by J. D. Mason
Cristina’s open palm met the side of his face with a resounding slap! Not once, but twice. “Don’t fucking touch me again!”
She slithered off the bar stool, passed Ellis, headed toward the door, stopped, and turned. She looked at him like he was the devil. The door slammed shut. He stood there like a statue, listening to the sound of her car starting up and pulling away from the house. Ellis had no idea of what had just happened, but all of a sudden, that one thing he’d hoped for, the single most promising connection he’d ever made to another person, was over.
CHAPTER 10
Cristina had been back in Austin for a week, staring at the blank screen on her computer like a zombie. She’d listened to hours of tape over and over again, zeroing in on the sound of Ellis’ voice. Even now, it resonated with her in unexpected ways, and she still couldn’t understand why.
“What do you think about when you’re painting, Ellis? What kinds of thoughts go through your mind?”
Laughter. “Not a whole lot, but that’s the point. It’s not about thinking. It’s about feeling. Doing. Being. All in the moment. Shit. I got no better answer than that.”
She’d led him on. Maybe she’d led herself on too, allowing the attraction she’d felt toward him to get the best of her. Cristina had let her guard down, and she’d let him in just enough for him to believe that he was welcomed, when he never really was. Ellis had gotten in between her and her demons. She never should’ve let things go that far. She hadn’t meant to hit him, but Cristina had reacted instinctively to protect herself. No, Ellis wasn’t Brian, but he was as much a figment of her imagination as Brian was. Ellis pretended to be someone he wasn’t. He probably even believed that he was that Zen guy who lost himself in the moment when it came to painting, but deep down, she believed that he was only fooling himself. Sure, prison changed people, but not usually for the better.
She had a better understanding of why he was so reclusive now, though. Ellis had purposefully removed himself from all the triggers that used to set him off before he was sent away. He stayed away from his controlling father, all of his friends that he used to hang out with, and had replaced them all with paint and blank canvasses. He’d built another kind of prison for himself and didn’t even know it. Ellis had been convincing, though, even mesmerizing to Cristina. He’d almost convinced her to trust again and to believe that what was on the surface of him was real. It wasn’t.
Jules had been calling all day, and Cristina had been ignoring her all day. This time, though, she figured she might as well get the conversation over with.
“When can I expect my article?” Jules said, bypassing the customary greeting.
“Hi, Jules,” Cristina said dryly.
“I need a date, Cristina. The words, ‘You’ll have it on time, Jules,’ would be nice,” she said sarcastically.
“You will,” Cristina said unconvincingly.
“Did you get him to agree to attend the Stucco event?”
Shit! Cristina cursed herself. “I mentioned it. Yes,” she said, lying.
“Liar.”
“I meant to.”
“They started putting this event together last month, Cristina, banking on your word that you would convince him to attend. And now you’re telling me that you’ve only ‘mentioned’ it to him? Seriously?”
Cristina had promised to get Ellis to go to New York for the event and she’d fucked up and forgotten to even say anything to him about it. That was her reason for going to see him the day she whacked the hell out of him.
“I’ll talk to him again, Jules,” she said, irritably.
“Did I just piss you off?” Jules suddenly snapped. “Because forgive me if I did by expecting you to follow through on a promise that you made to me,” she finished sarcastically.
Cristina rolled her eyes, took a deep breath, and steadied her tone. “I said I’d get him to come, and I will.”
How? How the hell are you going to do that, Cristina?
Jules huffed. “Thank you. I’d appreciate it you’d let me know what he says as soon as he says it.”
“I will, Jules,” she assured her, before saying good-bye and hanging up.
Cristina had thoroughly messed this up. How the hell was she supposed to ask Ellis to do the gallery thing now? She got up and paced back and forth in her bedroom, shaking her head. Cristina had lost sight of her role, her job with Ellis. She was a reporter and her job was to interview the man, take a few pictures and …
“Fuck!” she grunted. She hadn’t even taken pictures. Cristina covered her face with her hands, groaned miserably, and buckled at the knees, lowering herself to the floor in a heap. She hadn’t taken any pictures. Not one shot of him, his studio, or even the man’s house.
