The Art of Romance (30 page)

Ken made notes on his legal pad. “That’s great progress. Keep writing those things down—and if your initial reactions start to change, write that down, too. Now, you were also supposed to make a list of things you wanted to tell them about what happened to you and what you did while you lived in Philadelphia. Did you do that this week?”

Dylan slouched a little lower in the chair. He’d had dinner with Gramps and Perty three times since the last session, but each time he thought about bringing up the topic of his relationship with Rhonda, how it had gone from mentor to physical—had it ever been romantic?—he clammed up and the opportunity bypassed him.

“I made the list, but I haven’t talked to them about that yet.” He reached down and pulled a small brown journal out of his bag. He flipped it open to the first blank page and started writing.

Tell Gramps and Perty about Rhonda
.

“You hold your grandparents in very high regard. Out of anyone in your life, it’s the idea of disappointing them that drives most of your actions now. Do you think it would help if you talked to one of your brothers about your relationship with the older woman before you talk to your grandparents?”

He shook his head. “My brothers…before Christmas they confronted me and got me to tell them about what happened that led to me moving home. After all, they’re the ones who helped me see I needed therapy.”

“You told them the facts of what happened, but have you actually talked
about
it? Have you shared with them your thoughts, your emotions—both from when you were going through it and now that you’re a few months removed from it and have the benefit of hindsight?”

Talk to his brothers about his emotions? He was an artist, not a girl. “No, I haven’t told them anything like that.”

“You don’t need to do it all at once, but you need to find someone with whom you can be open and honest about everything—past, present, and future.”

An image of Caylor danced before his mind’s eye, her eyes slightly squinted, head cocked a little to the right as they talked over sandwiches the last time he’d seen her. Well, he had caught a couple of glimpses at her running in and out of rehearsals for
Much Ado
, but she’d appeared far too busy and harried to stop and talk, even just to say hi.

“Do you have someone in mind?”

“My brother who lives in town.” Because if he couldn’t talk to Pax, how was he ever going to be able to talk to Caylor…or Gramps and Perty?

Ken made some notes on his legal pad. “Do you think before our next session you can set up a meeting with your brother—coffee or a meal—at which you can begin sharing with him? You don’t have to tell him everything all at once; start small then build on that. Once again, make a list before you talk to him. Will you make that commitment?”

“Yeah…yes, I can do that.” Dylan wrote it down so he wouldn’t forget.
Coffee or dinner with Pax to talk about emotions
. Wouldn’t Pax just love that?

“How did your job interview at JRU go last week?” Ken smiled at him, as if giving him a reward for being a good boy by agreeing to rip his insides out and show them to his younger brother.

“I feel like all of the elements of it went well. The panel seemed to like my teaching presentation, and they didn’t ask me anything I couldn’t easily answer. I’m supposed to be hearing something soon.” After only three weeks of teaching part-time at Robertson, Dylan thought the invitation to interview for a full-time assistant professorship seemed like the hand of God coming down from the sky and telling him he was right where he was supposed to be.

Ken made more notes. “Now…let’s talk about your parents.”

Dylan fell face-first onto the secondhand sofa in his living room as soon as he walked in the door. The sessions with Ken left him as wrung out as if he’d run the New York City Marathon—without the benefit of warming up first.

A state of hazy relaxation settled over him—but vanished when his phone started ringing. His bag was too far away to reach, so he had to push himself up off the couch to reach it before the call rolled to voice mail.

“Pax?”

“Hey, D. I know it’s short notice, but some of the guys at church decided to go out tonight. Want to go with us?”

“Go out to do what?”

“I’m not sure. But we’re definitely going to Manny’s House of Pizza downtown for supper first. From there…who knows? We find we have more fun most of the time if we just wing it instead of planning it all out ahead of time.”

While he preferred having a plan, what else was there to do tonight if he didn’t go? Sit in front of the TV and flip through the channels and complain that there was never anything worth watching on a Friday night? “Sure. What time?”

“Six. Dress comfortably. We could be doing anything—walking around downtown to listen to music or going bowling or going to a movie.”

“I’ll meet you there, then.”

Comfortable for Dylan included paint-splattered jeans and T-shirt and no shoes. Instead, he dressed warmly, wearing the soft blue sweater Perty had given him for Christmas, along with nice jeans and his brown, rugged-looking boots he would never consider wearing anywhere the leather might get damaged—they’d cost way too much for that.

The group consisted of six guys other than Dylan and Pax. They were all younger than him, but Dylan did have a good time. He hadn’t been bowling in at least five years, and though rusty at first, it came back to him pretty quickly—and Pax and his friends were stiff competition, pushing him to concentrate on his form so that his scores improved each round.

Walking out to their cars after saying good-bye to everyone else, Dylan seized the opportunity. “Hey, Pax, want to come over for a little while? We haven’t really had the chance to sit and talk—just the two of us—since I got back.”

Pax shrugged his thin shoulders. “Sure. You got any junk food at your place?”

“Only if condiments count—I haven’t been to the grocery store this week. Funds are starting to run a little low.” Yet one more reason why he hoped—and maybe prayed, just a little—that Robertson offered him the full-time position.

