Loving a Sinner

by D. B. Webb

  “I don’t know… Is there something you need to tell me?”

  If the silence wasn’t any indicator that my gut instinct was right, his response would have hammered the nail in the coffin. “You know… Oh God.” His voice sounded muffled. Like he was covering his face with his hand.

  I let the tears, the ones I had been holding in fall now that I was alone. The truth was, I hadn’t known. But now I did.

  “Who is she?” I asked in a barely audible whisper.

  But he heard me and let out a deep breath before answering, “Madison… but I swear it was one time. I was drunk and—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I cut him off. Madison was his dad’s PA. I was surprised that I wasn’t more shocked to find that out. It made sense. “I think we both know whatever we had is over.”

  More silence followed before he said in an almost whisper, “I’m sorry I didn’t make it.”

  “I’m sorry, too.”

  When he hung up, I realized that he hadn’t tried to deny what I had supposedly known. He didn’t try to fight for us. What kind of man was caught cheating and didn’t even try to deny it? Devlin was always on the low end of the scale when it came to passion, but shit. I thought he’d at least fight for us a little.

  My eyes landed on a more recent photograph of us. We were smiling, but the smiles didn’t seem to reach either of our eyes.

  And I knew.

  I wasn’t cut out for a dull smile kind of life. With Devlin, I led a perfectly normal and happy life. But I didn’t want “happy” and “normal.”

  I wanted passion.

  I wanted something to set my soul on fire.

  The buzz of the city was like a shot of adrenaline each morning. Each day promised a new adventure. Ever since the night of “Doomsday,” as Kayla liked to put it, I had promised myself to turn in my pink pastel life for one with more vibrant colors.

  I switched majors from Psychology to Photography. Mostly due to the fact that I had only originally chosen to be a psych major because Devlin had told me it was a reasonable thing to do. I could easily find a job in the psych world, he would tell me. But photography? He and his mother scoffed at the idea of a future Lane being a photographer.

  “Beside,” he would tell me, “the odds aren’t exactly in your favor. Most people don’t make it well in the arts.”

  He always said the word “art” like it was a bad word. Which was ironic because Devlin never cursed. Ever. That was another way I flipped him the bird. His well-mannered Ryan Patterson turned in her keys and finally spoke the way she wanted.

  Kayla had been thrilled at the sudden use of “fuck” and “shit.” Mom? Not so much, but she never told me to stop. Not that she really had a right to tell me how to live life anyway.

  Through the years I had even tried other things that Devlin had always held me back from: coffee, clubs, fashion…

  Passionate, romantic flings…

  I didn’t ever let myself think about the one time I had actually been stupid enough to try to have a fun and carefree love affair with a stranger. Most of the time I pretended like it had never even happened.

  But god, it had.

  I continued my way to the little art gallery I worked at in the Lower East Side of New York City. I sipped the coffee that was keeping my cold hands warm. Winter had apparently come early this year, making my commute less desirable. But I loved my job. Eli, my boss, even showcased my photography from time to time. That in and of itself would have kept me trudging through the streets of the city.

  The metallic sound of the small Christmas bells clanked against the glass doors of The Singing Room Gallery as I entered.

  “Ryan Patterson, just the girl I was looking for,” Eli gushed in his wonderful New Yorker accent. He pulled me to his side and turned my attention to the iPad he held in his hand. We used it to track our sales and shipments. “We have a buyer who says he received the wrong piece yesterday. I need you to run by and double check that for me, yeah?”

  Normally I would hesitate if someone asked me to show up at a random person’s doorstep in a city like New York, but knowing how expensive our pieces were, I reckoned that I had a lower chance at being murdered.

  Besides, I had my handy dandy taser to keep me company. Kayla had insisted I bring it with me to the city. She forced me to watch true crime shows in the weeks leading to my move. Apparently they were supposed to scare me.

