“It’s fine, I promise. Don’t call Claire. I burnt something I was cooking, and the alarm went off.” I leave out the part where the flaming pizza caught the entire wall behind the oven on fire. Because if Hudson does his job right, they’ll never have to know.
“Have you heard from Claire?” my mom interjects now that my dad seems satisfied with my answer. In classic Miller fashion, the conversation has shifted to my sister in—I pull my phone away from my ear to check the time—under five minutes. Hot jealousy licks at my neck.
“No. I haven’t. Claire doesn’t call me,” I say, punctuating each of my sentences. It’s true. Claire and I don’t talk much, and I prefer it that way. I don’t know what we would have to talk about, anyway.
“Oh.” My mom sounds disappointed. “She’s supposed to be putting in her official application for the big promotion. The medical director job. I’m dying to know if she got it. What am I saying? Of course she’s going to get it. Your sister deserves it and so much more. We’ll have to celebrate when we get back.”
I don’t point out that I’m also up for a big promotion, depending on how the arts centre project goes, because it won’t matter. Even if I became the Prime Minister of Canada tomorrow, I don’t think it would trump Claire’s achievements or my parents’ desire to constantly celebrate her. They would probably assume that the vote was rigged.
“Okay, Mom. We’ll do that,” I say, my tone flat. “Listen, I need to go. I have a lot of work to get done today,” I lie. I finished my arts centre design and finalized the renderings earlier this morning. All that’s left is putting together my presentation. But I want to get off the phone with my parents. My chest is feeling tight again, and I need to do something to ease it. I rub my sternum with the heel of my palm to make the squeezing sensation behind it go away.
“Okay! Bye, sweetie,” my mom says, and Dad echoes the sentiment in the background.
I hang up the phone and stand up from my lounge chair. I was nice and relaxed out here, but now I’m feeling tense, and it’s always when I start feeling this way that a breathing attack comes on. Can asthma be triggered by stress? It can be triggered by environmental allergens, and Dawn’s husband, Mark, was out in his backyard cutting the lawn. I know because, over the drone of the lawn mower, I could hear her yelling at him that his lines were crooked.
I decide to go inside and head upstairs to my bedroom to find something to distract myself. Instead of reaching for my stress ball as usual, I open my closet and start taking out the art supplies I shoved in there when I first arrived. Drawing in the wildflower meadow yesterday was so soothing—something for my mind to focus on, and for the first time, my thoughts were quiet. Maybe it will help today as well.
My old easel is shoved in the back, so I pull it out and find my box of acrylic paints. I make a few trips up and down the stairs until all the supplies I’ll need are spread out on the kitchen table. I’ve leaned the easel up beside it, right next to the open French door leading out to the patio. The natural light in here will be perfect for painting.
Pulling out tubes of paint one by one, and squirt small blobs onto my palette. I’ve chosen a range of pinks, oranges, yellows, and purples to recreate the sunset Hudson and I watched together, and for the flowers that somehow mirrored all the colours of the sky. I also select a few different shades of greens, for the grass, and burnt umber, a rusty shade so I can paint Ruby into the picture, too.
I tilt my head side to side, staring at the blank canvas in front of me, deciding where to start. I finally decide on sketching a few rough lines in pencil to mark out the horizon, the mountain range, and finally the layers of rolling hillside. Then I get to work blocking in the colours before layering smaller details over top.
The old, faded pair of denim overalls I changed into already has splatters of paint all over them, so I don’t worry about getting them dirty as I use them to wipe some paint off my hands. They’re the same ones I used to always wear painting, and today I have them on over a lace bralette.
Painting, unlike sketching, comes back to me quickly and easily, like riding a bike. The brush feels natural in my hand, and when I’m busy sweeping brush strokes onto the canvas, Idon’t think about much else besides where I’m going to place the next one, and the one after that.
The painting morphs into a portrait of Ruby, with her front and centre, a silly wildflower poking out from behind her ear, the sunset highlighting her from behind. She looks angelic—it represents her perfectly.
I’m standing back to admire the last few strokes I added, and considering where it might need some tweaking, when the doorbell rings. The sun is now low in the sky, and I check the time—already evening. The day slipped away from me.
Hudson is standing on the other side of the door when I answer it, and his eyes rake over me, taking in my loose overalls, the paint splatters on them and on me, the skimpy lace bralette I have on underneath.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” He smiles at me, a cheeky dimple popping on his cheek. “Did you forget I was coming by today?”
CHAPTER 22
HUDSON
Wren answeredthe door wearing nothing but a lace bralette and overalls, and my brain is short-circuiting. I can’t help but take her in, the few inches of her ribs that are visible, the way it would take all but one flick of the wrist to have those clips undone, the denim falling around her and revealing her gorgeous tits, barely concealed by the thin lace.
Her deep chestnut eyes went wide at the sight of me standing on her doorstep. Obviously, she had forgotten about the plans we made for this evening since we discussed it when I dropped her off after our date. And I don’t know, maybe I should be offended, but I’m not. Because it means I’m getting an unedited, unfiltered Wren. I’m getting to see what she looks like when she’s all alone, free to be completely herself.
She hasn’t put on a façade, isn’t presenting a carefully curated image like the first day I saw her. Her naturally long dark eyelashes flutter on the barely-there freckles along the crests of her cheekbones. Her hair is held back by a light blue,paisley-print bandana, and her feet are bare, showing off bright red nail polish and that silver toe ring.
She’sher.
Her face is bright, the shadows under her eyes are gone, the line between her eyebrows from her permanent, focused frown is soft, and her smile reaches her eyes as she opens the front door wider to let me in. Slowly but surely, I’ve been putting the pieces together and figuring out this new version of Wren.
What she told me on her date made me see her in a different light, and it’s no wonder she’s been feeling so much pressure lately. It explains a lot of things about the way Wren acted when she first showed up in town. She’s had this protective barrier around her the whole time. Until now.
“Sorry, I lost track of the time,” she says, leading me through the house and into the kitchen. When we get there, I can see why. She has paint supplies strewn about the kitchen table, her easel facing away from me so I can’t see what she’s been working on, but angled so it catches the sunlight. Or what’s left of it.
I came straight over after work again, and the sun is casting everything in Wren’s house in a warm gold, including her. The way it’s filtering through the back windows illuminates her in an almost halo glow.
“Let me know if you need anything. I’m going to keep painting if that’s okay,” she says. I nod, and she dives right back into her painting as I set up my tools. I smile to myself, because this is the Wren I once knew. This was how we spent most of our time together growing up. Her and I both doingwhatever we wanted in tandem, happy to be in each other’s presence without having to say a word.
