Read Between The Lines: Business of Love 6

by Parker, Ali

  “You’re going to ask her out, right?”

  I let the corner of the sheet fall back over the canvas. “I haven’t decided.”

  Wes chuckled and opened his mouth to speak, but the studio door opened, and Briar popped her head in. “Boys,” she chimed, “all of your little friends have arrived.”

  Wes hurried to the door and I followed, flicking off the studio lights behind me as I stepped out the door and locked up. Tonight, guests would be isolated to the gallery. My studio was strictly off limits unless they were brought in by personal invitation from yours truly.

  I turned as Wes greeted the large group of people who’d just walked in. I’d met some of them previously when they stopped by my gallery months ago after being in town for a wedding, but that had been out in Los Angeles.

  Wes shook hands, clasped shoulders, and hugged the beautiful women, who all rushed to greet Briar with equal enthusiasm.

  Briar turned them all in my direction. “I know some of you have already met my boss, Walker. But for those of you who haven’t, he’s the man of the hour. Every piece in the gallery is his creation.”

  I tugged at the lapel of my navy blue suit jacket. “I’m just a man, Briar.”

  The women giggled.

  Wes rolled his eyes and waved me off before going through rounds of introductions.

  First, there were Katie and Peter, a charming young couple who’d flown out to visit the week of my fundraiser by happenstance. They lived in the Virgin Islands where I learned they were closing in on the final stages of a large home renovation of an old cabin. Katie was quick to whip out her phone and show some of the women pictures of all the work they’d been doing. The pair of them seemed happily in love, and when Katie wasn’t gushing to the girls about her homestead, she had one arm wrapped through Peter’s. Whenever he spoke, she looked up at him and hung on every word, and he did the same with her.

  Next I was introduced to Jackson and Hailey, a bright-eyed playful couple eager to be out on the town for their first time since having their baby.

  “I was told there would be drinks,” Hailey said. “I pumped for days leading up to this so I could treat myself.”

  Jackson wrapped an arm around her waist and chuckled. “We could both do with a bit of old-fashioned fun. We promise we won’t get messy in your gallery, Walker.”

  “By all means, get messy.” I turned to Briar. “Should we crack a bottle before any other guests arrive?”

  Briar nodded eagerly, went to the bar fridge behind the front desk, retrieved a bottle of champagne, and filled several flutes sitting on a tray. Part of me suspected she’d been preparing for this and was merely waiting for my approval. She passed the flutes around and we all took a sip.

  Hailey hiccupped from the bubbles and pressed two dainty fingers to her lips. “I think I’m drunk already.”

  Jackson bumped her hip lightly with his. “Should we get out of here and head to a hotel room?”

  Kim, a slender, dark-haired, beautiful woman, clicked her tongue at Jackson. “Don’t spoil your night out before it even starts.”

  “You and I have very different definitions of a spoiled night out.” Jackson winked.

  Hailey smacked the back of her hand against his stomach.

  Jackson massaged his gut. “I deserved that.”

  Kim turned to her man, Rick, and whispered something in his ear that made him chuckle deeply. She knitted her fingers through his and sipped her wine and didn’t notice the way he watched her out of the corner of his eye while the rest of the group continued to poke fun at Jackson.

  Hailey enjoyed the razzing thoroughly.

  The last couple I met properly was Vanessa and Rhys, whose wedding was the one everyone had been in Los Angeles for when I met them at my other studio. Vanessa was a full and beautiful woman who continuously asked Briar if there was anything she could do to help get ready for the arrival of the guests. Briar assured her tonight was for them to enjoy, not to work.

  However, about twenty minutes into the evening when the doors opened, Briar put Wes out front to take tickets and welcome guests to the event.

  A waitstaff had arrived and come in the side door wearing white coats and black pants. They picked up serving trays at Briar’s request and she also showed them where the bar fridge was as well as the room-temperature red wines.

  Guests began to arrive, and as my gallery filled up and Wes collected tickets, his and Briar’s friends joined the throngs and made their way through the gallery floor, pausing to admire the paintings that spoke to them the most.

  An hour into the evening, Briar sidled up beside me with a glass of red wine in hand. The deep burgundy lip shade she’d been wearing at the beginning of the night had worn off a bit on the inside of her lips. “I think it’s going really well,” she said, leaning toward me. “We’ve sold six pieces already.”

  Could be better. Could be worse. “Good,” I said.

  “The night is young. I expect you’ll sell at least ten more and we’ll have room to bring your new collection onto the floor next month.” She turned toward me but her eyes never left the guests. “What do you think of having an online shop?”

  I looked down at her. “Are you trying to modernize me?”

  “You could stand a bit of modernization. It would make your pieces more accessible. It might cost a bit of money up front to build a website, but once it’s up and running, clients all over the world would be able to see your work and place online orders. You could even drop some costs and offer prints instead of only originals, if you were interested.”

  It wasn’t the first time someone had suggested I step out of just doing originals. It wasn’t a bad idea, either.

  However, I couldn’t help but feel like a bit of the magic was lost if I started selling duplicates.

  “I’ll think about it,” I told her.

