“Then what about what you said before?”
“Maybe it was wrong, but I was only flirting. It didn’t mean anything. You’re right, I do have a girlfriend. Her name is Isabel and I asked her to marry me. But what fucking difference does any of that make? What about you? I’m sure you’re married by now. Why don’t you tell me about this amazing lucky asshole you married?”
“No! Don’t say that to me. Don’t talk to me like that. I...I can’t even... Just take me home. Now!”
I pulled my legs up and twisted to face the window. I didn’t want to be near him, let alone see him. He asked her to marry him?!
Do not cry. Do. Not. Cry.
I bit my lip to hold back the tears, but they fell anyway. I tried to keep my breathing calm. I couldn’t control my tears, but I could keep him from knowing how much I was hurting right now. All I needed to do was face the window.
“Rosalie.” His voice was soft, but it cut through me. His hand covered mine but I pulled away.
“Take me home,” I choked.
~ Sixteen ~
I woke up the next morning to the smell of pancakes, my dad’s specialty. After pulling my hair back into a messy ponytail, I entered the kitchen, anxious to see how my father was really doing.
“Ahh, there’s my girl,” he said.
I kissed my dad on the cheek as he flipped some pancakes over. He looked good, no different than the last time I saw him almost a year earlier.
Dad sat at the head of the table like he always did and I sat beside him. As he poured the syrup over his pancakes, his hand trembled slightly. If that was the worst of it, I’d take it. My dad would never tell me everything that was wrong, but at least I could see he was lucky and he really was alright.
“Is everything alright?” he asked. “You look like you have something on your mind.”
“I was just worried about you, but I’m glad to see you’re okay. Promise me you won’t keep me in the dark about stuff like this. It’s hard enough being so far from home.”
“You’re keeping something from me. Something else is on your mind.”
I looked up from my pancakes and as I met my dad’s gentle gaze, my tears from the night before came back. I didn’t want to cry in front of my dad. I didn’t want to cry in front of anyone. I covered my face with my hands and hoped he wouldn’t ask. If I had to talk about it, I knew I’d fall apart even more.
“I know that cry,” he said. He moved his chair closer to me and pulled me against his chest. “I went through that cry when your mother left me. There’s nothing worse than the pain love can cause.” He stroked my hair and it brought me back to when I was a child and he’d comfort me. “It’s Shane, isn’t it?”
I nodded as the tears came quicker. I wanted to ask my dad how he knew, but I couldn’t speak. Luckily I didn’t need to.
“I’m not blind,” he said. “I’ll admit it took me a while, but eventually I realized you two were a couple while he was living here.”
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“You were both adults. After he left, he would call here to speak to his mother and sometimes we’d talk. Even after Joanna and I divorced, he’d still call or visit when he was in the area. I could see how much he loved you. It’s the most a father could ask for his daughter. Some people might have a problem with it since he was your stepbrother, and while he has been like a son to me, he’s not my son and he never was.”
My father handed me a tissue and I wiped my tears away. Somehow just hearing my father talk about Shane made me feel better. I needed to talk to Shane about last night. So much didn’t make sense and I needed to set things straight.
“Rosalie, I know you. I know your mind is spinning. You’re thinking and you’re confused. Shane and I have spoken a lot over the past few years. And trust me, when you feel so strongly about someone like you do, you don't want to waste any time. Life is too short, honey. Talk to him.”
~ Seventeen ~
I took my dad’s car and drove to Joanna’s apartment on the other side of town. I didn’t know if Shane drove up by himself or if he’d tell me to go to hell when he saw me, but I needed to talk to him. Too much had gone unsaid for too long.
As I rang the doorbell, I heard Shane’s voice from inside. I couldn’t believe how nervous I felt. I tapped my foot nervously as I waited for the door to open. When he opened the door, my heart did its cartoon leap.
Shane was wearing a fitted t-shirt and jeans. His hair was messier than last night and without the glasses on, he looked just like my high school crush again.
“I didn’t expect you here,” he said.
“We need to talk.”
“That’s all I wanted from you last night.”
“Fine, I’m sorry. Can I come in?”
“I don’t want to talk here. I still have the room at the hotel, is that okay?”
I nodded. “Let’s go.”
***
The hotel looked bigger than I remembered, and it was much more crowded than it ever was on the Saturday nights Shane and I used to spend there. There was a convention at the hotel that week and the place was packed.
As we entered the elevator, a large group of tourists with their cameras squeezed in with us, forcing Shane and I to stand close together.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you planned this,” I said.
He didn’t say anything, he just smiled. His fingers brushed against my hand and I looked up at him, but he didn’t look back at me. When the elevator stopped at our floor, his hand closed around mine and he pushed through the elevator to get out.
We held hands through the hall to the hotel room. Neither of us said anything, but I couldn’t help but feel like my younger self five years ago when we first came here. I was excited to spend some time alone with him, even if it was just to talk. I didn’t realize just how much I had missed him and how much a part of me he was until that moment.
