“It’s her fantasy. Don’t take this away from her,” Keva says with a smile.
For the first time since he’s shown up, a shadow cuts through Sebastian’s cocky playfulness, and he looks almost vulnerable.
Then he straightens up and extends a hand for Keva’s phone. “My turn.”
“For what?” I demand, even as Keva hands him her cell without hesitation.
“I want in on the wager,” he says.
I roll my eyes and obediently pucker so Keva can apply a glittery light pink gloss, then adds something sparkly to my cheeks and brow bones.
“Perfect,” Keva says, stepping back and surveying my face. “Damn, I’m good. Bastian, look at my genius.”
Sebastian looks up, momentarily startled at the nickname, then glances over at me. His mouth tilts in the corner. “She looks a bit like…”
“Sexy Tinker Bell,” Keva says. “All those glittery, whimsical paintings of hers come to life.”
“They’re not all glittery and whimsical,” I mutter, reaching for a hand mirror. “Oh. Oh.”
“See?” Keva says, a little bit smug.
“It’s perfect,” I admit. She’s added just the right amount of shimmer so I don’t look like a preteen movie princess, but sort of like a fairy, a sexy fairy, with all the dark smudging she added beneath my eyes.
Sebastian hands Keva her phone back, and she glances down at what he’s entered before giving him a speculative look. “Interesting. Very interesting.”
“What?” I say, extending my palm. “Let me see.”
Sebastian opens his mouth, but Keva’s already shaking her head and tucking her phone into her back pocket. “Nope. We’ll see who won the wager at the end of the evening, and for now, I want you”—she points at me—“to focus on getting dressed. And I—Holy moly, is that the time? I need to go get myself fancy.”
She gathers the rest of her makeup and tucks it under her arm. “We still taking a car together?” she asks. “They’re not like sending you a limo or something?”
I laugh. “I don’t think I’m quite to limo level yet.”
“Soon though,” Keva says, wagging a finger. “Very soon you’re going to take the art world by storm, and I’ll be making food for all the celebrities paying thousands for a ticket to fight for the chance to buy your pieces.”
“I’d be happy if a noncelebrity bought one of my pieces,” I say, letting the nerves I’ve been battling all day slip out.
Keva rolls her head over to Sebastian. “Bastian, I’m assigning you pep talk duty. I’ve got to get ready.”
“On it,” he says.
“Perfect,” Keva says. “Gracie, see you in—crap, twenty-two minutes?” My front door slams, and I hear thuds as Keva takes the stairs two at a time.
“I don’t need a pep talk,” I tell him.
“You sure?” he asks.
No. I pick up the vase of flowers he brought me and inhale.
“Every piece will sell,” Sebastian says with quiet confidence.
I look up in surprise. “You can’t know that.”
He smiles innocently. “As you know, I have excellent business sense.”
“You know what fails. I’ve yet to see your chops when it comes to sensing when something will succeed.”
“Ah, but the More part of your store didn’t fail,” he says lightly. “The fact that tonight is happening is proof that while there may not be a market for a niche champagne shop in Midtown, there is a market for Gracie Cooper paintings.”
“I’d never thought of it that way,” I say. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Our gazes hold for a moment, and I forget that I’m supposed to have moved him to the friend column.
That he has someone else, and that as of tonight, I might too.
He straightens and steps nearer so I have to tilt my head up to meet his eyes. “I wish you could be there,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
Sebastian reaches for my hand and squeezes. “It’ll work out the way that it should. Trust me.”
His hand drops, and he steps back and turns away. I bite back a protest. This feels wrong.
“Sebastian.” He turns back around, his eyes bright with something I don’t recognize.
“Why?” I ask softly. “Why did you tell me to pursue the other guy?”
He steps closer, lifting a hand to rest his fingertips lightly against my cheek. “Because you said you loved him. Because you deserve your fairy-tale ending. And because I’d do anything for you, Gracie Cooper. Even if it means letting you go.”
Twenty-Six
I don’t have time to dwell, and maybe that’s a good thing—I’m afraid I would cry and never stop. Or abort the whole evening altogether out of sheer overwhelming panic. But somehow I manage a smile and let Keva distract me on the way to the studio.
From then on, it’s been a blur.
May cries when she sees me, then proceeds to take about a hundred photos. Myron comes over and starts to tell her there’s no photography in the gallery but backs off when she compliments his velvet boots. Or maybe because her earrings tonight are a grenade and a machete. In case your guy is a dud and needs to be taught a lesson.
“May,” Lily says in laughing exasperation as May motions for Caleb, Lily, and me to stand side by side. Again. “What are you going to do with these pictures?”
“Take them to Heaven to show your mom and dad,” May says in all seriousness, clearly irked that she even has to explain this.
“I don’t know what’s more ballsy,” Caleb says out of the corner of his mouth as he puts his arm around my shoulder. Lily’s arm slips around my waist from the other side. “That she thinks Heaven allows cell phones or that she thinks she’s going there.”
“You mind your tongue, Caleb Cooper,” May says as she snaps the photo. “Or I’ll be telling your lady friend here all about the way you once had to ask your dad why your underwear had an open flap in the front and your sisters’ didn’t.”
“You weren’t even there for that!” Caleb says as Michelle, his girlfriend, laughs beside May.
“Yes, but your father was, and you never forget a story like that.” May looks down at her phone and, finally satisfied, drops it into her shark-shaped clutch.
“He was fourteen,” I whisper loudly.
He swats the back of my head.
Alec appears carrying an impressive amount of champagne flutes, which he hands around.
Lily takes the tiniest sip of Alec’s since she can’t have her own. “Ooh. That’s excellent!”
“Of course it is, I picked it,” Robyn says, appearing from nowhere with a wide grin, dressed to kill in a red dress that matches the lipstick Keva bought for her.
“Well done,” May says, clinking her glass to Robyn’s, all smiles for her now that they no longer have to work together and bicker over how long May’s sushi lunch break went. “It’s delicious.”
“Quick toast to our lady of the night,” Alec says.
“Well, that makes her sound like a prostitute, but sure,” Lily says, earning what I’m pretty sure is a quick pinch on the butt from her husband. She giggles. Actually giggles, and it’s the best thing I’ve heard in forever. It’s like a front-row seat to happily ever after after.