“But…” Mackinac was his home. He’d said so. His grandparents were here. His brother. She was here. “Why? Did he say why?”
“He just said it was time for a change,” her dad said as he gave the morning paper a shake.
“What about Spencer? What about his grandparents? He can’t just abandon them. They need him.” Her voice sounded shrill. He couldn’t abandon her. She needed him.
“He’s hiring in-home health aides for the summer, and Spencer’s spending the summer in Las Vegas with their mom,” her mother said, clearly not understanding that the world had just tipped on its axis and started spinning backward.
“He left this for you. It’s a graduation gift,” her dad said, nudging a brown paper bag from the art store toward her.
“I’m going to miss that boy,” Darlene mused. “He has such a big heart.”
Remi’s heart, on the other hand, had just splintered into a million tiny shards. He hadn’t wanted her after all. He hadn’t even thought enough of her to say good-bye.
She was never going to forgive him as long as they both lived.
20
Remi felt energetic as the music thrummed a sparkling silver around her. Her fight with Brick had been invigorating. A purging, she decided, as she swirled a lovely cerulean blue into the tiny puddle of water she’d made for it on the paper. Watercolor wasn’t her medium of choice, but because of that, she’d found a backdoor into her creative brain.
Left-handed through a back door in a medium she wasn’t used to wasn’t exactly pretty, but at least she was putting paint on paper. It counted as progress.
She ignored the online instructor’s suggestion to water down the blue and added it to the paper in all its vibrant glory.
She liked her colors bright, bold. Full of feeling. Which was usually why she didn’t like watercolors. They were too subtle for her liking. But since oil paints were still too traumatizing, she’d circumvented the whole stupid creative block.
Speaking of circumventing, she’d also managed to ignore the infuriating Brick Callan for the better part of a week. No small feat considering she was using the studio space in his house. The door between them was more than just a physical barrier. It was a psychological reminder that she was no longer granting him access to her.
She was stronger, steadier now that she didn’t have the looming promise of his next rejection hanging over her. Forget the friend zone—she’d picked up his 250-pound, hard body and dumped Brick on the “vague acquaintance” list. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
She’d seen him at Doud’s earlier when she was grocery shopping, like a responsible adult, thank you very much. She’d merely raised her chin in an acknowledgment of his existence before turning away and launching into a conversation with Connie Mackleroy about her seven grandsons. The look he’d given her as he walked past was pure smolder. She was surprised that Connie’s Aqua Net hadn’t ignited.
Remi was diabolical enough to thoroughly ignore the man in his own house. She absolutely could have done the watercolor at the cottage. But just because she was forgetting about him didn’t mean he should enjoy the same luxury.
Which was also why she’d ordered the big jerk a new snowmobile. A fancy one with a heated seat and handlebars, balance control, and a crapload of other high tech features that his ancient, now deceased sled had lacked.
He’d think of her every time he rode it. Which would make him feel like crap, and that made her feel pretty damn good.
With a dramatic sweep of sap green that bled and swirled into the purple, she decided that she’d be okay with earning “the one that got away” status. Thinking about him moping around, regretting his callus rejections made her cheerful enough to nudge the volume higher on Macklemore, just in case he had managed to distract himself from the fact that she was under his roof.
Her phone vibrated on the table next to her. The name on the screen had her groaning and turning off the music. “What do you want?”
“Hello to you, too. Are you PMS-ing or something?” Rajesh asked. “Most of my clients love talking to me.”
“I doubt that. What’s up?” she asked, transferring fat drops of water to the center of the amorphous blobs of color on the paper. Video tutorial be damned.
“Got a rando who reached out and asked if your Harvest Moon is for sale.”
She opened her mouth to say “hell no,” then shut it again. Fresh out of art school, surviving on $1 cheeseburgers and cereal straight from the box, and desperately homesick, she’d been feeling particularly low after another gallery curator had said her work in landscapes and still life was “pedestrian” and “boardwalk quality.”
She’d lugged her portfolio back to her tiny apartment, opened a cheap bottle of wine, and painted to the Neil Young tune. It was the song she’d managed to talk Brick into slow dancing to at Kimber’s wedding. Every time she heard it, she was instantly transported back to that dance floor on the lush green lawn of the Grand Hotel. Back into Brick’s strong arms encased in a dress shirt. His broad palms warming the skin on her back. The dizzying rush of champagne on an empty stomach. The sparkle of stars in the night sky high above them.
It was also the night he’d arrested her. But that was another story.
Her Harvest Moon piece was an elementary attempt on a tiny canvas. Her craft had grown by leaps and bounds since that painting. To anyone else, it was practically worthless. Professionally, the amateur attempt to capture music in color was embarrassing. But to her, the painting meant Brick. So she’d kept it close.
“How’d they even know about it?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Something about seeing it in the background of some interview photoshoot you did a hundred years ago. It’s just sitting there on your nightstand catching dust.”
“Stop yard-saling my apartment, dick!”
“If you’d get off your broken-armed ass and start producing real paintings again while the attention is on like this, I wouldn’t have to snoop through your place for Alessandra originals.”
“I really regret giving you a spare key to my place.”
“Hey, if you don’t come back, can I have your apartment? It’s bigger than mine, and the natural light highlights my glorious brown skin.”
“I’m coming back,” she insisted. She had unfinished business to take care of.
“Whatever. Can I sell the painting or what, bro?”
Remi bit back a groan and dug out her resolve. She didn’t need to cling to something she’d kept only because it reminded her of Brick. Not anymore. “Yeah. It’s fine.”
“Awesome. Also, where do you get this fabric softener? I dig it.”
“Are you doing your laundry at my place?”
“My washer broke. I needed somewhere to wash my delicates.”