  “Okay,” I agreed, typing the address into my phone. I looked outside and dreaded that I was going to have to head back outside in the cold.

  The man, J. Foster, was residing in a penthouse in Tribeca.

  One time I had looked up how much it cost to live there, and had regretted it. I could sell my soul to Satan himself and still wouldn’t be able to afford a room the size of a closet there.

  Eli followed my gaze outside and smiled. “I’ll call an Uber. No need to blister your feet over someone who didn’t buy what he wanted.”

  Around thirty minutes later, I was being let into the huge glass building by a doorman. The concierge called up to Mr. Foster, and I was eventually ushered into the most extravagant elevator I had ever seen.

  “Hello, Beautiful. Floor?” I turned to see an old man sitting on a small bench, waiting to press the correct button.

  “Forty-two,” I told him. He gave me a smile, pressed the button, and folded his arms across his chest as the doors slid shut.

  “Who are you visiting on Forty-Two?” he asked me. There was an odd tone to his question I couldn’t quite decipher.

  “Mr. Foster.”

  He furrowed his brow, and for a moment I thought perhaps I had the wrong floor. But a look of realization crossed his face and he clucked his tongue. “Ahh. I’m glad he’s finally found himself a pretty girl.”

  The heat rose on my neck, and I quickly shook my head. “Oh! I… No… I… It’s not like that, actually. I work for a gallery and he needed me to look at an art piece he purchased.”

  If that didn’t sound like a load of bullshit, I didn’t know what did. My flushed cheeks and stammering didn’t help my case.

  The man gave me a once over and shrugged. “Too bad. Poor guy needs to find himself a nice girl. I’m sick of the girls he normally brings home.”

  Oh. My. God.

  Poor Mr. Foster was having his dirty secrets exposed to me without him even knowing. I didn’t reply because I didn’t want to know anything else about this man.

  The elevator ride took way too long. It was full of awkward glances from the old man, Bob I had learned was his name.

  “See you in a few, Miss.” Bob tipped his hat toward me as I stepped out. Being polite I smiled, but as soon as the doors shut, I stared up toward the ceiling, begging God to know why exactly he always put me in such weird positions.

  I found that Mr. Foster was only one of two who lived on this floor, each front door facing each other in the wide hallway. I had seen the width of this building, so I mentally divided the width in half and wanted to gasp at the size this penthouse must have been.

  I rang the doorbell and waited patiently. I heard footsteps before the door was swung open.

  Mr. Foster wasn’t what I expected at all. In fact he looked a whole lot like…

  “Jackson?” I choked.

  His wide eyes indicated he hadn’t exactly expected to see me standing at his front door either.

  “Ryan? What are you doing here?” His voice wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t exactly friendly either.

  “I…” Staring at him, I tried to form a coherent thought. “I’m here with The Singing Room Gallery.”

  My heart raced erratically as my mind tried its best to comprehend how exactly I landed on his doorstep.

  Him. Jackson. My first real heartbreak. The only man I had ever truly loved.

  My-soul-on-fire-romance.

  It couldn’t be her. How was she here? I knew that I had bad karma or juju or whatever it was people believed in these days, but seeing her here was the last thing I
ever expected.

  “Can I come in?” she asked. I must have taken too long to respond because she went to clarify, “Because of the art piece?”

  “Right. It’s just the last time a blonde came knocking at my door, she was offering more than her art expertise.”

  Sexual innuendo… It was smoothe…

  Ryan blinked a couple of times before raising her eyebrows, and I knew I was in trouble.

  “I can go, but you’re paying for my Uber ride,” she told me pointedly.

  I was glad to see she was still her snappy self. A lot had changed in these past years, but at least I could still count of Ryan Patterson to kick ass and take names.

  “No, come in.” I held the door open for her and she stepped in. I took notice how she made sure to keep from brushing against me—something about that bothered me, but I ignored the weird ache in my gut.

  “So,” she breathed, “There was something wrong with what you ordered?”

