by S. L. Naeole
“Ria needs to hear the quiet of a calm sea, not the rough waves caused by the motion of the ocean,” she snorted.
“How fucking cheesy, right?” Kara guffawed. “But he ate it up! Said that since you’re my bestie, waiting is totally worth it.”
“Yeah, and then you took him into the bathroom and gave him a hummer,” Lara mumbled before getting pelted in the head with an accent pillow.
Holly rolled her eyes before excitedly telling me about her new assignment at MOAT working as an assistant with the head costume designer, Eric. She’s been tasked with coming up with reusable designs for the upcoming winter season of shows. Her voice was like a bell, clear and sharp as she told me about designs she’d already roughly drawn out and materials she had in mind. I was impressed and I told her so.
Vonne, knowing that I wanted to hear about what happened at work while I was gone, filled me in on the new intern that started today—Ivy—and about how much my boss Delmonico hated her already. I immediately understood why. Working in the restoration department for the Museum of Arts and Theater, or MOAT, as we like to call it, is a dream come true for someone like me, someone that loves the art, quiet, and the ability to concentrate on making something beautiful, exquisite shine brightly again. But interns, they tend to come in expecting to be surrounded by famous Van Goghs and priceless Cezannes, spend their days working in large, brightly lit rooms, attend luxurious exhibit galas schmoozing with the wealthy people whose collections provided us with the art in the first place, and earn a bajillion dollars in the process.
Instead, we worked underground in quiet, windowless rooms where the only sounds you heard besides the scraping and whispers of spatulas and brushes were the fans whirring above us in vents that sucked out the fumes of varnish, neutralizers and paint. Our fingers rarely touched art worth more than what we’d make in a lifetime, and whenever artwork did come into our sphere worth that much or more it was almost always accompanied by its own designated caretakers and restorers—veritable gods in our world. We’re only ever invited to exhibit galas for pieces we’ve personally worked on, and only if we’re the sole restorer. Relays, or pieces that go from one person’s department to the next, never warrant an invite to anything more than a soft opening for employees and museum membership holders, something akin to visiting the museum on a snow day.
It’s not a glamorous job; the hours are long, and I’m always covered in paint and smelling of fumes. But whenever a piece I’ve worked on gets displayed, whenever I see it in the newspaper accompanying an article announcing its exhibition, I feel a sense of pride because through my hard work I’ve helped a true artist reconnect with his or her audience. Unfortunately, interns rarely get to that point. By the time they get to me, they’re so jaded with doing grunt work in such a dark and gloomy environment that they quit, throwing away sometimes months of time and energy.
Sighing in disappointment and understanding, I looked at Vonne and told her that I completely understood his feelings toward Ivy.
“Yeah, well, he said that if she keeps it up, he’s going to send her down to you immediately and make her your problem.” Vonne’s voice is stilted as she says this and I looked at her with confusion.
“Why?”
Unable to hold back her grin any longer Vonne replied, “Because you’ve been promoted to Assistant Director of Restoration and Preservation! Under Delmonico, of course.”
My friends cheered, but all I could do was blink, one quick snap of my eyes in rapid succession. “Pro-promoted?”
Vonne nodded enthusiastically, her infection smile spreading across her face. “Yes! I kinda let it slip a couple weeks ago to Gladys up in HR about you looking for a second job and well, the position was open since Olana retired which meant that the next senior staff member was up for the job since they wanted to fill it in-house.”
I cut her off with a slight raise of my hand. “But Phil’s been at MOAT for twenty years. He should be next in line for that job. In fact, he was just talking about the promotion last week!”
Vonne shook her head. “He was interested, but he was offered a position at the Met along with his own staff and he’s taking Allison and Parker with him. He told Tobias yesterday that he was leaving; totally caught everyone off guard. So…”
Nervousness, joy, and panic all bloomed in my chest simultaneously. “That means I don’t have to look for that second job.”
