Brit shrugged. “Sorry. My mistake. My girlfriend used to live here.” He said it loud, hoping the woman could hear.
The woman popped back at the door. “So he isn’t…?”
“No,” Brit said. Then before the man decided to take Brit up on his trip to fist city, he shot down the apartment’s steps, trying to think of the quickest way to find Cali.
When the idea came, he wished it hadn’t, but he started his car, and headed that way. Five minutes later, stepping up to Tanya’s door, he prepared himself to get an earful. But as long as that earful included Cali’s address, it would be worth the verbal beating.
~
Tanya answered his knock with her purse and keys in her hands. A spark of satisfaction lit her eyes. Lucky for him, she didn’t try to rip his heart out and feed it to the roaches.
She shook her head as if she considered him pathetic. And she was right. Standing before her was one heartbroken guy wearing alphabet soup.
He swallowed. “Go ahead. I deserve some of your lip.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Give me one reason why I should tell you where she is.”
Relief swelled in his chest. “How about two? Because I love her. And because I think she loves me or else you’d already be dismembering my body and feeding it to the roaches.” God, he hoped he was right.
She propped a hand on her hip and then her gaze tightened. “Are you wearing alphabet soup?”
“Where can I find Cali?”
She rolled her eyes. “Try her mother’s house.”
He smiled. “I owe you big time.”
“Pay backs are hell,” Tanya called as he ran off.
~
Brit parked beside Cali’s Honda in the drive and knocked on the glass storm door. December cold cut through his windbreaker, but he still sweated.
“Come in,” Cali called from inside. “I’m just trying to finish up.”
Brit’s heart raced. Damn, he’d missed hearing the soft timber of her voice. Missed her. He opened the door, and looked around. The place was different. It looked like Cali. Soft colors, organized bookshelves. And it smelled like her. He inhaled the scent like a starving man coming home for dinner. And that’s what he was, starving. Starving for her.
“I opened some wine.” Her voice came from a back bedroom.
Had Tanya called her? Was she expecting him? Did that mean he had a chance? His level of hope inched up.
I’m not a duck. He repeated to calm his nerves. He loved her. And he’d spend the rest of life proving that to her if she’d let him.
Her voice rang out again. “Pour the wine and bring me one.”
He spotted the bottle and two glasses on a table. He set the bag down. His hands shook as he poured the wine.
“I can’t wait for you to see how this painting came out,” she called out again. “I think it’s my best one.”
Cali was painting again. Fighting a case of serious angst, he followed her voice down the hall to the third bedroom.
She stood with her back to him. Her shoulder shifted ever so slightly as she brushed paint on a canvas. Her blond hair shimmered down her back, and the wispy strands caught the evening sun spilling through the uncovered windows. She wore a fitted white T-shirt and a pair of gray sweats. On her backside were smeared paint prints where she’d wiped her hands.
“I was about to call to see what was keeping you.” She still didn’t turn around.
Disappointment flickered in his gut when he realized that Cali didn’t know it was him. “Cali?” he whispered her name.
Her hand stopped making the tiny brush strokes. Her back stiffened. Brit took a deep breath.
Chapter Forty-Four
Brit’s heart felt like it doubled over. “Please don’t ask me to leave.”
She dropped her brush in a cup at the edge of the easel and, slowly, as if it cost her to do so, she faced him.
He wanted to touch her so badly his hands shook. Instead, he handed her a glass of wine before he spilled it.
She took it and then cleaned her other hand on the bottom of her sweats. “I thought you were Tanya.”
Brit’s gaze fell to the painting—two people in bed, nude, in a lover’s embrace. Then he noted the cat in the painting, perched up on the nightstand beside the bed. His breath caught when he saw the cat had a missing ear. He looked at Cali, and her blush told him he was right. “It’s us.”
She pushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “Let’s go in there.” She moved past him and waited at the door.
He didn’t follow. His gaze moved around. They were everywhere—five, six, seven of them. Painted images. Each one took him back to a moment in time. His and Cali’s time. Captured emotions bounced off the canvases and filled his chest until he thought he might explode.
He didn’t know what to say.