The Genius and the Muse (12 page)

“But not before mutilating me first,” he pointed out. “You know, you have to remember that she’s still remembering that darling little boy you grew up with. Cody’s her best friend’s son, and she’s had this dream of you guys getting married with the big wedding and giving her adorable grandchildren. She’s had that dream for years; you’re going to have to give her time to let go of it.”

Kate started to speak, but her father interrupted her. “Your mom didn’t see the reality, and she’s still coming to grips with it. And to tell the truth, you don’t seem all that upset to her.”

Kate’s mouth dropped open. “I’m not upset? I—”

“Got your pride hurt. Which is understandable. But if you’re feeling some deep loss over your relationship with Cody, you’re hiding it. Very well,” he said quietly. “And if you are, that’s understandable, too.” He paused and watched as Kate turned back to watch the boats as the sun began to peek through the fog. “Just give her a little while. The first time she sees Cody with some other girl, she’ll turn into a mama bear, and then he’ll be the one scared.”

Kate muttered, “I don’t ever want to see him again.”

“Well, it’s not likely you’ll be able to avoid him completely, is it? Carl and Barbara are still our best friends, though I’ve never approved of how they spoiled their son. They’re still good people, and I know for a fact they adore you.” He patted her arm a little. “This is going to come bite him in the ass. Don’t doubt that for a second. But I’m going to be honest.” Derrick paused until his daughter looked at him. “You’re better off without him.”

She looked away as the tears welled in her eyes.

“I know it hurts now, but you’re too bright. He never really understood you. Heck,
I
don’t understand the way you see the world sometimes, but I’m smart enough to know you need someone who gets that about you. And he didn’t. More, he was never going to, no matter how much your mom loved the idea.”

They sat next to each other for a few minutes, content to sit and watch the boats pass. Finally, Kate decided to change the subject. “So you know that photographer I’m doing my thesis on? I guess Professor Bradley and Dee are friends with him.”

“The famous guy?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “They went to school with him.”

Her dad sat up, his face lit with enthusiasm. He had never really understood much about photography, but Kate’s dad had always been her biggest fan. “You should ask them to set up an interview or something, Katie. That’d be great for your thesis, wouldn’t it?”

She shrugged, and her father frowned at her unexpected lack of enthusiasm.

“I think I have enough for the written portion.”

Derrick snorted. “Says the girl who graduated a year early and begged the art institute to let her live on campus at seventeen.” He frowned. “Since when has ‘just doing enough’ been good enough for you?”

Kate remained silent, wondering why she had brought up O’Connor with her dad when she really didn’t feel like talking about the philandering asshole anymore. She’d tossed around the idea of changing her thesis topic, but knew it would be self-defeating and immature. She mostly wished she wasn’t still curious about Reed O’Connor and his relationship with Sam Rhodes. She couldn’t get past the feeling that there was something she was missing, and Kate hated the contradictory feelings she had about the whole subject. Was Brandon Wylie lying? Why would he? But if he was, what could have broken a relationship that seemed so strong to all of their friends?

“Why do guys cheat, Dad?”

He shook his head. “Oh, Katie… Sneaking around never made much sense to me. But then, I’ve never seen the point of putting time and energy into betraying someone you’re supposed to love instead of using that time and energy to make things better.”

She sniffed a little and cleared her throat. “Yeah. Me either.”

“Besides, I’m a really bad liar. Your mom would catch me.”

She laughed as she looked at her father’s eyes, which were crinkled in amusement. “Yeah, you are. That’s a good thing, you know?”

“I never said otherwise. That’s the part that bothers me the most about Cody. The lying. Everyone deserves the truth.”

“Yeah.” She nodded slowly. “They do.”

He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “Not all guys cheat.”

Kate looked at her father and thought about her parents’ marriage. As much as her mother may have driven her nuts over the years, she had never seen a couple more devoted or fiercely loyal to each other as Derrick and Shannon Mitchell. They had been married for almost thirty years.

“I know, Dad.”

