Kaleidoscope Hearts (2 page)

“Okay, no bar hopping. I have a brunch date on Saturday morning anyway and can’t afford to look like crap, so we’ll take it easy.”

“A date?” I ask with a frown, as I pull into my brother’s driveway.

“Blind date. His name is Todd. He’s a curator at The Pelican. Maria seems to think we’d be perrrfect together,” she says, rolling her R’s exaggeratedly to imitate her Italian author friend.

“Hmm . . . I don’t think I’ve heard of a Todd,” I say.

Mia and I have known each other for as long as I can remember. Our mothers were best friends growing up and later, married men who were also best friends. Much to our mothers’ dismay, we realized early on that history wouldn’t repeat itself when Mia kept going for the bad boys, while I stuck to the quiet types.

“Damn. I was hoping you had. Don’t you know everybody in the art world? Todd Stern?” she says, a hopeful note on her voice.

I laugh because it’s not far from the truth. Wyatt and I opened up Paint it Back—a gallery-slash-art studio—a couple of years ago, and between our artist and gallery owner friends, and Mia’s connections in the photography world, we pretty much did know everybody. Well, obviously not everybody.

“Nope. Rob doesn’t know him?”

“I’m not going to ask him! You know my brother has a big mouth. He’ll go and tell my mom, and they’ll start planning a wedding over a guy I haven’t even seen yet.”

I laugh, knowing she’s right. “Well, I’ve never heard of the guy.”

“Maria said he just moved here from San Fran, so I figured you would know him. New guy in town and all that jazz.”

“This isn’t really like high school, Mia.”

“Actually, it’s exactly like high school, which leads me to believe that if we haven’t heard anything about him thus far, he’s probably ugly.”

“You’re probably right,” I agree with a laugh.

“Shit. Stefano is here for his shoot. Let me know if you need me to come by Vic’s later. Love you!”

She hangs up in the midst of my goodbye, so I put my phone away and switch off the ignition. I do a quick face check in the rearview mirror to make sure my mascara is still intact and run a couple fingers through my wavy brown hair, picking it up into a quick ponytail. The only sound, as I walk up to the house with the last of my clothes in the bag in my hand, is that of the gravel crunching below my flats, and the waves from the beach just steps away.

Anticipation buzzes through me as I crouch down and flip the welcome mat to get the spare key out and open the door. I call out my brother’s name as I walk through the door and past the living room, assuming that his car is parked in the garage. I get no response. I head upstairs toward the spare rooms. His master bedroom is downstairs, which is convenient for a twenty-eight-year-old single male, since the kitchen and living room (complete with a ginormous television) are only a few feet away from his door. When I step into the room, I’m taken aback by what I see. Not only did he make my bed with the new sheets I bought and left here the other day, but he also painted my room a soft shade of gray that I love.

I leave my bag on the bed and head to the balcony right outside the room. The balconies are one of my favorite features of this house, and what I went crazy over when he was thinking of buying it. There’s one in each upstairs bedroom, and they both face the beach behind the house. As I’m stepping out onto the balcony, the phone chimes with a text message from Vic, telling me he’ll be here in a couple of minutes. As I’m responding, I walk into the back of an easel that wasn’t there when I last visited. Walking around it, I read the huge letters in Vic’s handwriting that say: “Welcome Home, Chicken” and below, a drawing of a chicken that only a five-year-old would be proud of. I erupt in laughter and snap a picture of it, sending it to Mia and my mom, since they’re the only ones who would get it. My brother started calling me that when I was five and afraid of the dark—like most five-year-olds are—and for some reason, the name stuck. Probably because every time he called me that growing up, it was in the form of a challenge he knew I wouldn’t back down from.

I turn the page of the large sketchbook and leave it on a blank page before turning my attention to the ocean. My eyes take in the different shades of blues that twinkle in the sunlight—the cerulean, aqua, and midnight blue. It’s a view that can’t be ignored. It’s one that reminds me of how small I am in the grand scheme of things. How small we all are. I’m not sure how long I stand there, just staring. Just breathing. Just enjoying the taste of salt on my tongue that I seem to get from the smell alone. A hand lands on my shoulder and I jump, snapping me out of my meditation.

