I follow her in.
“Really? A date?” I demand when she emerges from the stall to wash her hands.
“Brad’s been out of the picture for months. You need a boyfriend.”
“Mar, I don’t need to be taken care of.”
She flips her palms. “Maybe you want someone. I love being with Harlan. He’s smart and handsome. He props me up when I’m down and calls me on my bullshit when I’m talking crap.”
“Let me guess—you can’t remember life without him?” I tease.
Mari smiles and rolls her eyes. “I know it’s nuts because we met less than a year ago, but I don’t want to,” she says softly.
My heart flips over. It’s sweet, what they have. The way he looks out for her, challenges her, champions her. I wish I could tell her that I met a guy who makes me feel that way.
“Just give Paul a chance, okay? He works on accounts, and he’s a nice guy.”
“All right,” I promise and head back out with her.
Paul looks up, white teeth flashing as I sit. “There you are. We were going to send out a search party.”
I take a deep breath. “No need. We made it back alive.”
He tosses back his head and laughs. The sound echoes off the walls.
The man laughs at nearly everything. It should be a refreshing change.
Somehow, it’s not.
There’s no grumpy side-eye. No jaw-twitching, no hand-flexing.
Definitely no groping under the table.
Still, as our main courses arrive, I vow to do as I promised.
“So, what brought you to Denver?” Paul asks as he digs into his salmon.
I fill him in on my project, and his brows rise.
“It’s a big painting on a wall. People will touch it with their sticky fingers?” He frowns.
“I guess? But art exists to be enjoyed.”
Harlan clears his throat. “Any thoughts on what else besides the skyline?”
“I’m still working on it.” I think back to last night. I didn’t get the stroke of specific inspiration Brooke suggested, but I got a feeling. More of a vibe.
Everyone together, the Kodiaks, working toward a common goal.
I couldn’t sleep when I got home, so I sketched. I could do most of them from memory and photo references.
But I couldn’t do Clay.
Not his broad shoulders, the tattooed expanse of him.
Not his chiselled jaw.
Not his aggressive stance.
Not those dark eyes that see everything.
A buzzing sound comes from my bag hanging on the back of my chair. I try to be subtle as I reach for it, but Mari pins me with a look.
"Could be Brooke," I mouth, but I slip the phone into my lap and glance at it.
Grumpy Baller: Did you get the flowers?
I ignore the text and return to the conversation, but a minute later, my phone rings.
I jump up, three sets of surprised eyes flying my way.
“I’m so sorry. Give me one minute.”
I dash for the hall, the Grumpy Baller contact on the screen making me curse.
“Clay, this is not a good time,” I answer once I’m tucked out of sight.
“So, you don’t like the flowers,” he deadpans.
In the restaurant full of strangers flirting and clinking wine glasses, his voice is more real than any of it.
I sigh. “They’re beautiful. But they can’t erase the past.”
“That’s not what I wanted to do.” There’s a long pause. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I guess I wanted you to think of me.”
The laughter bubbles up from nowhere. “Trust me, thinking of you isn’t my problem.” I should stop talking, but the words spill out. “I spend my day on a ladder with a twenty-foot-high image of you at my back. Which makes it even more fucked up that I can’t draw you, because I know every inch of you.”
“Not every inch.” His voice lowers, and suddenly I’m reminded of everything we did.
And all the things we didn’t.
“Goodnight, Clay—”
“Wait, don’t hang up.” His breathing gets louder. “The night of the wedding, I should have taken you home with me. God knows I wanted to.”
My head falls back, and I stare unseeing at the overhead lights. “Then why didn’t you?” I can’t help asking.
“Because I fucked up. I cared about you, Nova. I still care.”
The emotion in my chest is twisting, agonizing, but it’s not the emptiness of the past month. There’s a glimmer of light beneath it all.
Hope.
But he didn’t take me home, I remind myself as a woman brushes past me heading for the bathroom. Instead, he gave me a letter that made me feel an inch tall.
Paul might not be the guy for me, but I need someone who understands how to act like a grown-up. How to communicate and compromise.
Clay has a million pieces of evidence as to why he’s amazing. I’m still trying to prove to myself that I have my life figured out.
“I need to make this mural for James incredible,” I say at last. “You want to make it up to me, help me not be hung up on yesterdays that can’t exist again. Help me live my life now.”
“Nova—”
“I’m on a date,” I choke out before I click off and switch my phone to "do not disturb".
I head back to the table, uttering my apologies as I shove the device back in my bag.
The rest of dinner is a grind.
Paul asks for my number, and I give it to him mostly to help him save face in front of Mari and Harlan.
I get home to find Brooke still out and the entire apartment smelling like a field of wildflowers.
I cross to the bouquet, and my fingers reach for the petals of one, stroking their velvety surface.
They’re beautiful. Fresh and bright and happy.
A knock at the door makes me jump.
What the…?
It’s not someone from outside the building, or the concierge would have buzzed up. Maybe Brooke forgot her key?
When I pull the door open, there’s a security guard standing in the hallway holding a large rectangle wrapped in brown paper.
“I brought a message from Mr. Wade.”
“I’m afraid I’ve hit my limit of messages from Mr. Wade for tonight.”
I start to shut the door, but he holds out the package. The size and shape of it are immediately familiar.
I take it from him and shut the door before reading the Post-It note on top.
To help you live your life.
10
CLAY
“Again?!?” Rookie exclaims as Miles’s three swishes into the hoop.
It’s Miles's fifth of the night, and my teammate’s grin lasts the whole way back up the court. The crowd is going nuts. We’re up big, and the third-string guys pop off the bench to close.
Miles pants next to me on the bench as we catch our breath in the final minute.
It wasn’t a record game, but I still got mine, and after the other night, I know how much this was eating Miles.
But my lungs burn, and it’s not from running up and down the court.
When Nova said there was no number of walls that would make her forgive me, it didn’t discourage me.