But when she reached for his belt, he stopped her. “No.”
“Huh?”
“Remi, baby. If you take my dick out, I’m going to fuck you in a dirty alley.”
A fantasy. Not being seen as some fragile little thing in need of coddling. To be taken. To be needed. To push him so far he could no longer take care.
“I see no problem with that,” she said. Her breath was coming in little, short heaves.
“I do. Breathe,” he reminded her.
“You breathe.”
“We’re not doing this here,” he said firmly.
“Then where?”
“Not here.”
“But somewhere? Soon?”
He dipped his head until his mouth hovered just above hers. “Yes.”
She was dizzy with it. One word, and he’d made her feel like she was exploding into a thousand pieces. “Will you kiss me?”
His lips parted, and she breathed in his exhale, wanting every piece of him she could have.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“Promise me?”
“I promise.”
She woke in a mood brighter than the morning sun. An hour before she usually dragged herself out of bed, Remi bopped into the kitchen.
“Ooh! Bear claws,” she said, pouncing on the box of baked goods. “What’s the occasion?”
It was only after her first bite of sugary goodness that she started to read the room. Her parents looked…sad.
“What? What’s going on?”
“Brick left,” her father said.
“Left what?” The house? He’d been here? Had he asked her parents for permission to date her? The old-fashioned notion was both adorable and appalling.
“The island,” her mother announced. “He got a job at one of the horse farms on the mainland.”
The pastry turned to dust in her mouth.
“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.