an artist.
I was shocked myself about the girlfriend. I’d known James for years and had never thought I’d see the day he committed to any kind of romantic relationship. From what I’d observed, he was never serious about any of the legions of women he was seen with. Shocked was quickly followed by pleased, as I cared about James as a person, and I figured that if he was doing all of this, he must care for the woman.
Even so, I wasn’t thrilled at the idea, at least not the one that was originally presented to me. A large, lavishly promoted showing, exclusively featuring this woman’s paintings. I knew only the facts as they were presented to me. She worked with acrylics and watercolors, and had an indefinite amount of paintings, and she was without training of any kind.
It was obvious that he was in love with his new girlfriend, but that wouldn’t make our jobs any easier.
And then I saw her paintings.
I was leaning casually against my tall work desk, flipping through my day’s workload.
I was meticulous; so I organized my workload and made to-do lists daily and anything that came directly from the boss, which was rare, went straight to the top.
I opened the portfolio, which contained only photos of the paintings, with absolutely no expectations. One look, and I had to sit down.
Three hours later, I was obsessed.
The color, the depth, the dreamy imagination that each picture contained made my heart beat faster. This was the part of my job that I thrived on. It didn’t happen often, not like this, but when it did, I just lived to put a show like this together.
I felt such a sense of wonder at the untutored skill behind it all. It always astounded me, the crap that came out in the art world, by artists that had impressive credentials, and years of study, and yet the results showed little in the way of skill or depth.
This was the opposite. This woman put her soul on the canvas with a skill and talent that I could scarce believe was untrained.
One phone call with James, after looking at her portfolio, and falling in love with it, and he’d put me in charge of the showing. We were kindred spirits when it came to this sort of thing, and I think my enthusiasm alone could have gotten me the job.
It all made sense to me upon meeting her. She was so composed, so reserved. I’d have thought she was cold, if I didn’t have a similar approach to strangers.
Her passion, her animation came out on canvas, it was clear. It was all the expression she needed, as far as I was concerned.
I was promoted. It wasn’t a little promotion. One day I was quite satisfied to be the manager of one very successful gallery, and the next I was running seven, placed all over the globe.
It was daunting, but exhilarating. I had to move back to Vegas, though I traveled a lot, so that was some consolation.
It was surreal to be working in the same building as Tristan, but after a few weeks with no sightings, I was fairly confident that we could avoid each other cleanly.
Andrew was pleased with my promotion, but not with the fact that I had to relocate for it. Still, he accepted my decision without fighting me.
He wasn’t a fighter.
He came to see me every other weekend in Vegas, often surprising me with various show tickets.
Once, those tickets happened to be for Tristan’s show.
At first, I tried to make excuses and to talk him into getting a refund. He seemed so baffled by that that I changed gears, bit the bullet, and just went.
If I were even a little bit honest with myself, I’d have admitted that I was dying to see the show. Morbid curiosity, I told myself.
We sat three rows back, center stage. The theatre was colossal, and they were amazing seats. Andrew had to have spent at least five hundred dollars on the tickets.
Five hundred dollars to make me a paranoid mess. We were so close that the entire time I was sure Tristan would see me, would know I’d come.
He never did, thank God, but as soon as it was over, I made sure we got out of there fast, feeling like I’d dodged a bullet.
I waited until Andrew fell asleep that night, went into the bathroom, and cried for hours. The show had been amazing, but it had hurt so much to see him again, and moreover like that, so beautiful, so compelling.
It brought to mind how much of myself I’d invested in him, knowing that this was the investment, this amazing man I’d seen tonight. He’d been a gamble, with a strong potential for loss and gain. I’d suffered the loss. Tonight I’d been reminded brutally of the promised gain.
I cried because of that. But also, because I was a fool.
I was so very proud of him.
TRISTAN
I spotted James and his new woman just as I finished my stint with the red carpet photographer nonsense.
I grinned at the way James glared at me just for glancing in her direction. The man had it bad.
I moved to them, making as if to embrace Bianca, but James was there, catching me up in a bear hug, lifting me just enough to show me that he was no pushover.
“You lay a finger on her, and I’ll break those magic hands of yours,” he growled into my ear.
I threw my head back and laughed. That was just what I’d needed to get over some of my tension about seeing Danika again.
I sized him up, more out of habit than anything else. I’d never lost a fight in my life, but I thought James could put up a good struggle before I took him down.