Page 28 of From West, With Regret

He’s wearing a simple T-shirt and a pair of dark jeans torn at the knee—the complete opposite of the other times I’ve seen him—and I’m suddenly aware of how overdressed I am compared to him. He’s even trimmed his beard, revealing a morechiseled jaw line that any woman would love to drag their finger along. I tighten my grip on my portfolio.

“Here.” I carry it over to him and unzip it on the bar top, careful not to cut my finger again. Realizing he can see the princess bandage, I try to hide it the best I can, using my other hand to pull the zipper the rest of the way. I open up my portfolio to the first sketch lying on top. A charcoal drawing of one of the ports in Boston.

“I drew this one when I took a walk on the first warm spring day last year.” I flip the page to the next one. “And this one was the building next to my apartment.”

“But not your apartment?” he asks, not even looking down at my drawings. His eyes are on me, unwavering and unmoving. His gaze burns a hole in the left side of my face, and my body engulfs in unrelenting heat.

I keep my eyes on the sketch. “No.”

“Why not?” he’s quick to ask.

I clear my throat and finally flick my gaze up to his. I know what he’s truly asking. He wants to know why I didn’t bother drawing my home with Heath.

“It was never worth drawing,” I admit.

“So, you only draw things you deem worthy?”

“I don’t know if you want the answer to that question.”

He cocks his head to the side. “I never ask questions I’m not prepared to have answered.”

I release a weighted sigh. What the hell? How does West do this so effortlessly?

I look into his eyes, and that same familiarity comes over me. As if we’ve known each other for years. As if there are cosmic forces between us, constantly pulling us together.

It’s terrifying how I already feel closer to West than I have with anyone in recent memory.

“Our house never felt like home,” I admit. “All the way up until the very end.”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind.” I look down at my drawings and slide one out from under the drawing of the building next to Heath’s old apartment. The sketch is one I made when I first moved to Boston. Before I met Heath. It’s of a leaf I’d found at the base of a tree in the park. Dry, cracked, and shaped like the birthmark imprinted on my left hand.

I trace the curve of the leaf. I remember thinking this dead leaf lived more of a life than I had.

“I’m sorry,” West says beside me, pulling me back from my rabbit hole. “I got us off track. I’d love to see more of your drawings.”

The corners of my mouth curl as I look up at him, relieved. Art is my safe space. The one bright place I can rely on in a world of black. “Okay.”

I spend the next twenty minutes showing West every single one of my drawings, avoiding the ones tucked into the back pocket. The ones I keep for myself. The ones drawn from the few flashing memories that have haunted me since I came home from the hospital after the accident.

Keeping those concealed, I start with the few I have out. I tell him the story behind each one, explaining what compels me to draw certain things. He asks me what I did back in Boston, and I tell him how my art career evolved over the years. I tell him about art school and how my adoptive parents disapproved simply because they were afraid of my future financial security.

If they were still alive, I bet they would have loved Heath simply for the number of digits and commas in his bank account.

When I finish showing West the last drawing, I close my portfolio and leave the talk of the past I do remember behind. Without a word, he slips off his stool beside me andwalks around the bar to dig through a drawer underneath the register. He stands with a small roll of black electrical tape and, from the other side of the bar, reaches over to grab my portfolio. He spins it around and tears off a piece, covering the exposed, sharp edge.

I study the tattoos covering his arms. He doesn’t look like a typical billionaire. Usually, men of his status walk around dripping with arrogance. But West almost seems as if he doesn’t want to flaunt his wealth. When I first met him, he let me believe he was just a regular bartender. Not the billionaire owner of bars all over the city.

I eye him skeptically. “I don’tneedthis job.”

“I know you don’t.”

“Then, why are you doing this?” I finally ask what has plagued me ever since he offered me the job at Heath’s funeral. “I told you how miserable I was being married to Heath. I said horrible things about your brother.”

“My brother was a horrible human being.” He deadpans. “What you said was nothing in comparison to the person he was.”

I’m taken aback by his brutal honesty.

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