“Holy crap, Victor!” I say, pressing both hands to my heart.

“You like your present?” he asks with a laugh as he pulls me into a hug.

“Yeah, you asshole,” I say, smiling as I slap his chest playfully.

“Asshole? I get you the best present ever, and you call me an asshole? It was the terrible drawing of the chicken, wasn’t it?”

“You know I hate that nickname.” I groan and step into the house, trailing behind him as he walks downstairs. “Where’s the food? I’m starving.”

“It should be here soon. Let me go change,” he says. “I have to go back to work soon.”

“You’re going back?”

“The case I’m working on is a fucking mess. The guy’s wife is trying to take everything he has in the divorce. I don’t know when these athletes will learn that they need a goddamn prenup.”

“Oh,” I cringe slightly. It’s something Wyatt and I discussed when we got engaged—and had huge disagreements over—every time it was brought up. You would never think an artist would care about that, but Wyatt was successful and wealthy. By the time he turned thirty-three, he’d been selling to a very wealthy group of people for years. That same group of people talked him into thinking that marriage without a pre-nup was grounds for a messy separation.

A knock on the door has me pivoting on my heel. I’m in a daze as I walk over to answer it, thinking, in hindsight, about how stupid the disagreement had been. We weren’t even married when Wyatt died, and his parents insist on me keeping everything. They’re older—much older than my parents will be when I reach Wyatt’s age of death—and they’re wealthy in their own right. The way they see it, they’re not going to do anything with that money, and it rightfully belongs to me since I was half-owner of Paint it Back when he died. But alas, that’s in the past. I don’t want to think about it more than I already have—this is my fresh start.

The thought brings a smile to my face, which stays put as I swing the door open, quickly transforming into a full gape at the man standing there in a pair of green scrubs and a white doctor’s coat. He’s looking down, trying to wipe scum off his sneakers, his sandy brown hair covering most of his face. I can only make out his strong jaw and the bottom half of his full lips, but I recognize him immediately. When he finally looks up, his green eyes soak me in as they travel up my body until they reach my own. He smiles that slow, uneven grin that always made my breath fall short.

“Bean,” I whisper, making his lips twist even higher, revealing twin dimples.

“Hey, Elle,” he says. I clutch the doorknob a little tighter. I haven’t seen him for so long, I’d forgotten the sound of his voice. “Food’s here.”

My eyes drop to the bags in his hands, and I step backward, opening the door a little wider. “Oh! Yeah. I wasn’t expecting you.”

“It’s been a while,” he says, stopping in front of me as he comes in. I back up to the door and stop breathing completely when he dips his face into mine and lets his lips brush lightly against my cheek. I do everything in my power not to breathe in the familiar scent of him that used to make my head swim. “It’s good to see you again,” he says, as he pulls away. The way he says it and the twinkle in his eyes make my heart drop to my stomach. How is it possible that he still manages to do that to me? Even after Wyatt. I hate him for it.

“It’s good to see you too,” I whisper and follow behind him after closing the door.

It is so
not
good to see him, though. Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about Oliver Hart, but the only one worth remembering, is that he’s bad for my health.

“YOU LOOK FAB,” Mia says when I step into view at the bar she picked for our weekly happy hour.

“As do you, my lady,” I reply with a small bow that makes her snicker. She’s wearing a Victorian-style dress with a bustier that makes her boobs look like they’re going to pop out the top. Her long, blonde hair is curled loosely and pulled back in two sections at the front.

“You’re silly. I talked my parents and Rob into a family Halloween shoot so that I can showcase them around the studio next month, and I didn’t have time to change before coming over here.” She turns to the waitress. “Two lemon drops, please.”