After we entered the room, I kicked off my shoes and sat on the bed cross-legged like I used to do. He opened the mini-fridge and pulled out a pint of cookie dough Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.
“I dropped it off last night before I went to the airport,” he said. “I really didn’t expect you to get so upset. Do you want to tell me what that was about?”
“I’m an idiot. I didn’t want to hear what you were saying so I freaked.”
“I need more than that.” He held a spoon of ice cream up for me to eat.
“Remember what I told you the last time we were here?”
“Yes, you said you met someone. I remember that like it was yesterday. Just being here with you feels like no time has passed.”
“That’s exactly what happened. Seeing you at the airport, kissing you, even if it was innocent, brought me right back to where we left off. When you said you had a girlfriend--"
“You said I have a girlfriend.”
“So what? You weren’t going to tell me?”
“I’m not sure how relevant it is. Besides, you didn’t say you were single, and you dumped me because you met someone else.”
“I lied,” I said. “I lied to you that night and I’ve regretted it every day since.”
“Why would you lie about that? Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
He turned away from me and walked to the window and looked outside.
“It wasn’t just you. It killed me to say that, but I thought you would be better off without me. I thought you needed to get away from here so you could make a better life for yourself. And you did. You went to school, you became a teacher--“
“And I met someone else.”
His cell phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket. For a moment, he stared at the screen with a confused expression before he answered.
“Isabel? Is everything alright?” he asked.
Does that bitch have perfect timing or what?
“No, I’m not at my mother’s. I’m at the Hyatt,” he said.
Shane faced me as he spoke to Isab
el. Each second he was on the phone with her hurt me even more. But why was he looking at me like that? It was his old expression, the one that used to make me feel naked, but this time it was squeezing every bit of my heart and I couldn’t breathe.
“Yes, that’s right,” he said. “I told you how I feel. It’s not right. Don’t make me say it again. Fine, if it’ll make you feel better. I love--"
I couldn’t take it anymore. I wasn’t going to sit there and listen to the man I loved tell his girlfriend he loved her. I grabbed my shoes and ran out of the room and down the hall to the elevator.
As I pushed the down button, I saw Shane coming towards me. I pressed the button over and over, willing the doors to open so I could get away.
“You can’t just leave like that,” he said.
“Yes, I can. I just did it, didn’t I? What? You think you’re such hot shit that I’m going to sit there while you tell your girlfriend you love her?”
“That’s not what I told her, and she is not my girlfriend.”
“So now you’re lying to me? I heard you.”
“You’re the one who lied, remember? Let’s go.”
He grabbed my arm and started to pull me back towards the room. I didn’t have any traction in my socks so I did the only thing I could do. I threw one of my shoes at him. It hit the back of his head.
Spinning around with his mouth open with surprise, he laughed.
“You threw your shoe at me. Who throws a shoe?” he said. “That’s it, you’re in trouble now.”
He picked me up and lifted me onto his shoulder, then kicked my shoe ahead to our room. I repeatedly hit him with my other shoe despite the fact that it did nothing. It still felt good to whack him a few times.
He dropped me on the bed and yanked my shoe out of my hand. I wasn’t fighting or trying to get away, but he sat over me and held my hands down.
“Let me talk,” he said. “It is not fair for you to act like this. You’re acting crazy and jealous. You broke up with me, remember?”
“I know. And I know I’m acting crazy, but I can’t help it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Then let me tell you what’s wrong with me. Do you have any idea how long it took me to get over you? How long it took me to move on?”
“I don’t know, but you obviously did.”
“I didn’t. Not a day went by that I didn’t think about you. Shit, let me tell you about Isabel. Isabel is you. She has your last name, she looks similar to you, she’s even a writer too. I am so fucking crazy about you that I found the next best thing, but she was never enough. She was never you.”
“But you’re going to marry her.”
“No, I said I proposed to her, but I told you that more out of anger than anything. I was pissed I wasted so many years without you. Yes, I proposed to her, but I never said she accepted and I never said how long ago that was. She turned me down because she knew I was still in love with you. And despite how much I wanted to convince myself it wasn’t true, at the airport last night, I realized she was right.”
“That’s bullshit!” I said angrily. “What about before on the phone?”
He sighed. “Isabel didn’t take it that well. I didn’t want to break up with her over the phone, but I needed to be honest with her and I didn’t want to waste any more time away from you. If you hadn’t come by, I was going to make damned sure you and I got to talk later.”
“But I heard you! I heard you tell her you loved her on the phone.”
“No, you left too soon. She wanted to hear me say again that I love you, Rosalie. She said it would make her feel better if she heard it again because it meant it was nothing she did.” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it. She didn’t want to marry me, but she didn’t want to break up either. I love you and I always have, ever since I first saw you as a princess.”
My heart melted at his words. “I love you too.”