Eventually she gathered enough strength to get up off the floor. Her plan was never to talk to Ellis again or to see him again, but unless she wanted to face the wrath of Jules and get blacklisted from every major publication in existence for failing to deliver on an assignment, she had no choice but to call him. Cristina felt physically ill at the thought, but she managed to drag her ass over to her desk and ready herself for the inevitable. She had no idea how long she stared at her cell phone before finally picking it up and dialing his number.
Cristina prayed silently that he wouldn’t answer.
“Hello,” he said unemotionally.
She took a deep breath. “Ellis.”
“Yeah.”
“Look, I uh … wouldn’t be calling except that there were a few things that I forgot,” she reluctantly admitted.
“Like?” he asked, curtly.
Yeah, his tone was uncomfortable, but certainly understandable. But Cristina didn’t regret a thing she’d said or done.
“A gallery in New York is hoping that you will agree to come to a showing of your work.”
Long pause. “Not interested.”
That’s pretty much what she thought he’d say. “I kind of told them that you would.”
“Well, now you can tell them that I won’t.”
“Ellis, this isn’t about me. Don’t make it about me. These people really do want you to come.”
“I don’t do galleries, Cristina. I don’t do New York.”
She was losing. Wow.
“They’ve started sending out invitations to some of the biggest collectors in the world, Ellis. You have to do this.”
Again with the long pause.
Cristina peeled out of her pride. “Please?”
He sighed. “When?”
“September twelfth. All expenses paid. You just have to show up for one night. That’s it.”
She was winning?
“Fine,” he said dismally. “What else?”
Cristina was so caught off guard that he’d agreed that she’d almost forgotten her other reason for calling. “Oh, pictures?” She felt stupid. “I forgot to take pictures of you while I was there.”
“I’ll have uh … somebody take some or something,” he stammered. “I’ll e-mail them to you.”
Not good enough, but it was going to have to be. “Sure, Ellis. That’s fine.”
“That’s it, then?”
“Yes,” she murmured.
He hung up. She hated that she felt lonelier when he did. Cristina hated herself for getting so comfortable around Ellis. She’d made too many mistakes with him, more than she’d ever made with anyone she’d interviewed, and she still didn’t understand how or why she’d let that happen. After Brian, she’d looked back and saw so many signs, evidence that he wasn’t who he’d pretended to be, and she’d ignored them. She’d promised herself never to let that happen again. Cristina had sworn an oath to listen to her instincts and to never let herself be fooled again. Ellis was a ball of confusion. He seemed to be one way, but everyone else’s impression of him was so opposite of what he portrayed to her, that her warning beacon went off. She might not ever know for sure who the real Ellis Brewer was, but in her mind, it was better to be safe than sorry.
&n
bsp; The day she’d hit him, she’d panicked. Her defenses were up after she’d dared to let them down, and no one was allowed in when she was like that. He hadn’t hurt her, but he could. But it wasn’t up to him to promise to keep her safe. It was up to her, and only her. Cristina needed to keep herself safe, and she would, no matter what or who it cost her in the end.
CHAPTER 11
“Hey, Ellis.” Drew Jones came up to Ellis’ table at Belle’s. “How you doing?”
Ellis nodded, and cut into his steak.
“Mind if I sit down?”
He did mind, but motioned his head toward the seat opposite him. No matter what day of the week it was, Drew Jones always wore a suit coat and button-down, like he was on his way to the next city council meeting or something. Other than a nod in passing the two hadn’t spoken in a long time. The two had grown up together, along with Vince. But Drew had always skirted the outer edges of the friendship, despite the fact that he and Vince were cousins.