A rush of overwhelming relief hit me and I began to giggle, my friends joining in with me. They knew what this meant for me. “When I’m better and I get my car situation all sorted out, we’re going out to celebrate,” I announced. “Drinks on me!” My friends cheered again.
It was after midnight when I finally headed to my bedroom with the help of my friends. I was exhausted and barely registering anything as someone helped me to the bathroom for a quick shower. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and squeaked in shock at the condition of my face. Makeup still sat on the left side of my face but the other side was bare from where I’d wiped before the accident, revealing every imperfection and the half-moons of exhaustion that have made a permanent home beneath my eyes. Both sides were speckled with blood, the nurses at the ER having cleaned most of it off my face.
I lifted my hand to my nose and cringed. It was a swollen mess of purple, my nostrils ringed with dry, crusted blood. I inhaled, the act blocked by whatever had congealed and hardened beyond that blood. “Ew,” I muttered before noticing a line of stitches running across my forehead just below my hairline—a wound I didn’t even know I had. My ordinary brown eyes were extraordinarily bloodshot, my once neatly braided hair sticking out in wild flares of dark brown.
Ugh. Figures I would look like a bruised pineapple.
Vonne wrapped my cast in a plastic bag, sealing it with medical tape, and then ushered me into the shower. I washed my hair with one and a half hands, and then scrubbed my face free of blood and makeup, making sure not to touch the stitches floating above my eyebrow. I tried not to notice how the water ran in reddish-brown swirls around my feet just as a flash of a memory sent shivers coursing through my body despite the steam. I shook off the feeling of fear and shut off the water.
A hand pulled open the shower door and passed me a towel. I dried myself almost robotically, pressing the towel against my face before rubbing my hair semi-dry and then down my body. Vonne removed the tape and bag around my right arm and then she and Kara helped me dress in my favorite worn pajamas. Holly tucked me in as Lara handed me a pain pill and a glass of water. I swallowed down the water and pill and then pressed my head into my pillow before closing my eyes.
But I didn’t fall asleep. Instead, I thought about the accident and the strong arms that held me so protectively against a broad and powerful chest. I hadn’t seen his face, didn’t know what my white knight looked like, but a part of me knew that it didn’t matter. For the first time in a long time, I had felt safe in a man’s arms and the accident had done that. A smile crept its way up my lips even as my lids found their way down, and when I finally drifted off to sleep it was to the ghostly whisper of someone calling me sweetheart.
Sunlight burst through my window, waking me up. My head felt like a contestant in the solo drummer competition at Battle of the Bands, causing me to wince as I opened my eyes to the golden light filtering into my room. On my nightstand sat a glass of water and another pain pill. I took both greedily, moaning at the cool trickle of the water as it slipped down my scratchy throat and settled in my belly. A note sat beside the glass letting me know that all of the girls were out to work and that one of them will have lunch delivered.
I’m so lucky to have my friends.
With slow, calculated movements I sat up and swung my feet over the side of my bed. My right arm hung heavily at my side, my fingers numb. It had been a few years since I’d worn a cast, but I remembered how frustrating it was to have one, how encumbered it made me feel, and so I stared at it with disdain, hating the fact that it would be my best friend
for the next eight weeks. I won’t be able to do any work with this thing on, I realized, which was a bad thing now that I’d been promoted. I remembered how busy Olana, the previous assistant, had been. She’d had her hands in so many projects and assignments, and with my dominant hand now rendered useless for delicate work, what was I going to do?
I needed to call Delmonico.
Automatically I reached back to my nightstand to grab my phone but it wasn’t there. A groan slipped out of me as I remembered that it was in my purse and, if I was lucky, my purse was still in my totaled car…wherever that was.
I stood and shuffled to the bathroom before struggling to remove my shorts to sit down on the toilet and pee. It was while I was trying to awkwardly wipe myself that I heard the doorbell ring.
Shit.
Could it be the delivery guy? What time was it? Normally I’d have my phone with me to find out. Shit, I hate being without my phone. You never realize how integral it is to your life until you can’t tell what time it is.
