Overture (Rain Dance, Book 1) (Rain Dance Series) (79 page)

     
"…Just
like that?"

     
"Just like
that," he repeated again.

     
"But…I
mean…Are you sure she was still even after me?"

     
"Well,
turns out there were actually a handful of people on her hit list - you being
top priority. Pierre is digging for more information, but she's not being very
forthcoming."

     
The room began
to shift around me. "Oh God…"

     
"Daphne?"

     
"She
wanted to kill me."

     
"…You knew
that, Kitten." His voice was warm. Almost soothing, even.

     
I closed my
eyes and rubbed my temple with my free hand, trying to stop the spinning.
"No, I know. It's just strange to hear it confirmed from someone other
than Noel. It's…It's not the kind of thing you expect to be real - it being
real life, and all."

     
"…Are you
saying you didn't believe it? Even after all the trouble you went
through?"

     
"I did.
But I believed it more three years ago. I guess it's like…I've been running for
so long that I forgot what I was actually running from." It had since
become an excuse to hide from everything, life included. But it was over now. I
think. "I'm really safe?"

     
"You're
safe," he confirmed.

     
All that
worry…

     
I understood
now, though. It wasn't really her I'd been afraid of all this time. And it
wasn't because of her that I'd packed most of my things, ready to leave just in
case. It was because deep down I was still stuck on that beach - tired and
afraid, wanting to seek comfort in the arms of
my love
. It was an issue
I was going to have to start working on as soon as possible, especially if I
planned to continue seeing Ethan. It would be selfish to go on otherwise, when
I wasn't willing to put a hundred percent into making it work.

     
Only now did
relief begin to make itself known. Opening my eyes, I could breathe easily
again. "Thank you."

     
"…I'll
take care of you, Daphne. Always." His voice was still soft.

     
I smiled to
myself. "I know."

     
There were a
few seconds of silence before he spoke again. "No more Noel, right?"

     
"...No," I conceded. "It's just you, now."

     
We hung up just
a few minutes later, after I asked him how things were going in New York. I was
no longer hungry, but I didn't want to waste the lunch that I'd made,
especially since it had come from Ethan's kitchen. So I ate, taking this time
to sort through my thoughts before I had to get back to work.

     
Now that I was
willing to better myself and I no longer had the excuse to lie low, what would
happen? Another job that involved going out into the world? A place in the city
that was my own? Could I even handle that kind of regular life for more than a
few months without going crazy? And what about Ethan…Would he start to expect
more from me?

     
Wow. Within
minutes, I had somehow become a normal human being with normal human problems.
But this time, the idea didn't scare me quite as much as it did before.

     
Dale was long
gone by the time I returned to the apartment that night, having left earlier
that afternoon. When he had reached his destination, he sent me a text letting
me know that he'd arrived safely.

     
I would've gone
to Ethan's again, but to do so would have required making a stop here to pick
up more clothes, first, and I didn't feel like telling the cab driver to wait
for me. Also, as I walked into my room, I realized that after today's news,
more than anything, I just wanted my own little bed. Since there was no one
else in the apartment, I changed into Ethan's shirt without the worry of being
seen. It had been stuffed into a bag with yesterday's clothes, but I was
relieved to find that it still smelled of him. I didn't want to think about
what would happen when it came time to wash it.

     
I was about to
leave my bedroom when I noticed the bear Ethan had given me a few weeks back.
Feeling bad over the fact that I hadn't given him a name yet, I quickly went
through a list of my favorite choices, but nothing stood out. I guess I was
going to have to get a better feel for him before I could decide on a name.

     
Oh!
I
hadn't even realized that I'd been referring to him as a
he
instead of a
she.
That would make things slightly easier. Grabbing him, I headed into
the kitchen to find some food so we could do the couch potato thing together.
My fridge wasn't nearly as exciting as Ethan's, but I made do with what I had.

      
I hadn't
planned on sleeping on the couch, but I ended up dozing off midway into
watching
The Crow
.

     
It was
surprisingly chilly the next morning. Excited to finish up the last remaining
details of the mural, I got dressed quickly, putting on a pair of jeans for
only the second time since I had started working on the project. The process of
getting my hair to not frizz up could not be rushed, though. After tying it
back into a ponytail, I made sure to adjust my bangs and fix any stray hairs.