“I, uh, spoke to that reporter friend of yours the other day,” he admitted, looking across at Ellis for some kind of reaction. “Pretty lady.”
Ellis sipped on his beer.
“She spoke to your father too.”
Ellis sighed. “Yeah. She told me she talked to you.”
Silence wafted between the two men for several moments.
“She says you’re like a big deal among art collectors now. That’s cool, man.”
It didn’t feel right sitting here with Drew talking about his career as an artist. It wasn’t like they were old friends catching up on old times. Drew had been the one to deliver the ultimatum from his father.
“Take the plea deal, Ellis,” he said gravely, sitting across the table from Ellis in the jail. “That’s your best option. Take the three years. Otherwise, you go to trial and you could lose fifteen years of your life.”
Ellis’ father had called in a favor from the prosecuting attorney.
“Vince is never going to walk again, man,” Drew told him. “Three years is nothing compared to the sentence he’s serving because of you.”
“He fucking raped her, Drew,” Ellis said, desperately. “He raped Daneen, man.”
Drew just shrugged. “That’s not what she’s saying.”
Ellis couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Did you ask her?”
“We did, Ellis. She was brought in for questioning and Daneen says she didn’t see who attacked her. She doesn’t know if it was Vince. She couldn’t swear to it. She wouldn’t.”
“I know you might not believe this but your old man is proud of you,” Drew offered, leaning back with a satisfied look on his face. “He was on the Internet for hours after she left, doing Web searches on your name and shit. So did I.”
If he expected Ellis to be impressed … Well, he wasn’t.
“You’ve done good for yourself, Ellis. Real good.”
Ellis took the last bite of his meal and pushed his plate away.
“Have you heard from Daneen?”
Ellis shook his head. “Not in years.”
“Still think about her?”
Daneen was a lingering dream that he figured he’d never fully be able to wake up from. Beautiful blond hair, ocean-blue eyes, petite and curvy and soft. He’d loved to hear her laugh because she did it all the time and it sounded like wind chimes. Her eyes lit up whenever she looked into his, and he just knew that he’d spend the rest of his life with that woman.
“Not really,” he told Drew.
“You know Sasha? Sasha Wallace?”
Ellis nodded. “John’s little sister.”
Drew laughed. “Well, she’s not so little anymore.” He smiled. “We’re engaged.”
Sasha Wallace had been in braces the last time Ellis had seen that girl. What was she now? Twenty-three? Twenty-four?
“Congratulations, Drew.”
Drew laughed. “Yeah. If I’d put my hands on her two seconds earlier than I did, I’d probably be up on statutory charges by now.”
Ellis surprised himself and laughed too. “She’s young.”
“But smart. She just graduated from UT and got her engineering degree.”
Ellis raised his brows. “Impressive.”
“I remember shrugging her off when she was a kid. Annoying as hell.” He grimaced. “Remember how she used to stand on the porch when we’d go get John, put her hand on her hip and complain that she was going to tell on him for sneaking out before he’d finished mowing the lawn?”
Ellis chuckled. “You’re marrying her?”
Drew shrugged. “Maybe I loved her back then and just didn’t know it.”
Surprisingly, the two men talked for nearly an hour, dredging up memories from before Ellis was sentenced to prison. And then, Ellis found himself talking about what it was like to actually be incarcerated.
“If my old man wanted to teach me a lesson, he certainly did that,” Ellis said introspectively.
“He expected you to get out before the three years were up, Ellis. All you had to do was keep your nose clean and you would’ve.”
“A clean nose in prison will get you a sore ass, Drew.” Ellis didn’t go into details, but from the look on Drew’s face, he knew he didn’t need to. “A man becomes a whole different kind of animal when he’s in a place like that. Instincts you didn’t even know you had rise to the surface and it’s literally kill or be killed.”
“But you were tough, Ellis. Always have been.”