“Hold on!” I shouted before yanking my shorts up with one hand. I scurried out of my room, down the hallway, and to the front door. I threw a quick glance at the massive clock on the far wall seated between two floor-to-ceiling windows and grimaced. My left hand fumbled with the deadbolt and I continued to shout apologies through the door as I struggled to open it. Finally, I heard the soft snick of the bolt retreating and then I pushed down on the thumb-lever before pulling the door open.
“Sorry. Just put it on the counter. Thanks, Lau,” I said breathlessly, throwing the door wide so our usual deliveryman could walk in and place the bags on the counter as was the routine.
Except it wasn’t Lau.
My mouth fell open as my eyes floated up. And up, and up, and then down as I took in the man standing in my doorway, swallowing at the sheer decadence of him. He was tall. So tall that he was almost slouching just to fit in the arched frame. His hair was cut short, slightly faded around his ears, and practically gleamed the blue-black of a raven’s wing. Equally black brows were knitted tightly over eyes filled with confidence that flickered between green, gold, and brown, like moss caught in sunlight, framed by thick, dark lashes. He had a mouth that screamed to be kissed—screamed to be kissed? What the hell is wrong with me—with wide, lush lips he’d somehow managed to pull into a thin, disapproving line. My fingers twitched to ease that line and that deep furrow between his brows. He was wearing a silver suit with a navy-blue shirt and a bright red tie, everything sharp and crisp as if he had just dressed.
“Hello,” he said, that rich voice falling over me like velvet-wrapped gravel. Instantly my mouth became a desert as I remembered the strength of him, the hard muscles that I’d been cradled against, the concern in his voice.
Him calling me sweetheart.
This was my Shadow Man.
“H-hi.” Get it together, Ria!
His mossy eyes scanned me slowly, roving over me from head to toe. I should have felt embarrassed by the blatant inspection but I didn’t. Didn’t I just do the same thing to him? Isn’t turnabout fair play?
As if he’d heard my thoughts the corner of his mouth quirked up before returning to that line of severity so fast, I’d have sworn I’d imagined it. His eyes flicked up and I started, because there was such a fiery intensity in them I felt it flare up in my cheeks, my ears, and down the lines of my throat where my pulse flickered quickly.
What the hell is wrong with me? One look and I’m blushing like I just got caught watching porn for the first time.
“I’m sorry to intrude on you after everything that happened yesterday, but I thought it was important for me to stop by, first to give you this—” he handed me my purse and my portfolio case and I squealed with delight “—and to see about exchanging insurance information since we were unable to do that yesterday.”
Finally understanding why he was here, I swung my broken arm out to invite him in and waited as he stepped into the short hallway that lead to my living room. I backed up into the wall, his body so big there was no room for us to stand side by side. His arm brushed against my breasts and I gasped, heat pulsing through me as if he’d just lit my top on fire. He didn’t notice, though; just kept on walking.
He might as well have been touching air with my invisible tits.
After taking in a few breaths and closing the door, I followed him and directed him to the sofa. He was quiet, his head swinging around as his critical gaze took in the rainbow rug beneath the white coffee table that Lara had built for the apartment, and the stacks of art and travel magazines that sat on top of it in a lazy skew.
“Please, have a seat,” I told him as I took the armchair directly across from him and pulled my purse into my lap. The plastered elbow of my cast banged against the wooden face of the chair that Lara had painstakingly reupholstered, causing me to wince as pain shot through my arm. The ninety-degree bend forced on it by the cast seemed to cause the pain to echo as the throbbing rocketed up and down, from wrist to elbow.
“I was worried about you. Are you okay?” he said as I clutched my elbow and drew my arm against my chest, trying to dampen to the spasms. His statement caught me by surprise and I could do nothing but stare at him for a few seconds, wondering why someone as magnificent as him would be worried about me. “Y-yeah,” I answered.
Another pause, another break of awkward silence.
“So, insurance information?”
