Almost in Love (23 page)

Steph raised her brows. “Theater people
are
strange.”

“No, he’s not a cross-dresser!” Amber exclaimed. “He bought my paintings under his mother’s name, and then he just let me think I was so great selling to some mysterious collector when the whole time it was really him.”

“Aw,” Daze said. “That’s kinda sweet.”

Amber turned a murderous look on Daze. “It’s not sweet! He was laughing behind my back. He lied to me!”

Steph turned to Daze. “He must really like her paintings.” She turned to Amber. “Didn’t you sell a couple thousand dollars’ worth?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point!” Amber drained the rest of her glass. This little chat wasn’t making her feel any better. Her friends were supposed to rally around her, not Bare. Wasn’t there anyone who’d be on her side? Anyone who’d understand this kind of betrayal?

They got quiet.

“Do you think his mother really did buy your paintings?” Steph asked. “Like maybe he had nothing to do with it?”

Amber shook her head. “No, it was him. I confronted him, and he apologized.”

Kate raised a finger. “I told you he apologized.”

Steph and Daze looked at Amber sympathetically.

“Honey, you still love him, or you wouldn’t be this upset weeks later,” Daze said. “Don’t let these bad feelings come between you. It just makes things worse.”

“You should talk to him,” Steph said. “Try to forgive him.”

“I can’t,” Amber said miserably. She reached for the bottle of wine, but Steph snatched it away.

“Give me one good reason why you can’t,” Steph said.

“Because I’ll cave,” Amber said, “and I don’t want to cave. Bare did it with the best of intentions, right? But that’s how he is. He’ll just keep doing what he thinks is best for me, all with the best of intentions, and the hell with my feelings or what I want.”

The women exchanged an uneasy look.

Amber felt instantly wary. “What?”

“You should talk to him,” Daze said.

“What did he do now?” Amber asked.

Daze looked to Steph, who looked to Kate. Kate sighed and went to her laptop.

“Here, see,” Kate said. She clicked a few times and brought up an e-vite. “We all got them.”

The e-vite read: Please come to an Amber Lewis invitation-only gallery showing at the Moonlight Gallery. Monday at 7 p.m. Refreshments served.

The party was in a little over a week. This was so humiliating. It had to be Bare. Oh, here she was, the wonderful artist who couldn’t get a show on her own, who’d never sold a single painting, whose boyfriend had to rent the gallery to get them to agree to show her stuff. She hadn’t checked her email since the breakup, or she would’ve known.

Kate looked closer. “Omigod.”

“Now what?” Amber snapped.

Kate turned, eyes wide. “Your mother RSVP’d yes.”

Her mother? Amber shot straight off the sofa. How could he do this to her? Go behind her back, embarrass her with delusions of success, involve her mother? She marched across the hall and pounded on Bare’s door.

The door swung open. Bare stood there, unshaven, his hair too long. He looked tired. “Amber,” he said in that growly voice.

She didn’t care if he was upset about their breakup. She was more upset. She was the one betrayed. Twice.

“How could you?” she hollered as she pushed past him into his apartment.

“Hey, Amber,” Ian called from the kitchen.

“Ian,” she bit out.

“I’ll be sitting on the curb eating worms,” Ian said, leaving with a beer and a bag of cheese puffs.

“You got the invitation,” Bare said.

“Isn’t it enough you made me out to be a fool by buying all my paintings? Now you have to humiliate me in front of everyone with a fake gallery showing?”

“It’s not fake.”

“So you showed the gallery my paintings, and they agreed to a showing?”

He jammed a hand in his hair. “Well, no, not exactly.”

“Tell me exactly how this happened,” she bit out.

“I rented the space. It’s a party in your honor. To show your work.”

“To show my-my,” she sputtered, so furious she could barely speak. “Again you go behind my back! Again you’re trying to build me up like I’m some great artist. No gallery has ever wanted my work! Argh!”

She paced back and forth in his living room. Her mother was flying in from Paris for Amber’s showing. Her mother, who she hadn’t seen in fifteen years, finally saw a reason to make an appearance. She would get here, see Amber was a fraud, and leave. Again.

