“You saw things in color then. When did that change?”
That day, I think, but instead I focus on the next time I created anything. “Sixteen.”
“What made you change?”
“Life,” I say, and because I have no intent of explaining, I add, “I really need that coffee. Actually, I really need a shower.”
He studies me several beats, and then releases my hand. “I’ll be armed with coffee in the kitchen.” I shut the journal and Nick glances at it. “You’re a journal writer?”
“No,” I say. “I paint. I don’t write. It’s actually my father’s.”
He tilts his head. “Did you read it?”
The question cuts right along with the answer. “Every page many times over and I understand him less now that I ever thought possible.” I stand and shove it back on the shelf, thinking of the words inside with biting clarity. “He loved her so damn unconditionally.” I look at Nick, who remains on the stool. “And affection to me is as you said, with tears. It has to be earned.”
“As it should be,” he says, and this leaves me curious about him but I tell myself it’s time to just stay curious about Nick. To stop talking.
I walk toward the door, but that curiosity wins. I pause before exiting. “Has anyone earned that from you, Nick?” I ask, turning to find him standing by the stool now, facing me.
“There were a few swipes I tried to turn into something right, but they were always wrong.”
“Why?”
“The only answer I have is that I don’t believe in happily ever after,” he says. “That doesn’t sit well with most women.”
And just like that he validates an acceptable reason for me to continue to bypass my hard limit of one night. “Since I don’t either,” I say, “Then we really are the perfect distraction for each other, now aren’t we? It’s really kind of liberating. I don’t have to worry about you falling in love with me and you don’t have to worry about me falling in love with you.”
I don’t wait for a reply. I exit the library.
NO LOVE.
No happily ever after.
In these things, Nick and I are kindred souls, but that begs the question: Can one soul know another before the two people realize that to be true?
This is what is on my mind as I shower, then dress in faded jeans and t-shirt, concluding that with Nick and I this must be the case. It’s the only explanation for the right and the wrong of us together. We aren’t so much about dark lust as I’d started out thinking, as we’re damage attracting damage. He’s damaged. I’m damaged. We see each other. We know each other. The understanding between us, of each other, exists beyond the short time we’ve known one another. But do damaged people cut each other deeper? Or do they heal each other when no one else can? I don’t know this answer but I do know that in a short time, Nick has changed me. Or maybe just opened my eyes.
As if it’s not enough to feel this, I am staring at the logo on my t-shirt that reads: Los Angeles Art Museum. My ex-employer, where by day, I embraced art, and then by night, I went home and embraced it again with a brush in my hand. I’ve let the past invade the present. No. I’ve let me be me. I’d say that is a good thing, but it exposes things I can’t afford to expose. I think it’s bad, like Nick, but also like Nick, it feels good. But bad is bad. Why can’t I remember that with this man?
This thought lingers in my mind as I finish flat-ironing my hair and apply light make up, a brush of pink here and there, and no more. Satisfied that I no longer resemble a chick from a horror flick, I walk to the closet, stick my feet into black UGG sneakers, and then head toward the bedroom, only to stop dead in my tracks. On the white tiled ledge that frames my equally white tub, is Nick’s bag. I just didn’t look for it. Maybe I didn’t want to see it. Maybe I just wanted him to be the asshole I’ve called him because that would be simple. But he’s not simple and I don’t feel like we’re simple together at all. I like simple. It’s easy to explain and control, and yet, I find myself walking toward the living room, seeking Nick out, with simple feeling overrated for the first time in my life.
I know he will make demands. I know he will want too much. I know everything for me should be too much right now. And I don’t care. I just want to find him again, and inhale that scent of his, that is positively drugging in all the ways Nick is right and wrong. God, I love it.
Exiting the bedroom, the low rumble of Nick’s confident voice draws me toward the kitchen. Rounding the corner, I find him sitting at the island in profile to me, his hair now tied at his nape, his orange and black Tiger tattoo displayed as he holds the phone to his ear. The art is detailed, exquisite really, but somehow simplistic and fierce, while the man too is fierce, there is nothing simple about Nick Rogers or what he makes me feel.
“Damn it, North,” he scolds into the phone, glancing in my direction his eyes warming as they find me, and when I might expect him to somehow make this moment sexual, he does not. He lifts his cup to offer me his coffee, an intimate gesture that does funny things to my belly. I start in his direction and he scowls at something North has said. “Think like the enemy,” he scolds the other man. “I would have prepped my client for every question you gave me for this witness.”
I reach the island and pick up Nick’s cup, my eyes meeting his as I place my lips where his lips may well have been moments before, but the instant the hot beverage touches my lips, the harsh taste of plain black coffee has me scowling. Nick laughs and apparently North is confused, because Nick says, “No. That wasn’t funny and you will get your ass handed to you by opposing counsel and then by me. “
Yikes. North is in hot water and I decide to let Nick focus. I set his cup back down, and I walk to the coffee pot and get another cup brewing for me, listening as he goes back and forth with North for the next couple of minutes. My coffee has brewed and I’m just pouring white chocolate creamer in my steaming cup, when Nick says, “Just meet me at my place at five. We’re going to be ready in the morning if we’re up all night.” He ends the call.
And I feel the end of the weekend like a punch in the chest.