  She seemed satisfied by that answer and nodded. “I’m going to check on Wes and make sure he’s not making any inappropriate jokes with your guests. Sometimes he forgets when he’s in elevated social circles.”

  “Elevated?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “You know what I mean. Sophisticated.”

  I chuckled as she left and thought I was anything but sophisticated. I might have looked the part when I wanted to, but if anyone in this room was going to make an ass of themselves and crack an ill-timed joke, it would be me.

  I watched Briar go to the door and she met Wes just as a trio of young women stepped inside out of the chilly spring night. The first had shiny blonde hair that glistened under the gallery lights. She shrugged out of her royal blue pea coat and relinquished it to Wes, who hung it on the rack I’d rolled out of the studio to be used as a coat check for guests. The second was a slim young woman with a blunt brown bob. When she took off her jacket, I saw that her earrings matched her emerald green blouse as well as her pointed-toe high-heeled shoes.

  The last woman to step in behind them was dressed the most casually. She shook her hair out and raked her fingers through it. It was a wild, unbrushed mane of brown, and shorter strands framed her face and fell in front of her eyes, which even from the other side of the gallery I could see were blue.

  Quite blue.

  Wes held out a hand and offered to take her coat. She removed her jean jacket with flannel lining and passed it over. Underneath, she wore black jeans that hugged her shape and made it hard for me to keep my eyes in appropriate places. Her ankle boots clicked on the marble floors as she followed her friends into the depths of my gallery and accepted a glass of champagne off a server’s tray.

  Her blue gaze raked over the paintings on display and she sighed. Immediately, I knew she’d been dragged here against her will. A smile curled the corners of my lips and I stepped forward to approach her.

  Just then, Aayla stepped through the doors.

  She towered over the other women in the gallery by at least three inches. Wes took her coat, a floor-length black gorgeous piece of clothing, and looke
d over his shoulder to look around wildly for me. We locked eyes and I shook my head, no, but he pointed me out to Aayla, who waved and smiled and started in my direction.

  She drew up in front of me looking lovely in a silk dress that showed off her shoulders, back, and long legs.

  “You clean up nicely, Walker.” Aayla’s deep brown eyes swept me up and down. “I’m surprised. There isn’t a speck of paint on you.”

  “Not that you can see,” I said.

  She laughed lightly. “Of course.”

  “You look beautiful.”

  Aayla looked down at her dress and ran her hands down her hips. “You don’t think it’s too much?”

  “You are a woman who could pull off anything she put on.”

  She reached out and pressed a hand lightly to my chest. “That’s a high compliment coming from a man who’s seen me naked several times.”

  If she was trying to fluster me, it wouldn’t work. I gave her a wry grin. “Would this be an inappropriate time to ask you to join me for dinner one night next week?”

  Aayla blinked, stammered, and touched the side of her long slender neck before playing with the gold earring that dangled from her earlobe. “Dinner?”

  “Yes,” I said smoothly, stepping a little closer to fix the strap of her dress like I was fixing her to paint her. She was used to this kind of thing. I’d often posed and arranged her in the studio before we began our painting session. “I would like to share your company over food and a drink.”

  Wes would be proud of me for pushing past my uncertainty about stepping back into the dating pool. He was right. It was time to take some steps forward and gain some momentum. All these couples around me tonight had reminded me how nice it was to arrive and leave with the same person at the end of an evening. I wanted those shared secretive looks and the long talks on the drive home as they made fun of the people they’d spent the night with.

  All couples did that, didn’t they?

  I wondered dimly what the couples would say about me and my work on their way home at the end of the night.

  Aayla nodded as I let my hand fall to my side after fixing her strap. “That sounds nice, Walker. Next week, it is.”

  Chapter 7

  Nora

  At least there was champagne.

  I couldn’t believe I’d been dragged out of the house to an art gallery on a Friday night when I would have much rather been cozied up on the sofa with a cup of green tea and my laptop. Would I have been job hunting like I was supposed to? Probably not. But I would have thoroughly enjoyed perusing travel blogs and booking engines to plan my next trip, even if it was just a fantasy at this point due to lack of funds.

  Instead, I was here, walking across glossy marble floors, looking at canvas paintings of naked women with incredible bone structure and physiques.

  Grace stopped in front of a dark canvas done in shades of forest and mossy greens. The woman in the painting seemed to materialize out of the darkness and all of her special bits were covered in leaves. She had striking red hair that pulled the eye up to her face, which was plain in comparison to the rest of the image. She had freckles across her nose done in bronze, and the artist had used green to paint her lashes.

  She looked like something out of a fantasy world.

  “This is exquisite,” Grace breathed. “Look at the attention to detail.”

  “It makes me feel so peaceful,” Julie said.

  Both of them looked expectantly at me.

  I looked from them to the painting and said what I thought they wanted to hear. “It’s nice.”

  “Nice?” Grace asked. “That’s all you have to say? It’s nice?”

  My attention slid back to the painting. What else did she want me to say about it?

  Julie intervened before I had a chance to speak. “I wonder how many hours it took to complete. And what the woman looks like in real life.”

  “It’s so realistic I bet that’s exactly how she looks,” Grace said.

