Being Me

Ten

I’m staring at the clock, waiting for Chris’s call, when Ava walks into the coffee shop. Needing a distraction from the circles I’m running in my head, I watch her pause by the coatrack at the door and peel off her jacket. She’s in slim black slacks with a red blouse, and her tousled long, dark hair is striking as it cascades down her back. Maybe it’s the numerous tables and displays separating us, but her skin, even just out of the harsh wind, appears a flawless milk chocolate.

Spotting me, Ava waves and heads toward my table. There is a casual confidence and grace about her that I admire immensely. I am confident that Ava would not spill her coffee as I had the first day I’d encountered Chris here at the coffee shop.

Ava slides into the seat in front of me and we exchange greetings. My laptop is occupying the small round table and I shut the lid, drawing her gaze to the papers in front of me. “More assignments from Mark?”

It hits me that she has just called him by name, and it throws me for a loop since no one else but Chris does. But then, what else would someone he’s acquainted with, but not having sex with, call him?

“Yes,” I confirm, and try to find an angle to discover how well Ava knew Rebecca. “I wonder if Rebecca went through this or if he’s reserved the fun for me. He does seem to enjoy the irony of the schoolteacher doing homework.”

Her lips lift. “Men do seem to have little schoolteacher fantasies, don’t they?” she asks, leaving Rebecca out of the picture.

I grimace at the familiar comment. “In my experience, all the wrong men.”

“I think you’ll discover at least one man worthy of a fantasy or two. How’s a certain sexy artist we both know and lust over?”

The sting of her question is instant. Silly as it might be when she’s probably just making girl talk, saying the things girls say to each other about a hot man, jealousy flares inside me and I try unsuccessfully to squash it.

“Actually,” I comment a bit hoarsely, eager to change the subject, “today I’ve got an artist on my mind all right. Have you met Ricco Alvarez?”

“I know him, yes. He used to stop by quite frequently and make small talk.”

“Then you know he’s not working with the gallery anymore?”

“Didn’t he just do the charity event?”

“Yes, but apparently that was set up before Rebecca left. When she left, he left.”

“Ouch. I bet Mark isn’t happy about that, but Rebecca coddled Alvarez. I assume this is his form of throwing a fit.”

“Rebecca coddled him?” I ask, hopeful I’m leading her to real answers.

“Well, that’s what I gathered. I’m everyone’s bartender during working hours. They grab some coffee and ramble. In Rebecca’s case, she’d come in excited about this sale or that sale, which led us to talk about Ricco. She was protective of him, and seemed to get his artistic temperament when no one else did.” She shivers. “It seemed a little weird. Almost like she had a father syndrome for him, when you know a man that, despite being in his forties and twenty years her senior, wasn’t seeing her as a daughter.”

She doesn’t have to explain what she means. My father has a thing for women in exotic places not much older than I am. “I’m meeting with him tonight to try to talk him into some private showings. Anything I should be concerned about?”

Her big, dark brown eyes, a shade darker than mine, go wide. “You talked him into seeing you?”

“Yes, I—”

My phone rings and I forget everything else but checking the number and confirming Chris is calling. “I need to get this.”

Her brows furrow and she seems a little put off. “Sure. We’ll chat later.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry. It’s important.” I push the button to accept the call but I glance at Ava, who is still a little too close. “Hold on one second, Chris.” A quick look around and I’m excruciatingly aware of nearby customers, the small environment, and I wonder why I thought this was a good place to do this. “Actually, I need to go somewhere I can talk freely. That is, if you have a few minutes?”

“Yes. Of course, I do.” The deep, rich tone of his voice radiates through me, and despite my anxiety over the call, I shiver with awareness. This is the power this man has over me, and the prospect of losing him if this talk goes poorly is piercing.

I glance toward the door and quickly nix the idea of focusing in the chill outside, instead making a beeline for the single-stall bathroom, where I lock the door behind me. “Okay. Can you hear me?”

“I can,” he says, “and why do you sound about as flustered as the night I called you and you’d just left the storage unit?”

“Because in a different way, I am,” I surprise myself by confessing. “Are you somewhere you can talk?”

“Yes. What’s wrong, Sara?”

“Nothing.” I’m pacing the small space. “Not really. I just don’t want there to be anything wrong, Chris. And I better warn you that I’m going to ramble. That’s what I do when I’m nervous.”

“You don’t have to be nervous with me. Not ever. Just say what’s on your mind, and sooner than later, before you’re making me insane trying to guess what’s going on.”

“I will. I am. I—well, I’ve had pink paddles and butterflies on my mind and—”

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I know and that’s the point. Or not really the point.” Here comes the rambling. “The real point is that you’d take me to pink paddle and butterfly land, but you aren’t pink paddles and butterflies. You’re leather and pain and darkness.”

“That’s how you see me, Sara?”

“That’s who you are, Chris, and I like who you are and that means I need to be those things, too.”

“Sara—”

“Please let me finish before I can’t.” My knees wobble and I lean against the wall. “I’ve let fear of failure hold me back for all kinds of reasons that are too complicated to explain at this moment, and I’m not sure I really understand fully myself, but I’m trying. I don’t want to let it hold me back now, so I’m just going to say what’s on my mind without even taking a breath here. I know I said I’m not about white picket fences, and I’m not, and never will be, but I can’t imagine being without you, either. What that means to me is that I need to go where you need me to go. And don’t tell me you don’t need anything but me. I wish that were true and it means a lot when you say it, but you have a way you deal with life, a place you go to escape. Everything from the painting, the club, the way you are in general, tells me that. I don’t want someone else to be there when you need those things. I want it to be me. I want you to trust me not to run.” I stop talking and the dead space afterward is unbearable and I can barely contain an urge to fill it with more words. “Chris, damn it, say something. I’m dying here.”