She stopped and turned to him. “How could you invite my mother?” Her voice came out small.

He pulled her to the sofa, and she sank to the cushions, all the fight gone out of her. Her mother, the great artist, who had showings in galleries in Paris, was going to see her daughter was an absolute failure. Bare slipped an arm around her, holding her close, and she breathed in his familiar scent. She would’ve cried, except she was reaching a near catatonic state of shock. She couldn’t believe her mother was actually coming. For this. Her mother thought Amber was finally important enough to bother with. Finally important enough to cross an ocean and visit. But she wasn’t. She never would be.

She swallowed hard. “How did you even find her?”

“Your dad gave me her email. He’s easy enough to find. You told me where he worked before.”

“Why would he do that?” she whispered.

“He said she’d want to be invited.”

“Bare,
she left me
.” She sat up. “She dropped me off when I was thirteen with the brainiac family and never looked back. No visits, no phone calls, no emails, just a stupid card whenever she got around to it. That means she doesn’t get what she wants.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know the history. I thought since you were both artists…Your dad convinced me it would be a good thing.” At her sharp look, he quickly added. “I’ll uninvite her.”

She felt sick. Absolutely sick. “You can’t uninvite her. She probably already bought plane tickets.”

She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, sitting in a tight fetal position. She rested her chin on her knees and stared blankly at the floor.

She spoke softly. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be a thirteen-year-old girl dropped off with her physicist father and his physicist wife with their brainy daughter? I was the black sheep in that family. I could never fit in, never live up to what they expected, never be understood. And my mother never came back. All I got was the occasional card with a ‘Hello, having a great time! Love, Mom.’”

His warm hand rubbed her back. She glanced over to find him regarding her with such sympathy that she had to look away before she broke down sobbing. She didn’t want sympathy. She felt pathetic enough all on her own.

“Your father was so adamant,” he said quietly. “I should’ve checked with you first.”

“My father never thinks about anything as inconsequential as my feelings. My mother wanted to connect, so he made it happen. Perfectly logical. The hell with me and what I feel.”

He pulled her into his arms, and she let him, needing that small bit of comfort.

Her voice came out sounding choked. “Did
you
ever once consider my feelings?”

“I was all about your feelings. That’s what this whole thing was about.”

“You butt in where you don’t belong. Just doing…whatever.” She pulled away and stood. “Forget it. Why am I even talking to you about this? I’m not going. You can explain to my mother and everyone else why you’ve staged a fake gallery showing and send them home.”

Yes, that was the right thing to do. She might not have had a say in this whole gallery thing, but she did have a say in going along with the deception, and she wouldn’t.

He stood, his eyes pleading with her. “Amber, please. I’ve got everything planned. A lot planned.”

“Enjoy your party,” she said in a tight voice. She turned to go.

“Wait!”

She rushed out the door, sailed through her apartment, ignored her friends’ questions, and locked herself in her bedroom where she cried big, heaving sobs like she hadn’t cried since she was thirteen years old.

Barry knew he’d crossed the line, but damn if he was going to cancel everything now. He’d spent more than a week lugging Amber’s paintings around to galleries in the city. He’d hand carried five paintings of what he felt were her best work, along with a photo album with pictures of the rest. One by one, the galleries had turned him down. They were idiots not to see the artistic merit. He thought they were fantastic when he’d first seen them, even before he knew he had a chance with her. She was a brilliant artist. But like many brilliant artists, she wasn’t yet appreciated.

It was when he finally returned the paintings to the guest room at his mom’s house that his mom had given him the solution.

“Why don’t you just rent a gallery?” she asked when he sat at the kitchen table to join her for lunch. “Many artists start out with a patron who hosts them.”

“They do?”

“Why the hell not?” she asked with a smile.

That’s what he loved about his mom. She was a why-the-hell-not kind of person. That left open all kinds of possibilities in the world. For the first time, he felt hope. He would host a show, let the world see Amber’s brilliance, show her that it wasn’t just him that liked it. He’d prove he’d never once tried to build her up falsely, only encouraged her because he believed in her. A few phone calls later, he had a space booked. The gallery was normally closed on Mondays, but was willing to rent the space out for special events. And this would be a special event. He went all-out because this wasn’t just about her. This was about them. And he had to win her back.