“What in the world are you dressed up as? Queen Victoria?” I ask, looking under the table to see what the rest of her outfit looks like. When I straighten again, she’s looking at me like I’m crazy, and I realize she has no idea who Queen Victoria is.

“No! I’m Cersei Lannister.”

“Ooohhh . . .” I say, taking a sip of the drink the waitress places in front of me.

“Rob dressed as Jamie.”

“What?” I ask, sputtering half of the gulp back into my cup.

The bubbled laughter that escapes her lips soon turns into full hysteria. “I swear,” she says, gasping for air. “You should have seen my mom’s face!”

Robert is Mia’s brother. Twin brother. And . . . clearly, neither are normal.

“You guys are sick. What did they say?” I ask, laughing with her.

“Mom doesn’t know what the hell Game of Thrones is. Dad was horrified when he figured it out. He didn’t want my mom to send out the Halloween cards she said she was going to make, but it was the first time we’d taken Halloween pictures since Rob and I were, like, eight. Anyway, she dressed up as Mary Poppins and Dad was Bert.”

“Aww that’s cute . . . you two are so, so weird though,” I mutter. “Tell me about this Todd guy. Did you find out anything?”

“His last name is Stern—”

“He sounds like a lawyer or something,” I interrupt.

Mia rolls her eyes. “He’s an accountant.”

“I thought he was a curator?”

“I don’t know what Maria was thinking. I swear, sometimes I think it’s a language barrier thing.”

“What is?” I ask, trying not to laugh.

“This is the fifth guy she’s tried to set me up with, and he’s a freaking accountant! Do I look like I would date an accountant?”

“Well, no, but you don’t have the greatest taste in guys, so maybe this is a good thing.”

“Anywayyyyy,” she says, dragging it out before finishing off her drink and signaling for two more. “How was your first night at Vic’s?”

I let out a long sigh . . . my first night at Vic’s. Heartbreaking, lonely, weird, sad, happy, weird . . .

“It was fine.” I shrug.

Mia places her hand over mine to stop me from drawing lines of water on the table, beckoning my attention. “It’s okay to not be okay, Elle.”

“I am okay, though,” I answer with a frown.

“You don’t need to be strong for every single person, you know? You’re allowed to break down. The love of your life died, you’re in the process of selling your house together, and you moved in with your brother. It’s a lot to take in. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to take a break from work if you need it.”

“It’s been a year. And I already took a break from work,” I remind her. After Wyatt died, I took two months off work, but that meant being home all the time. I even went to live with my parents for a couple of weeks to get away from the house. I couldn’t take the memories and being there without him, but you can’t turn your back on your struggles and expect them to disappear on their own. It just doesn’t happen. So, I went home and dealt with the fact that he wasn’t coming back. I went to see a therapist and got to a good place, but not staying in the house any more feels like . . .it’s really over.

“Sometimes I feel like a bitch for selling the house,” I say, finally. “I feel like I’m erasing him from my life or something.”

Mia squeezes my hand. “Oh, honey, nobody thinks you’re trying to do that. You need to move on. You’re young, you’re smart, you’re talented as hell, and you’re fun. You can’t stop living because of a ghost.”

My eyes cut to hers. “I haven’t stopped living. I just don’t want to move on like that. If I find someone, I find someone—if I don’t, I don’t.” Mia has tried to set me up on two blind dates in the past couple of months. Even Felicia tried to talk me into going on one, but I wasn’t ready. I still don’t think I am, despite what everybody thinks. Even my own mom is driving me up the wall about the dating thing, as if some man is going to magically take the pain away.

“Elle . . .”

“I’m just saying that I don’t care to date right now. Besides, I don’t need a guy. I love being alone.”

“Elle . . .”

“I’m serious, I do. And now I come to Vic’s house thinking that this is going to be like summer camp or something, and freaking Oliver comes over my first fifteen minutes there, so really it’s exactly like—”

“You saw Oliver?” Mia shouts, effectively shutting me (and a couple of people around us) up.