“And what if you can’t handle it?” No denial of what I’ve said.

There is a sudden, crushing pressure in my chest. This is what he is scared of, what he fears. That I can’t handle all that he is. “We both need to know if I can. I don’t want us to unravel and have to wonder if it’s because I didn’t try.”

“You can’t.”

“Okay,” I say hoarsely, and the pressure intensifies painfully. “Then I guess that’s that.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you already know I’m not what you need. I know I’m not what you need. Let’s not drag this out any longer than we have to. I’m going to pack, and—”

“No. You are not going to pack. You are not going to leave. Not after the storage unit incident.”

My insecurity sends my hand to my throat. Had he meant to break it off with me but the storage incident stopped him? “You don’t owe me a safe place to stay. I don’t need charity protection, Chris.”

“That’s not what I meant. Damn it, Sara, I don’t want you to leave.”

I hurt. He is all about pain and now I am, too. “Want, need. Right, wrong. They all just make me one big mess and I am tired of being one big mess, Chris. We, this, us—it’s all going to destroy me if we go on like this.”

“You are going to destroy me if you leave me, Sara.”

More pain. His pain this time. It radiates through his words and insinuates itself deep in my soul, like he has. And in that moment, I believe he needs me as I do him. “I don’t want to leave,” I whisper.

“Then don’t.” His voice is a soft plea, exposing the rare vulnerable side of him I find so impossible to resist. “I’ll come home tonight and we’ll figure this out together.”

“No,” I say quickly. “Don’t do that. That you want to is enough. I’ll be here when you get home. I promise. I’ll be here.”

“I can fly back there tomorrow morning.”

“No, please. Don’t. What you’re doing there is too important and I work late tonight anyway.”

“I’m coming home.” A distant voice calls his name and he adds, “I have to go. I may not be able to call you again but I’ll see you when I get there.”

“I’m not going to talk you out of this, am I?”

“Not a chance.”

We say a short good-bye forced on us by someone calling him again, and when I hear the phone go dead, I let my head fall backward to the wooden surface of the door behind me. I am far too happy that Chris is putting himself through hell to see me tonight, and he is far too willing to let it happen. What are we doing to each other? And why can’t either of us stop?

After pulling myself together, I step out of the bathroom and a prickling of awareness brings me to a halt. My gaze lifts, seeking the source. My throat tightens at the sight of Mark standing in profile to me at the counter to the right of the register, talking with Ava. I can’t see his face, but Ava does not look happy, even less so when Mark leans in closer, intimately close to her ear, to finish whatever he is saying. There is more to their relationship than I had thought and I wonder if I know any of these people at all.

Ava’s eyes lift and find mine, and I realize I’m not only staring, but have been caught. I tear my attention away and rush to my table, feeling Mark’s gaze on me, intense and heavy. I wonder if everyone else here understands that the power charging the air is him claiming the room simply by existing, or if they just feel the unidentified crackle I did upon exiting the bathroom.

I gather my things at my table, preparing to explain why I’m here instead of at the gallery. It should surprise me that Mark doesn’t approach me at my table but it doesn’t. Of course, he’s building the tension, ensuring I squirm for his enjoyment. It’s a familiar method of control to me, or rather, used on me, that fits Mark like a glove. It used to fit me as well, but not anymore. I’ve come a long way toward understanding and even seeing the positive in Mark today. Understanding doesn’t mean liking all that I see, though, and I don’t right now.

It’s not until I am almost at the door of the coffee shop that he appears at my side. Towering over me, he opens the door; his eyes dark, filled with the never-ending challenge he offers me. “I was afraid you’d gone MIA like Rebecca, Ms. McMillan.”

I blink up at him and the past few weeks have done something to my self-censorship. I seem to have none left in me. “I told Amanda where I was going. And besides, I’m not that easy to get rid of.” I push open the door and steel myself for the wind that smacks me in the face as I step outside. Mark steps to my side about the same time the double, or even triple meanings that could be taken from my words, hit me. If he’d killed Rebecca, he might think I was saying he couldn’t kill me off, too, but I don’t think that Mark killed Rebecca. He just fucked her. In all kinds of ways. I’ve potentially just undone all I established with him by issuing him an invitation to give me a try and promising I won’t run.

I stop walking and turn to face him. “I didn’t mean that the way you might have taken it.”

His dark stare lightens with amusement. “I know, Ms. McMillan. But do remember it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”

“Somehow, I find it hard to believe you’d let any woman think for herself enough to do that.”

“You might be surprised what I would let the right woman do.”

Heat rushes to my cheeks. “I don’t intend—”

He laughs, low and deep, and I’m taken off guard. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him laugh. “I’m aware you don’t intend to do many things I’d like you to.”

I open my mouth to protest even having this conversation, but he cuts me off by adding, “And no, I’m not going to pressure you.” He turns me toward the gallery. “Let’s get back to the gallery. I left you a little gift on your desk.”

Thankfully, my back is to him, so he can’t see me react to his words. Mark has succeeded in doing what only Chris has done before this. He’s sent me into an adrenaline rush of anticipation and I can barely keep my pace slow and even. I don’t know what to expect. A rare piece of art? An official job offer? The possibilities are many.

I expect Mark to follow me to my office, but again, he is unpredictable. I’m relieved, certain that the less Mark sees me react and the less he knows what makes me tick, the better. The instant I walk into my office, I freeze. Lying on top of my desk is a journal that matches the ones I’ve locked away in Chris’s safe.