He leaned over to kiss her cheek. “The right one will know he has a one-of-a-kind girl with you,” he said quietly before he walked in the house. “I know it. So don’t settle for less.”

Kate heard her phone ring from the pocket of her jeans, but she didn’t feel like talking to anyone, so she let her voicemail pick up as she stared over the quiet water.

Pomona, California

Javi Lugo hung up his phone as he sat at the kitchen table at his sister’s house. He tapped it thoughtfully and wondered for the hundredth time why he cared whether he hurt the feelings of the little redheaded photographer.

“Javi, can you go get the boys for dinner?”

He could smell the
chile verde
Marisol had made from their mom’s recipe, and he wondered again how she managed to make it so perfect. Maybe it was genetic. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Ability to make the perfect dinner. That trait had obviously skipped him. The spicy smell of pork, green chiles, and cumin wafting from the small kitchen would probably always remind him of his childhood and Saturday afternoon dinners with his family when he was growing up. He wondered what smell reminded Kate Mitchell of home. Probably not
chile verde
.

“Javi?”

“Yeah, I got it. I’ll get ‘em.”

He shook himself from his reverie and stood up, glancing at the number on the screen one last time before he pocketed his phone and went to corral his unruly nephews.

“Manuel? Robbie?” Javi called as he walked down the hall toward the noise. He walked into the boys’ small room, decorated in the cheerful colors he had helped Mari paint when she first moved in, to see his older nephew holding down his little brother and tickling him mercilessly.

“Uncle Ja—a—vi!” Manuel panted. “I’m going to pee my pa—pants!”

“Get off your brother, Robbie. If he pees, you’re cleaning it up.” Javi flicked the six-year-old’s ear and pulled them apart. “Dinner’s ready. Go wash your hands.”

He was trying to be better about spending time with his sister and her boys. She had, after all, moved out to Pomona to be closer to him after her crap boyfriend left her on her own with two kids the year before. Mari may have been twenty-eight, but she would always be his little sister, and he still felt a responsibility to take care of her and the boys.

Javi sat down to dinner, joining them in the quick prayer Mari offered before he began inhaling the
chile verde
, rice, and beans. He tried to remember when the last time he’d had a full meal was. If it wasn’t for his sister, the small restaurant she worked at, and the taco truck near his warehouse, Javi realized he would probably never eat.

“Who were you trying to call before dinner?”

Javi looked at Mari in surprise. “What?”

“You kept calling and hanging up. Who were you trying to get ahold of? Your agent?”

“No, Lydia’s in New York right now.” He continued eating dinner, trying to avoid her question and stealing a tortilla off of Robbie’s plate when he wasn’t looking.

“So who was it?”

“Why do you want to know?”

She teased, “I don’t know. You had a funny look on your face.”

“No one, really.”

Mari curled her lip. “It wasn’t the painter, was it?”

Javi glared at her. “And if it was?”

“Nothing. I just don’t think—”

“You don’t get to think anything about that, Mari.” He scowled and turned back to his food.

She stared at him across the table before she stood up and walked to the refrigerator to get more milk for the boys. Javi set his fork down, annoyed he had pissed off his sister, but not wanting to hear her opinion on his on-again-off-again relationship with Vanessa Allensworth which he hoped, was finally “off” for good after their last conversation.

Javi and Vanessa were friends. They’d been friends for years. And sometimes they were more, but never as much as Javi wanted; and their relationship, whatever it was, wasn’t something either one of them would acknowledge to their once close-knit circle of friends.

They’d had been drawn to each sporadically over the years, but had failed to ever find enough common ground to build a real relationship. They were both too stubborn. And he had realized, as he was finishing up the necklace she’d asked him to make for her that he would never truly fit into her well-ordered life.

He’d made the jewelry out of white gold, as she had asked, even though a warmer metal would have better suited her skin tone. And she had asked for sapphires, though Javi always thought she should wear warm stones like agate or citrine. She frustrated him. In the end, he’d made it the way she wanted, but couldn’t bring himself to deliver it to her, knowing he was so dissatisfied with the piece.