  “Right to the point.”

  She narrowed her eyes and her lips were drawn into a thin line. She was either irritated or pretending to be. The short amount of time I had spent with her had proven that she was rarely open with people, and often kept how she really felt on lockdown. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was doing that now.

  “Right. Art. It’s this way.”

  I led her to the living room area where the art piece was located. I had ordered a black and white photograph taken on Newport Beach in California. It had reminded me of the time I had spent in California. The picture itself was of a female in the middle of turning toward the ocean—ankles deep in the water and hair whipping around her, hiding her face.

  What I received? A color photo of the New York City skyline at dusk. It was a pretty photo, but not what I was looking for. Definitely not what I had paid for.

  When I pointed to the large piece, Ryan stared at it for a few seconds before turning her attention to me.

  “So what’s wrong with it?” she asked. Her voice was guarded and her arms crossed against her chest defensively.

  “Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s just not what I ordered,” I explained. I felt like this was the millionth time I explained this to someone. The art gallery had sent me through a telephone chase where I relayed my story to each person I came in contact with. Finally I was given to, who I could only assume was, the owner. He had sounded annoyed when I told him they had made a mistake, but he assured me he would send someone over to check everything out. Little had I known the person he was sending was Ryan Patterson.

  Ryan pulled out an iPad from her messenger bag before stating, “It says right here that you ordered piece number 1045 and this,” she pointed toward the photograph, “is 1045.”

  “I ordered the Newport Beach piece. Black and white photograph—”

  “I know which one you’re talking about,” she cut me off. I watched as her blue eyes found mine. They held curiosity, and she finally asked, “You really ordered that one?”

  It seemed a little strange that she sounded in awe that I would have wanted that piece, but I just shrugged and smiled. She regarded me for a couple more seconds before she turned back to her tablet.

  “Well, you paid more for this piece than you would have for the beach photograph, but I happen to know that we still have what you want in the gallery… We’ll have to figure out the cost difference, but I will head back to the gallery and talk to Eli, the gallery owner. I’m sure he will get this all sorted out, and someone will be by to remove this piece and replace it with what you want.”

  I felt bad that I was going to make her and her gallery go through so much work to fix what was probably my personal error, so I shook my head. “It’s okay. I’ll keep this piece, but I still want to order the beach photograph.”

  I watched as she took in a deep breath. She looked toward the ceiling and back down at me.

  “Why send someone over here if you were just going to buy the other piece too?” she asked me. If she wasn’t irritated before, she was now.

  “I wasn’t going to be this nice,” I answered honestly. I shot her my smile that I knew used to work on her. Clearly times had changed because she blinked a couple of times.

  “Why the change of heart?” She didn’t sound like she actually wanted to know the answer.

  “You.”

  “Lucky me,” was her retort.

  God, I thought we had ended things amicably all those years ago. Apparently I had been wrong. She seemed to like me as much as I liked my dad. Which wasn’t a lot… or at all for that matter.

  “Let me give you a ride back to the gallery, I can fix my own mess,” I offered, hoping to ease the tension that was rolling off of her.

  Her walls she had rebuilt around her reminded me of the girl I had met ten years ago. The only difference was this time it wasn’t my douchebag best friend who had caused the pain hidden in her beautiful blue eyes. It was me. I hated that. While all I could think about as she stood a mere foot away from me was about all I wanted to do was go to her and embrace her, kiss her, make love to her, but she looked at me as though she wished I had never been born.

  We had agreed together what our rules would be all those years ago. We had decided together to make our little fling just that—a fling. She couldn’t possibly be angry with me for holding my end of the bargain, could she?

  She was quiet for a moment, so I pushed again. “Let me take you back.”

  “I guess it’ll beat taking an Uber… I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been propositioned for more than just a car ride.” Her small smile was enough to give me hope that maybe she just needed time to warm back up to me.

