Page 78 of Dirty Little Secrets
“Emery?”
“Fine,” she finally says, clearing her throat. “But only for an hour, okay? Just… Just an hour.”
I’d take a minute.
The kettle bubbles as I lean impatiently on the counter, two mugs set to the side. I’m nervous, so pathetically on edge. Even though she’s coming to me, it doesn’t feel like a victory. It doesn’t feel like I’ve won something. If anything, she’s just giving me a chance. An opportunity for potential. But she’ll like it here. She’ll see it’s nothing to fear.
The elevator doors ping open, and my stupid heart hammers as she comes into view. In the dim moody lighting, her striking beauty stuns me. She’s a canvas that needs no paint. In her bareness, she carries meaning. She makes sense to me in a way that nothing ever has. Or will.
“Tea?” I offer her the mug, closing the distance between us as she studies my apartment with a wary eye. “It’s peppermint.”
“Thank you.” She blows into the blistering water,smiling as steam bounces against her fresh face. “Smells good.”
“Let me show you around.”
Emery trails behind me as I give her a small tour of the penthouse. It’s awkward. The energy between us is uncomfortable. Like we’re strangers. Like we don’t even know each other’s first names. She pauses in front of the paintings and tilts her head.
“Ignore those,” I say. “It’s just a whole lot of…nothing.”
She nibbles on her bottom lip as she leans forward to the freshly painted canvas.
“It’s a lion,” she hums, pointing to the purple strokes. “That’s the mane.” Her finger shifts to the center of the painting. “Those are the eyes.” She glances toward me. “Right?”
I frown at her. “A lion?”
“No?” She focuses on the painting again. “A peacock then?”
A tinge of annoyance buzzes in my fingertips. “It’s nothing, Emery. It’s just…paint.”
She lifts up a curious brow. “Art is never nothing, Damon. Paint is only paint when it’s in a tube.” Her gaze shifts down the darker, older canvases on the floor. She walks along their stacked path. “Once paint hits a surface, then it’s always something.” She pauses in front of another painting. “Like this one. Maybe to you, this is just a blob of black paint, but to me, I see a bicycle. I see a path. I see the trees and the wind and an empty seat where a rider should sit but isn’t.” She cranes her neck at me. “Everything is nothing until yougive it meaning. If you say it’s a bike, then you see a bike. If you say it’s a ship, then you see a ship.” She gives me a gentle smile as if sensing my discomfort. “It’s all about perspective, Damon.”
“A patron of the arts, I take it?” I ask, struggling to identify the bicycle within the painting. Why can she see it so easily, and I can’t?
She quietly chuckles into her mug. “God, no. I took a few classes in university, and I hated it.”
“Did you fail?”
She casts me a playful scowl as she continues her self-guided tour. “I don’t fail, Damon. I passed with flying colors.”
“But you hated it?”
“You can hate something and still excel,” she sighs, stopping in front of the entertainment unit, her gaze flitting across the various framed photographs of my family. My past. “I don’t particularly enjoy the act of interpretation.” She narrows in on an older photograph of my father and me at the racetrack. “But that’s not to say I’m not good at it.” She glances at me. “What kind of car is that?”
“I hope you’re happy Quinton,” I slur, taking a swig from a bottle of whiskey. “She left. You hear me, huh? She fucking left me so…” My eyelids flutter shut, my left hand slipping off the steering wheel. “You win, okay? You fucking win.”
“It’s 2 a.m., Cavanaugh,” he groans. “Go to fucking bed, mate.”
“Fuck you.”
Flashing red lights blind me. My body slams against theseatbelt, the screeching of tires deafening. Glass breaks, burning rubber fills my nostrils, blood coats my tongue.
“Shit…” I choke out. “I just?—”
“Damon?” Emery frowns. “Did you hear me? What kind of car is that?”
“Vintage Corvette,” I whisper, voice hoarse and dry. I take a small sip of tea. “It was my father’s. A collectible.”
“Do you still have it?” she asks. “I haven’t seen it in the parking lot.”