     
Grabbing my
lunch and bag, I was about to walk out the door when I suddenly thought of the
perfect name for my little bear. Backtracking, I headed over to the couch and
picked him up so I could place him back in my room.

     
"Hello,
Sir Leucippus."

     
So maybe it was
a bit gaudy, but what can I say? I had a thing for Greek mythology.

     
Knowing that today
might possibly be the last day, I chose to walk to the Luxadigm and enjoy the
fresh, cold morning air.

     
During our
normal greeting, I let Samantha know that I wouldn't be around for much longer.

     
"It'll be
so odd without you coming in," she said. "I almost forgot that you
don't actually work here."

     
I chuckled.
"Yeah. I've never done any projects outside of my home before. The whole
thing has been pretty surreal."

     
"You think
you'll finish it today?"

     
"Possibly.
If I do, it won't be until late. I plan on coming back tomorrow to pack
everything up, though."

     
"I'll miss
watching you come in, trying to guess what kind of outfit you'll be wearing. We
should do lunch again sometime. Or maybe do another group thing when Dale gets
back."

     
"Definitely," I smiled.

     
The hours
passed easily as I worked on the finishing touches. Lots of shading and
lighting. Some shadows. Bubbles, foam, and vapor. This had to be my favorite
part of the entire process. I worked slowly, singing along to the music,
uncaring of who would hear. Well, that wasn't entirely true. No one would be
able to hear me from all the way back here - that was why I didn't care.

     
I took my lunch
into the break room, trying to enjoy what would be the last time I ate there.
Okay, so I had only been working in the building for just over a month…But I
was a sentimental fucker. Also, compared to the indoor life I'd been living, it
had been a real adventure coming here almost every day.
How sad was that?

     
As I was
eating, I thought back to the first time I'd eaten lunch in here, which of
course led into thinking about the beginning of things, such as the interview.
Carte
blanche
, he had told me.
You have my permission to be as obscene as you
wish. Bloodbaths, sexual deviancy, and more.
Knowing what I knew now, I
wondered just what the hell had been going through his head when he'd said
that.

     
But would he
even like what I had done? His aunt said he had particular tastes. And I know
she had meant it as more of an insult to me, but that didn't mean it wasn't
true.

     
For the first
time, I actually wanted to know - what did Ethan
really
think of my
artwork? Not of my painting of the building, but of all the other ones that
he'd seen on my website? The ones that he had dubbed morbid? And what about the
light and fluffy ones? The abstracts? Or the scenery paintings? Of course, I
now knew what he thought of when it came to the more sensual ones…

     
I had to remind
myself again that it shouldn't matter what he thought. I liked the mural. I had
done what I wanted, exactly as he had asked. With a proud nod to myself, I bit
into the last bits of my lunch.

     
It was the
little things, the details, that really made a project like this, so I worked
diligently for the next few hours, trying to make everything as realistic as
possible. Now certain that I
would
, in fact, be done before the night
was over, I stayed past five, checking every inch and every corner for anything
that stood out or needed fixing. Finally, at approximately 7:19 PM, I decided
that it was finished.

     
The number
could have been a little off, but I counted at least twenty-two days that I'd
been working on the mural.
If multiply that by the average amount of hours I
had put in, then…
I had to pull out my phone to check the calculator. When I
forgot to minus the hours I had been taking for lunch breaks, I had to start
over.

     
The entire room
had taken me somewhere between 130-160 hours to complete. Minimum wage for the
state of Washington was just over nine dollars. Of course, that number didn't
really apply to self-employed individuals like myself - not when there were
always so many different variables to consider. I usually just charged by the
size of the canvas and the cost of any new materials. But
had
I been
working a minimum wage job with those hours, the total amount earned would've
been small considering that, although enjoyable at times, it was still the most
tedious work I'd ever done. That being said, fifty thousand dollars was more
than a bit of a stretch. But now that I knew Ethan could afford it, maybe I
didn't have to feel quite so…

     
No. Nope, fuck
it. I
did
feel weird. He and I were going to have to sit down and talk
about this. I wouldn't be able to accept the rest of the money until I knew for
sure that he would have paid someone else the same exact amount.

     
So anyway…there
it was.

     
All done. It
was as though all the days I'd previously spent in the room had suddenly merged
together into a single moment of my life - which was now in the past. It was
over with. Done. I had successfully accomplished what I'd set out to do.