I pulled my hands free and reached up to him as he kissed me. My heart pounded in my chest as his touch left goose bumps on my skin. It didn’t matter how long it had been, my body recognized Shane’s touch and demanded for more.
***
A couple days later, we went out to dinner with my dad and Shane’s mother. Shane and I sat on one side of the table and my dad and Joanna sat across from us, just like that first dinner when we found out our parents got married.
Towards the end of the meal, my dad reached across the table and patted my hand.
“When are you going back to California?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Shane has a few things to take care of in Virginia and then he’s going back with me.”
“That’s great news!” Dad said. “What are you planning to do out there, Shane?”
“I haven’t told anyone about this yet, but while I was in school I met Dmitri Nikita, my idol. We’ve stayed in touch over the years and he’s opening a new gallery in a few months and wants to feature the series I’ve been working on.”
“You did a series of paintings? That’s incredible,” I said.
“Well, they were also what led to the problems I had with Isabel. The series is about our relationship, Rosalie. You can imagine how much she hated them.” He laughed. “I was never able to finish it because deep down I knew we weren’t done.”
“When can I see them?”
“Soon. I want you to see the series together. I’ve always known it needed one more painting, but nothing ever felt right. It wasn’t until we got back together the other night that I knew what that last work was going to be.”
Shane slipped his arm over my shoulders and pulled me closer.
“It’s good to see you so happy,” Joanna said.
Shane and I looked at each other and smiled.
~ Eighteen ~
Having Shane back in my life was a dream come true. We did everything together and it was like the years apart never happened.
Every day I would continue working on my book. Shane took over the spare bedroom with his art supplies. He was hard at work on the final piece of his series but refused to let me see any of them until they were displayed at the gallery.
I grew more impatient as we got closer to the gallery opening. It reached the point where I couldn’t write any more because I wanted to see what he had been working on. Eager to get my mind off of it, I picked up the phone and called Noelle.
“Hey, it’s Rosalie.”
“Uh-oh, I recognize that voice. That’s the voice you get when you need me to convince you to not do something crazy.”
I laughed. “No, not this time. I just need a distraction so I figured I’d call you.”
“Sure, what’s going on? How are things with you and sexy Shane, your stepbrother bad boy?”
“You’re just jealous.”
“You’re right, I am,” she said with a laugh. “It seems like just yesterday you were stalking him in the halls.”
“You’re not helping. I’m thinking of stalking him again,” I said, laughing. “I need you to get my mind off of going to the art gallery. I’m dying to see it, but Shane won’t let me until everything’s perfect.”
“Well, you know how he is, and this is a really big deal.” Noelle was quiet for a moment and then sighed. “I’m sorry, I suck as a friend because honestly, if it was me, I’d be over there already.”
“Really? They crated up everything and delivered it the other day. He’s been there for days now. I was thinking of surprising him.”
“Go! And of course I want details.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said as I raced out the door.
The art gallery was on the main street of Laguna Beach, just a block from the ocean. The front of the gallery was all windows and I tried to peek inside to see if I could see Shane, but all I could see were boxes and crates. As I stepped inside, the door chimed and a large man with thick grey hair, black eyes, and a sharp nose walked over to me. I knew right away he was Dmitri Nikita, artist, gallery owner, and Shane’
s idol.
“If you’re here, you work,” he said with a deep Russian accent.
“I’m here to see--“
“You see later, work first.”
Seeing how he wasn’t going to take no for an answer, I followed him into a windowless back room with several unopened crates. Dmitri picked up a crowbar that was leaning against the wall and brought it over to me.
“You ever use one of these?” he asked.
“No, but I’m sure I can figure it out.”
“Good, I like that.” He placed the crowbar under the top of one of the crates and popped it open. “Open the crates and then take each piece out. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how valuable these are.”
“No, I got it.”
“See me when you’re done.”
He started to walk out of the room, but I wasn’t going to start working until I knew if Shane’s pieces were there.
“Wait! Is Shane here?” I asked.
His eyes crinkled and his lips broke into a smile.
“Of course he is. And I am under strict instructions to not let you see his exhibit.”
“You knew who I was?”
“Of course I know you, my dear. I’ve heard so much about you and I’ve seen his work.” His face turned serious. “Now work. Work first, see later.”
I unboxed all the artwork and lined them up against the wall in the back room. I had hoped to get a glimpse of something of Shane’s, but Dmitri must have been expecting me because none of the paintings I unboxed belonged to Shane.
Walking out of the back room, I noticed the sun was already setting. I didn’t realize how long I had been there. It must have been hours.
Shit, the meter!
I looked through my bag for quarters to feed the meter, hoping I didn’t get a ticket. With a handful of change in my hand, I walked towards the front door but was stopped by Dmitri.
“You’re not done,” he said.
“But my car.”
“It’s taken care of. Come with me, Princess Rosalie.”
Sinned: A Priest Romance Page 17