He’d gotten in touch with Kate to collect email addresses for all of Amber’s friends, and emailed Amber’s dad to collect the family email addresses. Her dad had been very insistent that this was the kind of occasion her mother would want to attend. Bare had agreed. It seemed that having her mother recognize her as an artist could only be a good thing. He hadn’t known how bad things were between Amber and her mother. He’d make it up to her. He’d do whatever it took to be with the woman he loved.

He snagged his cell and texted Kate, begging her to get Amber to the party. Kate responded immediately with: I’ll get her to the party if you’ll get Ian off my back. I’m a single female who wants to stay open to other male possibilities.

He replied: Done.

When his brother ventured back into the apartment, empty beer bottle and half-eaten bag of cheese puffs in hand, Barry told him, “You have to leave Kate alone. I promised her you would.”

Ian moaned. “I’m in love with her. How can I leave her alone?”

“I’m sorry, but she’s not in love with you.”

Ian moaned again. Barry couldn’t deal with the moaning. He had enough of his own misery to deal with. He tossed a Dancing Cow coupon at his brother. “Go drown your miseries.”

Ian sulked out the door. Barry returned to his laptop, looking up realtor websites. He wanted to buy a house. One with wide open spaces and lots of light to display Amber’s paintings. One that had room for an art studio. One he hoped to share with Amber.

~ ~ ~

The next day, Sunday, Barry went to a series of open houses in Eastman, Field Ridge, and Clover Park. Nothing seemed quite right. Some had open spaces, but not enough light. Some had light, but no open spaces, and few had the ideal place for an art studio. But then he got to a renovated colonial in Clover Park that looked from the outside like it had promise. It was well maintained, and the website description said it had been updated and had a detached garage. With some work, he thought, maybe the detached garage could become an art studio.

He walked in the open front door and was startled to see Kevin standing in the entryway wearing a suit. The same Kevin that had punched him, twice, in an effort to take his part in the play.

“Kevin,” he said.

Kevin handed him a brochure. “Hi, Bare. Let me know if you have any questions.”

That was it? Hi, let me know if you have any questions?

“Actually, Kevin, yes, I do have a question.” Barry wasn’t going to just roll over and forget what happened. He hadn’t confronted Kevin before because he’d been stuck in that wretched victim mode, but now with no Amber and a whole hell of a lot of misery in his life, he was fully prepared to confront him. He didn’t care that there were other people milling about the house.

His voice rose in aggravation. “Why the hell would you ever think it was okay to punch someone over a part in a play?”

Kevin looked around uneasily. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

In a rare fit of temper, Barry grabbed the guy by the tie and got in his face. “You know exactly what I mean. You punched me in the face, and I’ve got a mind to return the favor right here in front of your clients.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Kevin said. “Please.”

Barry dropped his hold on him. Kevin straightened his tie.

“You have exactly thirty seconds to come up with a real convincing apology,” Barry warned.

“Not here,” Kevin said. “Follow me.”

Kevin led him outside away from the people milling around. “I’m very sorry, and I know I should’ve said that a lot sooner. I was jealous because…” He stared at the ground. “Zac was cheating on me. I know it wasn’t with you, but every time he flirted with you it just felt so in my face, you know?”

Barry didn’t reply. He still didn’t think that excused violence.

“Zac always gave me so much attention when I was the lead, and then you were.” Kevin blew out a breath. “I know you’re the better actor. There’s no excuse. I’m so sorry. Me, of all people, should know better. I’ve taken my share of punches.”

Barry pressed his lips in a tight line. Seemed they had that in common.

“Yeah, okay,” Barry finally said.

“What can I do for you?” Kevin asked. “You looking to buy a house? I can help you. I find out all the latest listings before they’re open to the public. I could get you in early, so you’d avoid a bidding war.”

“I don’t know if I want you for a realtor,” Barry said. “It just doesn’t feel right handing over money to the guy that gave me two black eyes.”