  My eyes tried to roll into my skull. There was no way on this green earth that girl was walking around New York City looking like that. Sure, she might have similarities, but something told me these paintings weren’t the exact renderings of real-life people. They had elements of fantasy poured into them.

  I didn’t dare say that aloud for fear of someone walking by and thinking I knew what I was talking about. The last thing I wanted was to get into a conversation with an art freak and that was what every person in this room had to be.

  Right?

  “Our tickets get us a chance to see some of the work in progress in the attached studio,” Julie said. “Maybe we’ll get a chance to meet the artist and ask some questions. It might help me make a decision on which one I want to purchase.”

  Back at the house, I’d been convinced she was kidding when she talked about buying one of these pieces. The price tags on all of them were staggering. At least in terms of my financial situation they were. None of them were under six thousand dollars.

  Grace pointed across the gallery at a painting of an East Indian woman in a sari. The canvas stood out in comparison to all others because of the rich reds and golds against a stark white backdrop. The irises of the beautiful woman captured some of those colors, too. They looked almost wet the reflections were done so nicely.

  “I like that one,” Grace said. “I would love to hang that behind my desk in my office. She looks so wise and powerful.”

  “It’s ninety-five hundred dollars, Grace,” I said, floored that she would even fantasize about having something so expensive in her office. That was my share of the rent multiplied by nine months. That kind of money could buy me at least four months worth of travel, potentially more if I made smart choices about where to stay and what I was eating.

  “I know,” Grace said, seemingly unbothered by the price tag. “But an artist deserves to be paid what he’s worth. I’m not saying that I’m going to buy it. I would just like to own it.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Although it would hold its value forever.”

  “It’s a glorified piece of paper, not a car,” I said flatly.

  Grace narrowed her eyes at me. “You don’t have to buy anything, Nora. But if I want to, you bet I’m going to go ahead and buy the one that speaks to me the most.” She turned to Julie. “What one do you like?”

  Julie nodded pointedly at the green canvas with the red-haired woman. “This one. Definitely this one.”

  It was seven thousand four hundred dollars.

  My stomach turned.

  I knew I’d made my own choices when it came to money and prioritized travel over wealth, but I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous that they could so casually throw this kind of money around. There was no way they had this kind of cash.

  Was there?

  “It goes to a good cause,” Julie said. “So many high school art programs are underfunded or closed down entirely. Art was a safe place for me as a teenager. It let me escape for a little while from stuff going on at home and from bullies. Not all kids can find camaraderie in sports. Sometimes, they need something more expressive like painting or playing an instrument.”

  A waiter passed with a tray of champagne flutes just as I polished off my first glass. I placed my empty one on his tray and traded it for a fresh glass. He offered me a curt nod and continued his rounds through the gallery.

  I let my gaze wander around the place as Grace and Julie talked about art.

  Everyone here looked like they could afford to be here. They wore nice suits and expensive jewelry. Designer handbags hung in the crooks of women’s elbows and Rolex watches flashed on men’s wrists as they pointed up at paintings and leaned in to speak intimately.

  I studied the green painting of the red-haired girl once more.

  Was it possible that these pieces really did inspire something in these people? Why couldn’t I feel it? Why couldn’t I look at a painting like this and feel a semblance of something?

  All I felt when I looked
at her was a desire to be back in Scotland. The red hair and the textured shades of green brought me back to the Scottish Highlands, broken up by dark jagged rock that sometimes gave way to rolling hills that went on as far as the eye could see to inevitably kiss the blue horizon.

  Grace and Julie moved along to the next painting and I followed.

  They spoke about this last woman. She was entirely nude with stark porcelain skin and icy blue eyes. Her black hair was swept back, as if caught in a gale of wind, and it melted into the gray and silver background. To me, it looked like she was being swallowed whole by a sparkling backdrop of ice.

  “What do you think it means?” Grace asked, head tilted thoughtfully to the side.

  “It makes me feel lonely,” Julie said. “And sad.”

  Oh my God, here we go again.

  “It’s beautiful and frightening all at once,” Grace said.

  “I think it symbolizes isolation,” Julie said. “There is something cold and frigid about being alone and keeping everyone out. She seems unyielding. Almost cruel. Like she’s punishing herself.”

  I couldn’t stand there and listen to them anymore. I was glad they could come to a place like this and enjoy it so much but it simply wasn’t for me. I’d been the kid in high school who hated reading between the lines in English class and trying to interpret the author’s meaning. When teachers asked “what do you think Shakespeare meant here,” I’d always roll my eyes and continue doodling in the column of my notebook. When called upon, my answer was always the same: he wrote it because it sounded good and it rhymed.

  Teachers never liked that very much.

  This evening felt like that—like I was entirely out of my depth and posing amongst people who saw things in these paintings that I simply did not.

  I sifted through the gallery and kept to corners where nobody else was. When someone approached, I drifted onto the next and sipped my champagne. I sighed as I gazed at an electric red painting of a woman with dark skin streaked in swipes of red, orange, and yellow paint.

  “You know what I like about you?” I asked the painting. “You can’t talk and act like a snob. Do you know how insufferable people are when they pretend to know what they’re talking about when it comes to art? Barf.”