“And a damn good artist, period,” Simon boasts.
The art covering his body, all the pictures in his bedroom…it makes sense. Being able to draw wasn’t the only mark of a true artist. It was the appreciation of it, the love. And from the walls in his room, he appeared to be a man who enjoyed being surrounded by it.
God, I wish I’d been able to sneak a closer peek at those pictures. What more would they have told me about him?
My brother offered me a job opportunity that most people would kill for. Would be damn fools for passing up.
For some reason, his admission from the alley slips into my head. As did the bitter disappointment and disgust that had saturated his voice. Disappointment and disgust that had seemed self-directed.
The brother. That had to be Knox. He’d been a hugely popular MMA fighter but now owned a tattoo shop.
“What Simon is too humble to tell you is he’s graduating from the Art Institute this year,” Katherine interjected. The pride in her voice is impossible to miss. “He’s already received job offers from some of the state’s top marketing, design, and animation companies.”
I part my lips to congratulate Simon, but one glance at his shuttered, hard expression, and they snap closed. For a moment, I glimpse the steely core beneath the easy humor and lazy smiles that is much more obvious within Jude.
Whoa. A fine tension hums in the air between Jude, Simon, and their mother. It’s a plucked guitar string with ear-splitting feedback. And from their neighbors’ sudden preoccupation with pie, they must feel it as well. Even the priest looks like he’s torn between sipping his coffee and minding his business or conducting a counseling session right at the table.
Option A, padre. Option A.
Because I’m not confident he’ll follow my mental advice, I jump in with another subject change. “Is it Knox’s shop?” I ask Simon, Jude, hell, Father Donovan. “I’d heard after he retired from fighting, he opened one.”
A thick, ominous silence answers me. It’s chilly, suffocating, both graveyard quiet and rock-concert deafening.
I’ve stepped in another pile of shit, and I have no idea how to shovel my way out of it. By this point, I don’t even care to. This whole evening has been a minefield. And I’m getting out now before I blow myself to hell and back.
Pushing back my chair, I stand and force my lips into a weak semblance of a smile. “Katherine, Dan.” I nod at my father and his wife. “Thanks for dinner. It was wonderful.” How I manage to say that blatant lie without choking on it, I’ll never know. Must be one of those miracles the priest believes in. “Dan, before I go, could I speak to you for a moment in private?”
Not giving him much of a choice, I murmur a goodbye to the table in general, ducking the intense, emerald gaze on me, and walk out of the room.
As soon as I step out into the hallway, a weight lifts off my chest, and I inhale the first deep breath I’ve sucked in since entering this house. My mission for coming here hasn’t been accomplished by a long shot, but it doesn’t matter at this moment. Something is amiss with this family. Give me my depressed mother and my crazy half sisters any day over that room teeming with unspoken anger, pain, and secrets covered with a brittle, shiny veneer of politeness.
“This way, Cypress.” Dan’s voice reaches me a second before his hand settles on my back, guiding me forward.
He leads me to a room across the hall, closing the door behind us. Gathering my thoughts, I scan the cozy den complete with brown leather couches, a large coffee table, a flat, big screen TV mounted in an old-fashioned entertainment center, and a desk and chair in the far corner. The car and sports magazines littering the table clue me in on who spends the most time in here, as does the cigar box and cutter on the desk. A whiff of the underlying sweet, dark-cherry scent permeating the room carries me back to my childhood when Dan would end his day sitting on the living room couch, beer in one hand, cigar in the other, his squinted eyes pinned to the baseball game.
An unexpected and unwanted twinge spasms in my chest. I cross my arms to prevent myself from giving in to the urge to rub the hint of soreness away.
If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.Author Erica Jong’s words run like a ticker tape through my head, and I grab ahold of them. I might be here risking my pride with Dan, but what is at risk if I don’t is even worse.
“Thank you for coming to dinner,” Dan says, sliding his hands into his pockets. A wince crosses his face, and he shakes his head. “And I’m sorry for the way it ended. There are some things going on…”
He trails off, and I don’t question him about the “things.” Not interested. Okay, maybe I’m a little curious about what changed Simon fromGQSmooth to Mr. Freeze. Or why Katherine bragged about one son and not the others. And whether Knox’s absence today had anything to with why just the mention of his name had plunged the room to sub-zero temperatures.
If the “things” had anything to do with what drove Jude into the bar—and to me—last week.
Dan sighs. “Anyway, you needed to talk to me.”
“You know why I’m here.” Dropping my arms, I cross to the couch and perch on the arm. “I need the money you set aside for my college education.”
“Right.” He cocks his head to the side. “Money you told me eight years ago you didn’t need or want from me.”
I would have to be deaf not to catch the flat note of resentment there. I’m not going to apologize for it, though. I’d earned my full ride to USC, and making my way on my own without his help or interference had been important. It still is. If any other option short of selling my ass was available to me, I wouldn’t have suffered through the dinner from hell or be here now practically begging him for money.
God, if only the sale of my condo in California wouldn’t take another month, I wouldn’t be here. I could pay Mom’s medical debt, give her a cushion with the household bills, and still have enough to start over. Hell, if Dan’s flipping out now, how would he react if he knew I planned to return to school? To abandon the career I’d built the last four years and begin from scratch at twenty-six?
I give my head a mental shake.If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.I’m trying to do what Dolly Parton suggested, backhoeing a new path in my life. But hope, even if it’s fragile and uncertain, is still a dangerous, painful thing when it dies. Which is why I’ve barely admitted my plan to myself, forget confiding it in anyone else, even my sisters.
No, I’m hoarding my secret close for a while longer.
