The Art of My Life Read Online Free Page B

asleep.
    One corner of his mouth turned up. His
eyes looked uncertain. “Happy birthday.” It almost sounded like a
question.
    “ Thanks.”
    “ I’m sorry I didn’t have
the guts to say it the last two years.” He tapped the framed
pictures propped against his thigh. “I brought you
something.”
    She should invite him in. Handing her
art on the doorstep was ridiculous. But if he came in, he’d see the
ink drawings he’d cast off years ago—the ones she’d expensively
framed as the focal point of her living room. He’d think she was
still in love with him after two years of almost no
contact.
    Cal shifted his weight from one foot
to the other. “If you have company, I can come back another
time.
    She cleared her throat. “I don’t have
company.”
    The silence crept past
awkward.
    “ If you’d rather I didn’t
come in—”
    “ No, it’s okay.” She
inched away from the door.
    Cal lined three framed charcoal
drawings against the couch, his back to her private Cal Koomer
gallery. His gaze riveted to hers. “Thanks for the loan. The Escape will be in dry dock for a month. I’m doing all the
work I can myself. You gave me a shot at a future.”
    Did Cal remember her vow to own her
own business by twenty-five? Did he realize she’d handed him her
dream? Enjoy it for me, Cal. Succeed. “It was a sound
business decision.” Not personal.
    Hurt slashed through his eyes and
disappeared in a blink. “I’m still grateful, Al.”
    She folded her arms across her waist
and sunk to the edge of the coffee table. She pulled her gaze away
from his and found the gifts he’d brought.
    Cal’s genius lay in his ability to
knead a viewer’s emotions into a visceral response. His art
expressed things deeper than he was able to communicate in words.
She had learned to read his work almost from the start of their
friendship. Gratitude for the rusty skill wafted through
her.
    Two faces looking away from each other
filled the first drawing. Though no one else might, she recognized
herself. Hurt etched the planes of her face and seared from her
eyes. She glanced at the bottom right corner for the date Cal
always included with his signature. The drawing had been done on
her twenty-first birthday, less than a month after she’d offered
herself to Cal and been turned down. After she’d confessed her
love. After she’d witnessed his hand planted on the polka dots of
Evie’s bikini from where she stood on the side of the beach
road.
    Her eyes slid to the dark-jawed male
face—the tilt of the thick brows, the kinks in the hair, and halted
at the eyes swimming with bone-scraping regret.
    So, Cal got how her heart crumpled
beyond repair in the sawgrass that day. The charcoal begged her
absolution.
    She glanced over her
shoulder.
    Cal stood with his back to her,
staring at the wall she didn’t want him to see. Below the drawings
and to the right, like a signature, she’d framed her favorite photo
of Cal. Head thrown back, mouth open, he laughed. She could hear
the sound in her head every time she looked at the
photo.
    How did Cal feel seeing himself
enshrined on her wall? Did he pity her? Feel responsible for her?
Did he want to erase her love?
    Until this moment she’d believed she’d
jettisoned her feelings for Cal a little at a time until none were
left. She’d made progress. Surely she had.
    She turned to the second picture,
dated on her twenty-second birthday. She and Cal stood angled away
from each other with the sharp needles of a Christmas tree jabbing
between them. Her eyes were downcast, and Cal peered over his
shoulder at her longingly. He missed her friendship. But she
couldn’t go back there again.
    The last charcoal, dated today—her
twenty-third birthday—depicted figures facing each other across her
desk at the bank. She recognized Jackson’s forearm and hand, the
crown of Starr’s head. This time she and Cal looked each other in
the eye. Uncertainty clouded her expression; embarrassment, Cal’s.
But