“Victoria—”
We both spoke at the same time, though my nervousness caused me to speak a lot faster, and as he reached the last syllable of my name it was my turn to frown. “How do you know my name?” And, because the question hadn’t fully formed in my head until just then, “How do you know where I live?”
Confusion flashed in his eyes for a moment before the cool glint of confidence returned and he motioned toward my purse with a quick nod of his head. “I looked in your phone.”
Fear—cold, suffocating fear flowed through my body faster than blood and oxygen at his words and my good hand dove into my bag, my fingers searching frantically for the glass and metal device that contained my life within its electronic guts. It was password protected. It had a fingerprint reader. It was secured by the museum because of the photos I had to take for my work and the documents that pertained to them.
“How did you get into my phone?” I demanded to know as my hands came up empty with each inch I scoured. “Normal people look in wallets, you know! You couldn’t have looked at my driver’s license? You had to hack my phone?”
That gravelly voice wormed its way through my panic as he said, “Your wallet wasn’t in your purse; just your phone.”
“Of course my wallet’s in my purse. It’s always in my purse,” I argued, but even as the words left my lips my hand told me the truth. Frustrated and desperate, I yanked my hand out and upended the entire purse into my lap, my notebook, case of pens, tin of lip balm, travel brush, spare hair tie, and keys all flopping onto my bare legs. Everything that I’d always carried with me. Everything except my wallet and my—
A loud thunk dragged my attention to the coffee table. My phone now sat there, its screen lit, clearly unlocked. “How did you—why did you—how the hell did you unlock my phone?”
Angry, I snatched my phone from the table and checked my settings. When he didn’t answer, I swiped at my screen until I saw a folder icon. I tapped it and then proceeded to tap through sixteen other folders until I reached the one I was looking for. I tapped on it and a screen popped up, the security app it was programmed with demanding a password before the timer located below the entry space ran out. I didn’t type in the password. Instead, I looked at the time and date above the pop-up and sighed with relief.
Turning off my phone, I placed it down on my lap amid the other items I’d made my purse vomit up and then turned my focus back onto the man who still sat across from me, his face a mask of disinterest. “Are you going to answer me?”
He chuckled, though the laugh didn�
�t reach his eyes. “Victoria—”
“My name is Ria.”
A grunt, thick and deep, escaped his throat and then, “My apologies. Ria, my vehicle is insured with Harvest Liberty. I’ve already spoken to my agent there, explained everything that happened. All they need to know is with whom you’re insured so that they can begin the process of getting you a rental until the cost of a replacement can be determined and a check issued.”
Okay, I might have melted a little when he said, “with whom.”
“I don’t want you to have to pay for anything, or for your insurance to penalize you for the accident, seeing as it was completely not your fault.”
He was trying to charm and distract me with words, I realized, as he undid the buttons of his jacket and then reached into an inner pocket and removed a sleek, silver business card holder. My eyes caught the vest that sat against that navy shirt, noting how flatly it pressed against his chest and abdomen, my mind wandering toward that place where it was okay to imagine what his skin would look like underneath all that fab—
Holy shitballs, Ria; are you high? What the hell is wrong with me?
My eyes shot up to meet his while I bit down on the inside of my cheek, desperate to combat the blush I could feel threatening to invade my skin and expose my thoughts. Oblivious, Shadow Man opened the small case with a swift flick of his thumb and quickly retrieved a white card from inside. I barely noticed him returning the card holder to his jacket pocket before he was sliding the card over to me.
“Please, Victo-er…Ria, if you wouldn’t mind writing down your insurance company’s information so that I can take care of this for you.”
My eyes stared at the card, the thick, white linen paper bordered with embossed silver ink. It was blank, and without lifting my eyes to his I reached for it and turned it over. There, on the other side and still bordered in silver, was a name embossed in rich navy-blue ink: Michael Alan Lachlan. There was no phone number, no title, no company he was employed by. It was, simply, a name card. Something you give to people you hope to never hear from or see again.
