When I see the three paintings she’s done, I’m so blown away by the talent and beauty, I don’t understand how she could ever choose another discipline.
“These are spectacular,” I say as I study them. Turning to look at her, I find her beaming back. “Can I commission you to paint something for my apartment?”
Janelle’s eyes go round. “Really?”
“Really,” I say decisively. “These are better than many professional artists I’ve seen.”
Janelle’s head whips to her brother as if she can’t quite understand or accept the compliment.
He nods and smiles. “They are amazing, kiddo. Your talent is incredible.”
Even though we’re only here to admire Janelle’s work, we politely walk around the entire gym. It doesn’t take long for Janelle to break away from us and find her friends. Riggs and I have a good time, critiquing the art, always finding something nice to say but then muttering under our breaths to each other how much better Janelle is than her classmates.
Obviously, we’re biased.
After about forty-five minutes, Janelle rushes up to Riggs and me with another girl in tow. I don’t know her, but Riggs says, “Hi, Melody.”
“Hi, Mr. Nadeau,” she replies, flashing a mouthful of braces. “Me and my parents want to know if Janelle can come to dinner with us, and then can she stay the night at my house?”
Riggs looks to his sister, staring back at him expectantly. She now has a social life, and she’s embracing it. “Well, if you don’t want to hang out with your fuddy-duddy brother tonight, I suppose it’s okay.”
Janelle throws her arms around Riggs’s neck and hugs him. It’s not that he gave her anything spectacular, because he’s let her have sleepovers before—it’s because he joked with her about it, and he had every intention of spending the evening hanging out with her. And yet he acknowledges her need to have friends.
In essence, Riggs is the parent she’s always needed.
A moment that chokes me up with emotion.
After arrangements are made to transfer care of Janelle over to Melody’s parents, Riggs and I leave the gymnasium. When we’re away from everybody and getting ready to step into the parking lot, I make a suggestion. “Interested in coming over to my place and seeing the sexy lingerie I bought today?”
Riggs doesn’t answer right away, his gaze cutting across the lot as if he’s pondering my offer. For a beat, my heart sinks—I don’t understand why he’s not jumping on this. After all, we’re only about the sex, and he really, really likes it when I wear sexy lingerie.
When his eyes slide back to mine, he says, “How about we first go to dinner somewhere nice? Maybe take a walk along the river.”
I stare at him, confused, sure I’ve heard him wrong.
He chuckles. “Yes, as in a date.”
My eyebrows draw together and my expression becomes skeptical. “Who are you, and what have you done with Riggs?”
Shaking his head, he takes me by the elbow and escorts me across the parking lot. “We’ll go to your place after, and you can model the lingerie for me.”
I can get on board with all this.
It doesn’t start to feel weird, though, until we get to the restaurant. On the way there, we chatted about Janelle and her artistic talent. She’s applied and been accepted to a couple of universities she was interested in, but none of them have a stellar art program. She had not thought about art as a major, but it’s a conversation Riggs needs to have with her now.
But once we’re at the restaurant, an awkward silence settles in. It’s like we don’t know what to do if we’re not touching each other.
I’m about to suggest we could discuss various sexual positions we haven’t tried yet when Riggs says, “How did you come to be married to your ex-husband? I gather from things you and Janelle have said that he’s the world’s biggest asshole. And I don’t see you tolerating an asshole.”
I don’t know how to answer. I don’t know if I want to share this with him, because part of me is deeply embarrassed that I let myself fall for an asshole.
On the other hand, I have an immediate realization that I trust Riggs not to judge me in a harsh manner. It’s not something I could’ve said about him a few months ago when he was believing the worst about me because I was a rich divorcée.
I shrug, running my fingertip around the bottom of my water goblet, wet with condensation. “I was young and dumb. He swept me off my feet and convinced me to leave college for him. In hindsight, I think I always knew he was an asshole, but I was so dazzled by the lifestyle he offered, I let myself be subject to his abuse. It was such a shallow desire to have those things at the expense of my dignity.”
“Don’t be so rough on yourself,” Riggs says with a pointed look. “We all do things when we’re young that are regrettable and stupid.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “But I wasted so much time on that loser. Time I’m finally trying to get back.”
“By finishing a degree first?”
I nod.
“Janelle told me you want to open up some type of nonprofit to help people and that you’ve been saving up all your alimony for that. Why don’t you just do that rather than mess with school?”
Fair question, one I’ve debated myself for many months. “I definitely have the ability to do it right now, but I need to finish what I started. Getting a college degree was my number one ambition before I met Jace, and he threw me off course. I made a terrible decision and tossed my goals away. I need to complete what I started for myself. I don’t feel like I can leave him truly behind and move forward until I do.”
Riggs is silent as he stares at me. It makes me feel like I’m under a magnifying glass.
I grimace at the tragedy of it all. “Pretty stupid, huh?”
A gentle smile plays at his lips. “Pretty admirable.”
We talk more about my vision for the charity I want to start. I learn more about how he became a hockey player, following his journey through college and his draft into the professional league.
Dinner is delicious, and from that point, our conversation never wanes. When we finally leave the restaurant, we decide to ditch the walk along the river and go check out my new lingerie. As we do best, we’re going to end the night making each other feel good.
But as Riggs opens the car door for me, I have to admit to myself that tonight is the night I really start to fall for him.
CHAPTER 19
Veronica
It’s midafternoon, we’re in the middle of a highly abnormal torrential downpour in Phoenix, and I’m taking a rare break to spend time with Janelle and Clarke at the bookstore. Janelle is on a teachers’ professional development day and I’ve finished my work for school, so I thought I would come hang out with them. Just because we’re in the desert doesn’t mean we don’t get rainstorms. However, a heavy one like this is uncommon in February. It tends to keep people indoors, and as such, we’ve not had a customer for over an hour.
Clarke put on some tunes, and we’ve been silly dancing and lip-synching to some pop star I knew nothing about until Janelle filled me in.