“Why don’t I stop at the grocery store on the way? I’d suggest we go over to my place, but my three housemates invited a bunch of guys over for a video game tournament. Plus, I need somewhere to store my stash of junk food. It gets eaten both at home and at the lab no matter where I try to hide it.”

Dylan opened the front door of his SUV and hooked his arm over the top of it. “Gets eaten…by you?”

Pax grinned. “Guilty. Besides, if it’s stored at your place, I’ll have more reason to come over and hang out with my big bro. You go on over and make sure it’s presentable, and I’ll be there in a little bit with grub.”

“See you in a little bit, then.” Dylan headed back to Gramps and Perty’s place. He stuck his head in the living room at the main house to say good night and let them know Pax was coming over. He also told them about Bridget’s recommendation he visit Providence Chapel Sunday. Though an odd look flashed in Perty’s eyes at the mention of it, both she and Gramps claimed not to know much about the church.

Suspicious, but not assertive enough to push the matter—he knew
assertive
was the correct term, because that’s what Ken had told him was part of his problem, he wasn’t
assertive enough
in his communication—Dylan said his good nights and walked back to the carriage house.

In the downstairs workroom, he flipped the light on so Pax wouldn’t hurt himself going up the steep stairs. The large canvas on his easel caught his eye. He crossed to it and turned on the floor lamp beside it. The scene he’d started sketching on the white background went from tentative pencil lines to a full-color image in his mind. Of course, the image in his mind included a figure of a man looking upon the woman, the central focus of the painting, with admiration and longing—the way he imagined he looked when he watched Caylor when certain no one else was observing him.

But as Ken had warned—and as his own mind tried to tell him—it was too soon to be thinking about another romantic relationship. He needed time to work through everything that had happened in the last few years, to figure out who he really was instead of who Rhonda had made him. He needed to stand on his own again. He needed—

“Hey, are we hanging or are you painting tonight?” Pax’s voice startled Dylan out of his thoughts.

“We’re hanging.” He snapped off the lamp and followed his brother up the stairs.

One step at a time. Ken’s constant refrain echoed with the rhythm of Dylan’s feet on the stairs. Step one was talking to Pax about what happened with Rhonda. He wasn’t quite sure exactly how many steps he’d need to take between tonight and when he might be ready to express his feelings to Caylor. But he had a feeling it was a pretty high number—one he wasn’t certain he’d ever attain. He only hoped she’d still be around—and available—by then.

O
f course, one of the problems with having the art show and auction in Hillsboro Village would be parking. Dylan circled the block of buildings again, hoping someone would have pulled out by the time he got back around to the small lots between the buildings and the alley that ran parallel to Twenty-First Avenue.

With all of the cars displaying flags and banners for Vanderbilt and the University of South Carolina, he realized he should have checked Vandy’s basketball schedule before agreeing to the first weekend in February to meet with Mother, her publicist, and the event planner at the location chosen for the showing. If he’d known about the game, he’d have suggested a weeknight or even later in the day.

Oh, finally, a parking space. He whipped into the narrow slot as soon as the other car cleared it, lest someone else beat him to it. He had to squeeze out the door, because the cars on either side were on or over the line, but at least he’d found a spot.

He popped the tailgate and pulled out his portfolio. Supposedly, this Emerson guy, the event planner, had some background in art, so Mother had wanted him to go through the pieces before the final decision was made on what would be shown.

After almost entering a coffee shop’s kitchen, Dylan managed to find the correct rear entrance for the vacant building owned by one of the Bradley law firm’s clients.

“Hello?” He entered what looked like it had originally been a combination storage area and break room.

Clipboard Lady—Mother’s publicist—flung open the door. “Finally. We don’t have all day, you know.”

Dylan didn’t even bother forcing a smile. There was just no pleasing some people. She turned on her heel and marched back into the front room of the building.

The space looked like it had been a clothing store in its previous life—with some of the racks and hardware for displaying clothing still hanging on the walls. A glass display case ran down the center of the wooden floor. Dylan set the portfolio down on it.

“We can put the bar here, on the cashier’s desk”—Mother’s voice echoed through the empty space—”and set up the auctioneer’s stand here.”

“I thought we were doing a silent auction,” another female voice responded.

He turned and found himself looking upon an ethereal beauty—small, blond, pale—in an expensive-looking business suit with shoes that could have doubled as weapons, between the thick soles in the front and the death-defyingly high, thin heels.

Panic prickled his skin.

“Oh good, Dylan, you’re here.” Mother came over and made him lean down so she could press her cheek against his and make a kissing sound. “You brought your pictures with you?”

He motioned toward the portfolio with his head.

“Good. The art appraiser should be here momentarily.”

The young blond woman stepped forward, hand extended. “I’m Emerson Bernard, the event planner. You can call me Ems.”

Dylan wiped his palm down the leg of his jeans before shaking hands with her.
This
was Emerson? The
guy
he was supposed to be working with to set up this show? He wracked his brain, trying to remember if his mother had ever mentioned that Emerson was a woman.

Emerson zipped open the large leather binder and started flipping through the color printouts of his pieces. She dug a pad of sticky notes out of a briefcase on the display cabinet and started marking pages. After she went through the inventory, she flipped back to one of the images she’d marked, leaving the portfolio open there. “These are fantastic. We’ll have a nice big check to donate to charity.”