Mari came back to the table with a gallon of milk and refilled the cups of her squirming sons before she sat.

“Hey, Mari.”

She eyed Javi warily. “What?”

Sorry
, he mouthed silently, unwilling to speak the words aloud.

She shrugged and went back to eating, the gleeful chatter of the two small boys filling the silence between them.

“Uncle Javi?” Robbie asked.

“Yeah?”

“Who’s K—ate? Kate.”

Javi grimaced and looked over at his nephew who was holding the phone that must have fallen out of his pocket. The six-year-old had hit the buttons and the call history popped up, revealing Kate’s name and number. Reaching across, Javi swiped the phone from Robbie’s hand as Manuel giggled.

“Is she your girlfriend?” Manuel asked, breaking into a fit of giggles, even as his uncle popped him on the back of the head.

He glanced at his sister to see her sitting with a satisfied smirk as she rested her chin in her hand. “Yeah, Uncle Javi,” she said sarcastically. “Who’s Kate?”

He didn’t say anything, but gave his little sister a pointed glare as he finished the last bite of food on his plate. He stood up at the tiny kitchen table, his bulky shoulders awkwardly filling the small room. He wiped his mouth and mussed both his nephews’ hair before he grabbed his keys from the counter.

“I gotta go. See you next week?”

Mari shook her head at him, rolling her eyes. “Fine. Be mysterious. I’ll bring by some food after work on Wednesday. Are you going to be doing the mad sculptor thing all week?”

“Yeah, I have a new project I’m starting, and I’m finishing up the big metal piece for that building downtown.”

“Okay, we’ll see you next Saturday at the boys’ games, right?”

He nodded and reached for his wallet in his back pocket.

Need anything?
he asked silently.

His sister shook her head, but mouthed,
Thanks
.

Giving them all a quick wave, he walked out to his truck parked at the curb. Pulling out his phone one last time, he looked at the call log and the small name on the screen. He hit the call button one more time, not surprised when it went directly to voice mail. He quickly decided he would say what he needed to say and be done thinking about Kate Mitchell.

“Kate, it’s Javi. Listen… I think you misunderstood what I meant last week. Not that you probably care. Anyway”—he paused— “you seem like a nice girl and I’m sure you’ll find a nice…”

He trailed off as he looked back toward his sister’s house. Mari’s ex had seemed like a “nice guy” too, but he’d never been able to handle his sister’s quick wit and desire for something more. Mari had intimidated him. Ultimately, the boys’ father had run instead of appreciating what he’d had. Javi bit his lip and began speaking into the phone again.

“You know what? Fuck it. Don’t find a nice guy. You’d get bored, and he wouldn’t know what to do with you. So… yeah, be pissed at me if you want, but you—you’re one-of-a-kind…” He paused, unsure of what he was really trying to say. “So just find a guy that gets that, you know?” He rolled his eyes at the longest voicemail in history. “Or just ignore me, because it’s none of my business, anyway. Bye.”

He hung up the phone and walked to his truck, determined not to think about the girl with the fiery hair again.

Part Seven: The Potter

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Claremont, California

June 2010

K
ate could hear the laughter through the front door of the Bradley's house as she raised her hand to knock. She’d been planning on slipping the progress report under the door in case the baby was napping, but the loud laughter inside gave her pause. Biting her lip, she rapped sharply on the dark red door. Dee answered with a bright smile on her face.

“Kate!” She pulled the younger woman into the house with a warm hug and a laugh. “I haven’t seen you in weeks. How are you?”

Kate gave her a small smile before she replied, “I’m doing great. My classes are done. I’m almost done with the written portion of my thesis, and then I’ll have my exhibition in the fall.” She waved the papers in her hands. “I was just going to drop these off for Professor Chris.”

Dee snorted, “Professor Chris?”

She rolled her eyes and shrugged. “It’s my own joke. I feel weird calling him anything besides Professor Bradley, but he keeps asking me to call him Chris. It’s my own weird compromise.”

Dee laughed. “Professor Chris…”