by Katie Allen
“So... I need to be out by the first?” At his nod, Annabelle clamped her mouth shut before she could yell at him. It was his house, and he had every right to kick her out as soon as her lease was up. She’d just hoped he would take pity on her, but that didn’t look like it was happening. Her molars squeaked together as she struggled to stay civil. “There’s absolutely no way I can stay any longer?”
When he cowered, she realized that she’d gotten loud toward the end. He was so meek and timid that even now she felt like a bully. “It’s... I’m... My son...”
Digging her fingers into her palms, Annabelle took in a deep breath, let it out, and then inhaled again. “Fine. Next time, though, consider giving your tenant—your very conscientious and responsible tenant—a bit more notice before making her homeless.”
His only response was a nervous, wordless sound. Knowing that any more conversation was worthless, Annabelle turned away and stalked across his yard. She needed to get to work.
Her stomach churned the entire way to the gallery. Ever since Mr. Storvic stuck that thirty-day notice on her door, she’d been searching for available properties, but the prospects were painfully thin. Her only options were an unaffordable and huge vacation home or a tiny bedroom in a decrepit house she’d share with six roommates. Although she’d lived with someone in Denver before she’d moved to Bozeman, that person had been Leah, her best friend. Annabelle couldn’t imagine sharing her home with a stranger, much less six of them.
By the time she’d reached the door to the studio, she hadn’t come up with any good solutions. Only when she was letting herself in did she remember that this would be the first time seeing Louis since waking up on his couch Saturday morning. He’d offered her breakfast, but she’d declined and left quickly, needing to be away from his distracting presence in order to process the previous evening.
All weekend, in between stressing over her living situation, she’d tried to figure out what the best plan of action would be. Two days later, Annabelle still had no idea how she should act. She wanted more, of course, but she didn’t know if she could handle a fling—and that was if Louis was even interested in taking things further. He’d been obviously interested, but there’d been wine and he’d basically admitted that it had been years since he’d been intimate with anyone. Had it just been desperation on his part?
She paused, taking a breath and letting her swirling thoughts settle before moving into the studio. Her gaze snagged on Louis, who was intently focused on painting. Despite the issues pounding through her brain, she couldn’t hold back an excited grin at the sight. It was obvious that whatever holdup that had been keeping him from painting was gone.
Quietly, she moved closer to look at what he was working on. Either the motion or the tap of her shoes against the floor broke his concentration, and he looked up, blinking several times as if he was emerging from a cave into bright sunlight.
“Annabelle Shay.” The way he said it made her cock her head in bemusement. It wasn’t really a greeting; in fact, it was almost reverent, which was disconcerting.
“Louis Dumont.” Brushing off his odd inflection, she peered at the paintings taped to his work station. “Holy prolific artist, Batman! You have...three new paintings here that look like they’re either finished or very close to being finished. I guess you’re over the hump, huh?”
He was positively beaming. “The hump is so far behind me, I can’t even see it in the rearview mirror anymore. Look, look.” He gestured for her to circle around to his side of the table. “After you left on Saturday, I came in here and started painting. I’ve been flying all weekend. It’s like whatever had been clogging my creative pipes just got Roto-Rootered right out of there.”
“Gross analogy,” she said drily, although she wasn’t really disgusted. She was too entranced by the watercolors in front of them. “These are amazing, Louis.”
“I know, right?”
She couldn’t even blame him for his lack of modesty. Although she truly admired his previous work, these paintings were a step above. They featured couples, which most of his pieces did, but there was a new honesty to his subjects that she hadn’t seen before. They were flawed, but even more beautiful because of that. “I love this one.” Her hand hovered over one of the paintings, her fingertips close to the surface but not touching. “All of them are incredible, but I think this is my favorite. Is that James and Topher?” She’d met Louis’s friends once when they’d visited Ham in Denver.
“Yeah.” He rinsed his brush, his motions quick and excited. “Did the eye patch give it away?”
“That, and it just feels like them.” She knew that didn’t make all that much sense, but it was still true. Somehow, the colors and motion of the painting reflected the couple’s energy. “Did he lose his eye in the same explosion when you were hurt?” The question was absent, as she was caught up in examining the new paintings, mentally choosing the best way to mat and frame each one and thinking of the best way to display and light them. Louis’s work deserved the best presentation she could offer. It was her favorite part of her job, actually. She couldn’t paint or sculpt or draw her way out of a paper bag, but she could showcase other artists’ work, and she did it well.
“Yeah.” Louis’s delayed answer drew her out of her mental planning, and she glanced at him. “James and I always say that, between the two of us, we have enough working parts to make a complete human.”
Annabelle frowned. “That’s a lot of leftover parts. Kind of a waste of useful body parts, if you ask me.”
“Well, it’s just a joke, really—”
“Whose brain do you use?” She bit the inside corner of her lip to hold back a smirk. “James’s, I hope.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “We’d keep both brains. It’s like that saying, two heads are better than one.”
