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Before I can movea muscle or say a word, Cari is gone. I don’t watch her but I can hear the fast, heavy stomp of her feet on the stair as she heads back up to our apartment.
What the fuck.
“That was Conner’s fault,” Tess says in a rush and I look up to see her shifting from one boot to the other, uncomfortable with the scene she just witnessed and possibly her part in creating it. “He inferred that she had to sleep with the art guy to get him to show her work.”
“Inferred?” I look at Conner.
If possible, he looks even more uncomfortable that Tess. “She misunderstood,” he mutters, giving me a shrug, which means, she understood perfectly.
I sigh, scrubbing a hand over my face. “I need the two of you to do me a favor.” I drop my hand, dividing a look between them both. “Stay the fuck out of our business. Whatever’s going on between us, it’s between us,” I say, thumping my clenched fist against the table. “It’s our business. Not yours.”
Tess nods her head quickly, ready to surrender, but Conner gives me the kind of mutinous glare that spells trouble. Before he can start mouthing off, I point a finger at him. “And the next time you open your mouth at her, you better think long and hard about what’s about to come out of it because the next time you infer anything negative about her character, I’m going to fucking kill you.” I don’t wait to see if he takes me seriously and I don’t wait for him to say something else that will undoubtedly piss me off. I don’t say goodbye to Sara and I don’t even look at Chase. The cat’s out of the bag now. They all know what’s going on with me and Cari and I don’t care.
I just head upstairs.
She left the frontdoor hanging open, like she was in such a hurry to get away from me that she couldn’t spend the precious seconds it would take to shut it. Pushing my way through it, I hear the music resume downstairs. It’d take a hell of a lot more than a minor blow-up to derail Conner’s good time. I’d bet money he’s already trying to figure out a way to get into Sara’s pants now that I’ve made it obvious to her that I’m otherwise occupied.
She’s in her room with the door closed. Painting. I know that’s what she’d doing because it’s the only time she shuts her door—but only sometimes. Sometimes she welcomes me in when she paints and others, she shuts me out. I have no idea why. Never understood the difference in why or when but I’ve always respected it. Until now.
Pushing her door open, I stand in the doorway, watching her and for a moment, she’s a person I’ve never seen. She’s got her long hair piled on top of her head and earbuds plugged into her ears. She’s changed out of her shorts and tank and into a paint-splattered T-shirt. This one is hers, short enough that the hem of it barely skims the top of the pair of pink boy shorts she’s got on. Tight enough to give me a clear view of her dusky-pink nipples, pushing against the paper-thin fabric. Watching her, my cock is instantly hard.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was another game of hers. Painting in her panties. But I know it’s not. She doesn’t even know I’m standing here watching her.
The wide, flat brush in her hand, isn’t one I’ve ever seen her use. I watch her, slashing and cutting bright colors across the canvas, her movements fast. Almost violent. She looks hurt. Angry. That’s the way she’s painting, her arms and hands telegraphing her emotions into the canvas. When she lets me watch her paint, there’s nothing violent about it. Her movements are precise. Careful. Her brushes small and fine. The colors that tip them muted and refined.
Whatever she’s doing, wherever she is, it’s not something I’m supposed to see. It’s not a place I’m allowed to follow.
Then she drops her brush to swipe a wide stripe of bright color across her bare thigh. Seeing her do that, something familiar, makes me feel better. I’m able to recognize her for a moment and that gives me permission to cross the threshold to her room.
I sit on the edge of her bed and let my gaze wander around the space. She cleaned up—her table clear of cups and glasses. The carton of Chinese take-out that’s been there for a month finally gone. She cleaned up for Chase. She invited him into her room.
Something ugly fares in my chest.
Of course, she brought him into her room, you fuckwit. She had to in order to show him her paintings.
Logical. True. Didn’t matter. Wasn’t working. That something ugly in my chest starts to strangle me. Chokes me so hard I can feel the pressure of it ringing in my ears.
Cari does not belong to me just because I want her to.
Cari is a grown woman who is capable of making her own decisions.
After the way I’ve treated her, Cari is smart to stay away from me.
I repeat my mantra over and over, letting my gaze rove the room to distract myself from the irrational jealousy pounding through my veins. I see a trio of her paintings leaned against the wall behind her. A landscape and two still-lifes. I’ve seen them before. She showed them to me and I told her they were beautiful. I meant it. I have no doubt that these are the painting that Chase wants to show. Despite what my asshole cousin says, I know Cari didn’t have to do anything to get Chase interested in her work. All she had to do was show it to him.
Something catches my eye from the corner of the space—wide slashes of bold color across canvas—and I look. It’s a painting, completely different than the ones she’s showed me. It’s propped against the stack of finished canvases she usually keeps covered with a drop cloth. I suddenly understand why she keeps them hidden. Why she won’t let me look at them.
It’s because they’re of me.
I can’t say that for sure—that they’re all of me—but the one I’m looking at is. In the painting, I’m leaning against the kitchen counter, bare chested, drinking a bottle of water after one of my runs. The angle shows my profile through the open door to Cari’s room.
While I’ve been watching her, she’s been watching me. Painting me.
“What are you doing in here?”
Her voice, sharp and angry, cuts across the room, jerking my gaze in her direction. She’s glaring at me, pissed off, but there’s a flush on her chest, creeping up her neck. She looks guilty. Like I caught her doing something dirty. She knows I saw the painting. She knows I recognize myself. I feel like I’ve violated her. Like looking at the painting has stripped us both bare and words bobble in my mouth, too thick and stupid to find their way out.
She jerks the earbuds out of her ears with one hand while she drops the other to swipe the brush against her thigh. I see it for what it is now. A nervous habit. I make her nervous. Unsure of herself. But that doesn’t stop her from being angry. “What?” She demands again, her glare falling to my hard-on, outlined perfectly against my thigh even though my jeans are a little baggy.