  “I can’t promise that I’ll be any better,” I flirted back. My effort at easing the tension worked and she gave me a small laugh. She threw her head back and shook her head.

  Rolling her eyes, she threatened, “I know where you live now, Bennett. You better be on your best behavior.”

  I threw my hands up in mock defense.

  “Okay, hot shot. Let’s get out of here,” she laughed.

  That laugh. I could spend the rest of my life listening to her laugh. But I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t let myself dwell on that idea any longer because it hurt too much when I denied myself a future with the wonderful woman standing in front of me.

  I had already done that once before.

  When Devlin waltzed through the doors of his parents’ home, I knew that he had heard from Ryan. Worry lines folded across his forehead, and he looked pissed. Why he was pissed was beyond me, but I was his friend not Ryan’s so I had to at least pretend like I was on his side. So I remained silent as he paced back and forth in front of the couch I had plopped down on the moment I had gotten there.

  “She knew. How the heck did she know?” He murmured. Devlin was known for being composed as shit, so seeing him frantic this way was sort of amusing.

  “Knew what?” I finally asked after I realized he wasn’t going to share exactly what big thing she knew. Clearly he wasn’t talking about his notable absence from her party. We had all known that.

  It was then that he turned his wild eyes my way. It was as if he had just realized I was there.

  “Jackson, not now.” He waved his hand in my way, dismissing me like I was one of his mom’s maids.

  Uh, okay?

  “Dude, sit the fuck down. You’re stressing me out,” I told him, now annoyed that he was not only blocking my view of the TV during his freakout, but was also being a dick. That was my MO, not his. He was supposed to be the jolly guy I had known for two years who didn’t let shit get to him.

  “She broke up with me, man.”

  I sat up straighter and tried not to feel happy about that fact. The truth was, I thought the fiery woman I had met in the kitchen of the mangy apartment didn’t quite match up with my best friend. She was fire… he was water.

  “Oh, why? Because you missed her party? Sounds like a bitch move,” I told him, trying to sound detached from the situatio
n. The fact that I was excited to hear she was single was a very bad thing. My dick needed to behave himself because even though they were broken up, she was still off-limits.

  “No… it was coming for a while now, if I’m going to be honest. She refused to get serious with me. Whenever I brought up marriage, she would change the subject like it was the plague.”

  I wanted to smile because I was liking this girl more and more. Who the hell wouldn’t get weirded out by their significant other wanting to tie the knot by twenty?

  “That’s too bad,” I tried to offer. But he just waved me off again before storming out of the room, muttering something about needing a drink.

  I turned my attention back to the television, but I couldn’t even remember what I was watching. The only thing I could think about was the blonde who, as tempting as she seemed, was completely off the table for me.

  But if Adam couldn’t keep from having a taste of the forbidden fruit, how was an asshole like me supposed to stay away?

  I was nervous, and I never got nervous. At least not when it came to girls. Especially not with girls who were heartbroken and on the rebound. They were the easy ones to get into bed, all vulnerable and shit. But she was different.

  Ryan Patterson.

  My best friend’s girl… except she wasn’t. Not now at least. He’d gone and screwed that up for himself by ditching her on her birthday. Honestly, if I had to guess, there was more to the story than Devlin was telling. I wanted to find out what Ryan supposedly “knew,” but Devlin had to save face. He wouldn’t ever own up to his indiscretions.

  Devlin was the son of the wealthiest family on the East Coast. The Prince of Cali. And apparently asshole extraordinaire. He clearly didn’t get the memo that the role for asshole had been already taken by his best friend, who resided in New York.

  I wasn’t being hard on myself either. I also wasn’t being self-deprecating. I was an ass. I knew it, and I didn’t care—not really. My dad was the king of jerkoffs, and I had learned from the best at a young age. I watched as he cheated his way to the top… of business and women. He hurt mom emotionally while he hurt me physically. Golden boy of the East Coast, abusive husband and father: Benjamin Bennett