“So would you keep both skulls, or just jam the brains into one? How does that work with Topher? Do she and James just make out when your brain is asleep?”
“You’re feisty today.”
“That’s because I spent half an hour crouching in my neighbor’s bushes just to find out that I really am getting kicked out at the end of the month.” Her eyes wandered back to the paintings. It was hard not to get sucked into studying them, even with the beautiful man next to her.
“The end of the month is in, what? Four days?”
“Yep.”
“Move in here.”
Her gaze zipped over to him, torn between the part of her sobbing with relief and the other, more practical part of her screeching that it was a very bad idea to spend more cuddled-on-the-couch time with a certain Cajun artist.
He must’ve read her doubts on her face, because he put on his very best entreating expression. “Annabelle Shay, please move in with me. You found out how great it could be. Wasn’t our sleepover last Friday night fun? Remember how I let you pick the second movie?”
“No, you didn’t.” She hadn’t had that much wine. “I fell asleep about ten minutes into the first movie. We didn’t even watch a second.”
“I did, and, let me tell you, it was an excellent choice.”
She felt a rush of concern for him, since that wasn’t the first time he’d intimated that he had trouble sleeping. A moment later, the complete illogic of his words hit her. “Wait. If I was asleep, how did I pick the movie?”
He waved a brush at her, and she ducked back to avoid being dotted with water. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re going to be living out of your very small car in just a few days, and I have a perfectly good bed that I hardly ever sleep in. Be my roomie, Annabelle Shay.”
She was caving. She could feel it happening, her will to say no to Louis collapsing in on itself. His place was so nice, and the horror of the dilapidated house where she would have to deal with six roommates was still fresh in her mind. Still, she had to bring up the elephant in t
he room, even if she was the only one who could see it.
“Are you sure you want me living with you?” she asked. “What if it gets weird?”
“It won’t get weird.” He sounded so confident that it almost made Annabelle ignore what had happened the last time she was in his home.
“It got a little weird Friday.”
“It did?”
Apparently, he was determined to ignore the huge, hulking elephant sitting squarely on his workbench. “It did.” When he just blinked at her, his eyes wide and innocent, she sighed and elaborated. “Before the movie, there was some...touching, followed by some awkward moments.”
“Oohhh.” Louis drew out the word, as if he’d really had no idea what she’d been talking about before. “That wasn’t weird.”
She raised her eyebrows. “It certainly felt weird.”
“No.” He said it with complete certainty, and Annabelle wished she had his confidence, his apparent disregard for what others might think or say...well, except for the vulnerability he’d admitted to that night. “That wasn’t weird at all. It was you doing a kind thing for your best friend, and me chickening out at the last minute.”
It took her a moment to process that, and she opened her mouth to say something several times but ended up shutting it when she realized she wasn’t sure what to say. Finally, she managed to respond. “I think Leah will challenge the best-friends thing.”
“Bring it on. I can take her.”
Running her gaze up and down his form, she felt her lower belly starting to go warm and molten and quickly dragged her eyes back up to meet his. “I don’t know...” She injected doubt in her words just to see Louis bristle dramatically. “She’s pretty scrappy, and I need to keep her happy. She knows where the bodies are buried.”
When Louis’s eyes widened in honest surprise before he burst out laughing, she felt proud that she’d managed to trip him up, even briefly. Normally, he rolled with anything and everything that came out of her mouth, so this was a triumphant moment for her. Once he managed to get his laughter under control, he dropped his paintbrush on the table and grabbed her hand.
“Move in with me, Annabelle Shay. Please?” The touch of his hand on hers, as friendly and nonsexual as it was, still made her heart beat faster, and she took a moment to breathe. Apparently misunderstanding her silence, he squeezed her fingers and kept wheedling. “I promise things won’t be in any way weird. I’ll keep my nipples covered at all times. There won’t be any more attempts to have you be a dating guinea pig for my messed-up self. You can pick all the movies. Just be my new roomie.”
She eyed him, wanting to agree and make him happy even as she wanted to challenge some of the things he’d just said. Instead of doing, either, she asked, “Why do you want this so much? Sharing a place with me isn’t that much fun. You can ask Leah if you don’t believe me.”
Dropping his gaze to her hand, he gave a shrug that she could tell was supposed to be casual. He didn’t quite pull it off. Picking up the small paintbrush he’d just abandoned a few minutes ago, he wet it and touched it to a bluish-green blob on his palette. “I like having you around.” He shifted his hold on her hand so that her fingers were extended before touching her middle fingernail with the brush. The cool dampness of the sable hairs felt ticklish in a good way as he painted her nails a translucent aqua. “I’ll be in here working, and I’ll want to tell you something, but it’s two in the morning and you’re not here, and I hate that.”
Her gaze left the brush stroking across her nails to focus on his downturned face again. His complete focus was on her fingertips, as intent as if he were creating a masterpiece, rather than just staining her nails with color that would disappear after one handwashing. “You know...” Her voice came out softer than she’d planned, her teasing tone more gentle. “Even if I lived here, you wouldn’t be able to tell me things at two a.m. If you wake me in the middle of the night to share some random thought of yours, I will hurt you.”