“Not that kind of tough. In my mind I’d always had something to live for, so yeah, I’d do just enough dirt to piss off the old man, but never enough to risk my own life. Dudes in prison, some of those men have nothing to lose. A dangerous man is one who doesn’t give a shit about living or dying or losing. The moment is the only thing that matters. And so, that’s how I made it through. I learned to live in the moment and sometimes that got me solitary confinement, but it was all right. I’d earned a stripe.”
“So did that living in the moment thing carry over?”
“Yeah,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Now is all that matters.”
“Does that mean you don’t think about Vince?”
Ellis usually tensed up whenever Vince’s name came up. The two of them had been as thick as thieves growing up, but went their separate ways as young men. Vince had raped Daneen. She’d admitted it to Ellis even if she’d never told another single soul, and he’d believed her. Because of that, Vince got what he deserved. At least, that’s what Ellis had believed when he’d done it. Now he understood that he’d gone too far but he also understood that there was nothing he could do about it. The deed was done.
“I think about him.”
“Seen him?”
Ellis didn’t respond.
“So, this reporter friend of yours.” Drew squinted and turned his head to one side. “Is she just a friend?”
What was this dude’s game? “Why?”
“I’m just curious, man.” He grinned. “She’s gorgeous.”
“She’s just a reporter, Drew.”
Drew sighed. “Too bad.”
Oddly enough, he was right about that.
“You ever think you’ll get married? Have kids?”
“What part of living in the moment shit did you miss?” Ellis quipped.
Drew laughed. “Right. Right. Marriage and having a family takes planning.”
“Exactly.”
“Which you don’t do because you’re living in the moment.”
Ellis chuckled. “Now you got it.”
“Well, since she’s just a reporter then I think it’s safe to say I wouldn’t mind living in a few moments with that one.”
“Didn’t you just tell me you’re about to get married?”
“I did. I am, but hell, I’m not dead.”
“But you are faithful,” he teased.
“To a fault. And honorable. And loyal.”
“Which is why Dad always liked you best.” Ellis grinned.
That had always be
en the running joke between them, even when they were kids. Drew had always stood out to the senior Brewer as the shining example of the kind of boy Ellis should’ve been and he never failed to remind Ellis of that fact.
Drew stood up to leave. “Dad does like me best,” he shot back. “Want me to send your regards?”
“Do that. And kiss him on the cheek for me while you’re at it.”
Drew laughed, and proffered his hand to Ellis. “It’s been good, man. Take it easy.”
It had been good. “You too.”
CHAPTER 12
Cristina hadn’t seen Ellis in three weeks. In that time, she’d pulled her notes together and finished her article for Vutura, but she hadn’t sent it to Jules yet. Instead, she drove back to Blink and personally handed him a copy to read first. He didn’t exactly turn flips when she pulled up to his house, but he didn’t throw hot grits on her either. She took that as a sign that he didn’t completely hate her, but then again, he hadn’t read the article yet.
Cristina quietly paced his studio space while Ellis read through the five-page piece she’d written. She had to admit that it was some of her best work, in-depth, soulful, and insightful, but there was something about it that left her feeling uneasy.
Ellis wore his customary jeans and T-shirt, both stained with paint. His long hair was banded back away from his face, and he’d recently shaved, leaving a perfectly manicured five o’clock shadowed look. Those jade-green eyes of his resonated when they weren’t hidden by all the hair.
Ellis finished reading and without saying a word, held the papers out for her to take. Cristina reluctantly walked over to him and took the stack of papers. Their eyes briefly locked before he turned his back to her and started painting.
“Well?” she said after clearing her throat.
Ellis stopped and faced her again. “You could’ve saved yourself a trip and e-mailed it to me.”
He was right.
“I thought I owed it to you to bring it to you.”
That was part of the truth. The whole truth was that she wanted to see him again. Cristina couldn’t make sense of what she was feeling, but whatever it was, it compelled her to get in the car and drive three hours to his house to show him the story she’d written about him.
