Choose Me (The Me Novellas) (6 page)

“I can’t,” I started to protest but he stopped me by holding up his hand.

“I insist.” He set my bag on the bed. “The bottom drawer of the dresser is empty. And there are hangers in the closet you can use.”

I looked at him. “Thank you.”

His eyes crinkled as a smile stretched across his face. “You’re welcome. I’m glad to see you, Meg. It’s been too long.”

It really had.

“I’m going to make dinner reservations,” he said. “Why don’t you unpack? Shower if you need to.”

“Are you sure? You don’t have to entertain me.”

“Please.” He rolled his eyes. “I plan to entertain you and take care of you the whole time you’re here. End of discussion.”

I sighed. “Fine. Only if you promise me something.”

He waited.

“Promise me you’ll tell me how you afford this. And promise you’ll help me figure out a way to not kill Yuri when I see him.”

He laughed. “Done.”

NINE

An hour later, Lance and I were on the streets of DC, heading toward Wisconsin Avenue. The night was warm and muggy, reminiscent of a summer afternoon in Minneapolis. The sidewalks teemed with people and traffic clogged the narrow streets. Everyone was on overdrive, hustling and bustling. Even people walking their dogs seemed to be in a hurry.

“Where is everyone going?” I asked, watching as people flew by.

“Dinner. Shopping. Home.”

“Do they always move this fast?” I asked as a man and woman holding hands hurried by.

Lance laughed. “Yes. DC is like Minneapolis on steroids.”

We walked a few blocks until we got to a small Italian restaurant storefront tucked in the middle of a building. A large woman wearing a white apron stood in the front window, slowly cranking a pasta machine. I glanced up at the sign. Filomena’s.

“How does Italian food sound?” Lance asked.

It sounded and smelled divine. The hostess led us through the packed restaurant to a tiny two-person table tucked in the back corner.

“The food here is fantastic,” Lance said after our waiter handed us menus.

I scanned the list of entrees, my stomach gurgling. I hadn’t eaten much, I realized. Between packing for the airport and getting there and then flying, I’d managed half of a bagel for breakfast and a yogurt parfait from one of the coffee shops at MSP as I waited to board my flight.

We ordered—lasagna for me and a spinach ravioli for Lance—and helped ourselves to the bottle of wine Lance had ordered.

“So, tell me,” I said as I sipped the wine.

He leaned back in his chair. “Tell you what?”

“How you afford this,” I said. “Your apartment. Your car. This bottle of wine.” I’d seen the price on the menu, balked at forking over forty dollars for a single bottle.

We were the same age. Twenty-four. What was he doing to make money that I wasn’t? Besides avoiding the whole starving artist thing.

“OK, so you know I write,” he began.

“Yes.” I nodded. “Plays.”

“Right.” He traced his finger around the rim of his wine glass. “I’ve written over a dozen. Had three go into production.”

I hadn’t known that. “Oh, wow. That’s impressive.”

He grinned. “Not really. They were local theaters, small productions. Got paid peanuts.”

“OK.” I waited.

“So I had to get
…
creative,” he said. “You know, figure out a way to make money. I don’t like being poor.”

“Clearly.”

He drank some of his wine. “I’m a decent writer, I figured. I could put my talent to work somehow, you know?”

I nodded. It wasn’t any different than me doing notecards. It wasn’t what I wanted, necessarily, but it helped pay the bills.

“So I started writing jingles. For commercials.”

“Seriously?”

He laughed. “Yeah. You know this one?” He started to sing a song for a fabric softener.

“Oh my God. Yes!”

He pointed to himself. “I wrote it.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “That is seriously awesome.”

“Wait,” he said. “It gets better.”

The waiter delivered our appetizer, a plate of bruschetta, and Lance plucked one from the platter. “Then I started writing greeting card sentiments. And keep in mind, all of this is freelance stuff. No guaranteed paycheck, you know? They either buy your stuff or they don’t. Kind of like plays.”

Or art, I thought.

“About a year ago, I was talking to a friend of mine. Another writer.” He bit into his bruschetta. “She was in the same position I was. Except, she started writing e-books.”

“E-books?” I asked. “You mean, like for Kindle and stuff?”

He nodded. “Yep. She had some pretty good success with hers, so I thought, what the hell. I’ll give it a shot and see what happens. I know I can tell a story.”

“Right,” I said.

“So I wrote a book.” He drained his wine glass and refilled it.

“And?” I asked. Had it been that easy? He’d just written a book and it had sold thousands of copies and he could suddenly afford a Mini Cooper and a luxury apartment in downtown Washington, DC?

“And it sold
…
” he paused, calculating. “I think it sold four copies in six months.”

“For a million dollars a piece?”

“Ha.” He grinned. “No.”

“I’m not following.”

The waiter reappeared, this time delivering our dinner. He set down a plate with the largest piece of lasagna I’d ever seen.

I dug in, slicing off a bite. The flavors burst in my mouth, garlic and tomatoes and basil and a dozen other flavors I couldn’t name.

“I decided to experiment with different genres,” Lance said. He ate a forkful of ravioli. “Wrote a mystery. Tried a romance. They all bombed.”

I still wasn’t following. Maybe bombing as an author was different than bombing as an artist.

“And then I hit the mother lode,” he said. He smirked. “Porn.”

“What?” I leaned closer, not sure I’d heard correctly.

“Perhaps, erotica is a better word.”

I furrowed my brow. I had no doubt erotica sold—I’d had enough friends slobber over the Fifty Shades series than I cared to admit. But there was one problem with Lance writing erotica.