When he glanced up at that, his grin was back to its normal brightness. “Bonus. That adds a sense of danger and excitement.”
Despite her groan, she knew she was going to give in, even if he woke her up fifteen times a night. His renewed offer had made her stomach stop churning for the first time all morning, ever since she’d ambushed her landlord and had gotten the bad news. Life with Louis would definitely be filled with awkward moments and times when his unbounded enthusiasm made her throw things at him, but the idea still made her insides warm with the same covetous feeling she had when she saw a piece of artwork that she really, really wanted.
Gently turning her hand, he painted her thumbnail. “Move in with me, Annabelle Shay?”
“Fine.” She waited until his loud whoop had died down before adding the rest. “There will be house rules with severe punishment for breaking any of them.” It was impossible to hide her excitement in the face of his enthusiasm, though. “Severe punishment.”
“Right, sure.” From the way he waved off her dire warning, she didn’t think he was taking her too seriously. “When are you moving your stuff?”
This time, her groan was less from exasperation and more in dread. “Soon. Velvet’s show’s this Saturday, so I’ll be prepping the gallery all week. You know Max will be here trying to micromanage it all, and that makes everything take twice as long.” She mentally tried to organize her schedule for the week as Louis picked up her other hand and started painting those nails. It was useless, though. However she organized her time, the week was going to be brutal. “I’ll have to get a storage unit for most of my furniture. Ugh, and all the movers will be booked.”
“I’ll help, and we’ll call the guy who helps us set up for shows when heavy sculptures are involved.”
“Carl?”
“That’s the guy.”
She studied him until he glanced up from where he was stroking paint onto her pinky nail. “What? Don’t you like Carl?”
With a huff of a laugh, Annabelle felt herself relax at his teasing. “Carl’s awesome. That’s not the problem.”
“What is, then?”
“There isn’t one...now that you’ve solved all of them.”
He flashed his white, straight teeth at her. “That’s what I do, because I’m a problem-solver. There. Finished. Do you think I have a career as an aesthetician?”
Holding her hands up in front of them, fingers extended, Annabelle admired the greenish-blue paint he’d covered her nails with. “Beautiful. I think you’d fail as an aesthetician, though.” When he sat taller, his cheeks puffing out in indignation, it was all she could do not to laugh. “You’d be adding layers upon layers to one person’s fingernails. Clients would stack up in the waiting room. Your job efficiency would be crap.”
“True.” Now Louis didn’t seem to be too offended by her dismissal of his career prospects. “Why don’t you move in today?”
“Nope.” She headed for her office. “There are bills to pay and caterers to call. Then I have an entire house to pack.” The one good thing about having only lived in her current home for six months was that she hadn’t had time to collect much stuff. In fact, she had a few boxes tucked away in the closet that she never unpacked after relocating from Denver.
“Want help packing?” he called from his spot behind his worktable.
“Nope. You need to finish the paintings you’re working on. You’re on a roll and should take advantage of that momentum, since you have a show in just a few weeks.” Besides, she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to have the intimate knowledge of her life that he’d get from helping box up all of her possessions. She was still in the trying-to-pretend-to-be-perfect stage around her crush, although that wouldn’t last long once they were tripping over each other in the same home.
He grumbled something but didn’t follow her into her office, so she took the opportunity out of his view to plop down on her chair
and fall into a mini-panic. Had she seriously agreed to move in with Louis? He seemed to have dismissed what had happened on Friday night as an altruistic act on her part, which didn’t match her memory of the raging inferno of lust. She’d have to be very careful not to drink or let herself get too comfortable, or who knew what lines she’d cross.
Annabelle straightened in her chair and set her jaw with a firm click. She could do this. She’d played off her feelings for six months. Living with him wouldn’t be any different than working in close proximity with him...well, except that she’d be showering and sleeping and eating in the same place as he showered and slept and ate. There’d be times when they’d be naked with the other person right in the next room.
She swallowed hard, but her throat felt too tight, so she ended up making a choking sound.
“You okay in there?” Louis called.
“Fine.” She wasn’t fine, though. She was just a few days away from moving in with Louis Dumont, her boss and the man with whom she was hugely infatuated. As much as she tried to brush away her apprehension, she knew in the pit of her stomach that the situation wasn’t going to end well.
It was almost guaranteed to break her heart.
Chapter Nine
“Moving is at least the fifth circle of hell, if not the sixth.” Annabelle plopped down on one of the stools at the kitchen island, and she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to be getting up anytime soon. Her muscles ached from the lifting and carrying as well as the tension of the past four days.
“Agreed, and I mostly just watched and pointed,” Louis said from his spot by the stove, where he was stirring something that smelled amazing.
“Liar. You did more of the grunt work than I did, so thank you.”
He waved off her thanks with the hand not holding the spoon. “At least your furniture didn’t weigh more than Ignatius’s marble nudes.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me. The setup for that show was brutal, even with Carl’s help.”