He held up his hand. “I know what you’re thinking.”

I waited, my eyebrows arched.

“How does a gay guy write straight erotica?”

He’d hit the nail on the head.

“It’s surprisingly easy,” he said, waving his fork in the air. “I mean, I had to brush up on
…
certain things.” He grinned. “But otherwise, it was a piece of cake.”

“How much of a piece of a cake?”

“Piece of cake enough to earn about six grand a month
…
”

“Are you serious??”

He nodded.

I couldn’t believe I was sitting with a gay, high school alum who was a bestselling author of straight erotica fiction. However, considering the surreal atmosphere of all that had happened over the last week, it fit well.

“Wow.” I said, digesting the dollar amount. “That’s a lot of money.”

“Uh-huh.” He sipped his wine. “Enough to pay the bills so that I can do what I really want to do.”

“Which is?”

He stared at me, frowning. “Write plays. What else?”

“Even though they don’t pay? Even though you don’t make money off of them?”

He stroked his chin. “Absolutely.” He leaned closer. “Let me ask you something.”

I waited.

“Do you really want to be here? In DC?” He studied me. “Do you really want to do this show? I mean, you’re pissed at this Yuri guy for basically railroading you into doing it. You’re one thousand miles outside of your comfort level. You just want to paint and make enough money to live off of, right?”

He’d summed it up perfectly.

“So, this show could be a means to an end. Like, people will see your stuff and you’ll get more exposure and your opportunities will grow. And traveling the country, dragging paintings from gallery to gallery might not be what you ultimately want, but it’s a means to an end.” He leaned back in his chair. “That’s what the books are for me. I write them so that I can make money so that I can write what I really want to write. Plays.

“And you,” he continued. “Pretty sure you want to sit holed up in your own little studio. Have people come to you. But they need to know you exist. So you’re here, showing your stuff. Hoping it will translate into what it is you really want. A career as an artist, a career that isn’t dependent on you trolling galleries, hawking your work.”

There was a reason we’d been good friends in high school. Because he knew me as well as anyone did. Even Andy.

“So, that’s what we need to talk about now,” he said, picking up his fork again.

“What exactly is that?”

“How you’re going to walk into that gallery tomorrow and do two things: knock their socks off.”

“And the second thing?” I asked.

He smiled. “And not kill Yuri.”

TEN

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come in with you?” Lance asked.

It was Friday afternoon and we were parked in a loading zone just outside of Katya At Georgetown, the gallery where my paintings would be on exhibit. I’d spent the better part of the day sight-seeing with Lance as my own personal tour guide. Late September was the perfect time to visit DC, he’d told me. Few tourists and most schools weren’t venturing out for field trips yet.

He’d been right. The weather was delightful, the crowds sparse, and we’d managed to hit most of the landmarks on the National Mall in just a few hours. Not in-depth, of course, but long enough to snap photos on my phone and text them to Andy.

I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. I’m just dropping by, checking in. Shouldn’t be more than a half hour.”

“I can wait.”

“No,” I said firmly. “I can walk back.”

It was a beautiful late September day, sunny and warm, the temperature hovering close to eighty degrees. I was glad I’d packed warm-weather clothes.

“You’re sure?” he asked doubtfully.

“I’m sure.”

He sighed. “Alright. I’m going to run to Trader Joe’s. Pick up some groceries. Text me if you want a ride home. I can always swing by and grab you.”

“OK,” I agreed, knowing I wouldn’t.

I closed the passenger door and watched as he shot back out into traffic. I took a deep breath, smoothed the beaded silk tank top I was wearing, and approached the glass doors.

I pulled one open and stepped inside. A blast of air conditioning greeted me.

And so did Yuri.

“Meg,” he said, a broad smile on his face as he strode across the marble floor to the front door. “You made it.”

I forced a smile on to my lips. “Hello, Yuri.”

He reached for me and gave me a hug, planting a dry kiss on either cheek. I felt myself stiffen at his touch. I was still pissed as hell at him.

“I assume your flight was good?” he asked.

“It was fine,” I said.

He nodded. His dark hair was slicked back, a prominent widow’s peak visible. “There wasn’t enough time to arrange for you to fly first class. But you will on your way home.”

“That’s not necessary,” I told him.

He ignored me. “And your lodgings? You are staying with a friend?”

I’d told him as much when I’d made the call to accept the invitation. Or the summons.

“Yes. Right here in Georgetown.” I told him the name of the building.

He raised his eyebrows. “That is a desirable address. What does this friend do?”

“He’s a writer,” I said evasively. Lance had shared his pen name with me—Lana Vance—but I didn’t think he’d want me spouting it off to every person I met.

Yuri nodded. “Ah. I see.” He reached for my elbow and gently guided me to the back of the gallery.

For the first time, I looked at the walls. It was an expansive room, easily two-thousand square feet, with three solid walls filled with paintings. There were moveable partitions in the center of the room and these were adorned with art work, too. A wealth of abstracts—I recognized Yuri’s work—and watercolors, several of them Impressionist-inspired pieces. A few portraits, 
a
la
Van Gogh. And then there were my pieces.

I swallowed the lump in my throat as my gaze settled on my paintings. They looked achingly familiar and yet completely foreign in this new environment. The lighting was different here, I realized, and it reflected the paint in a different way. The background walls were a warm yellow, the color of buttercups, and this enhanced the richness of the oils, made the flowers warmer, prettier. I took a deep breath as I took it all in, realizing just how good my paintings looked on those walls.