Art of love, p.17
Art of Love, page 17
“A statement.”
“Yes, the I-don’t-give-a-shit-goddess statement,” he chuckled and brought his hands together.
“You think I’m a goddess?” I giggled.
“On occasion. You look like you’re missing a baseball cap turned backwards. So, the reason why you’re late is because?”
“John... I’m sorry. You...” I laughed, and it felt good. “You’ve been like a father to me, and I hope you aren’t offended by me saying that because you aren’t old enough to have had me.”
“Not really. How about a wise older brother?” he offered.
“Yes, I like that. It’s just that you did fatherly things for me. Thank you. I’m truly grateful.”
“But?”
“I didn’t do the portfolio. I painted, but I didn’t do anything for this. I painted a host of mythical gods and legends. If it helps, when I painted Zeus, I thought of you.”
He laughed. “Can I ask why you did that?”
“Sure. I want Hunter to be proud of the job when he gets it. I knew that we both could have competed until the end, and I know I had a chance of sorts, maybe... but I thought his talent was more in line with what you’re looking for. For Impasso. He fits, John. He’s like you. He reminds me of you. I’ll come visit when you guys go to Europe.”
I thought I could afford a ticket and a hotel for a week.
John chuckled. “Well, my dear Jia. It would appear that your Hunter felt the same way about you. He came by earlier and bowed out of the competition.”
I was too shocked to breathe. All I could do was stare at him.
“What?” I gasped.
“He thought you deserved the job more than him. I agree you would have had a chance, but you both did. I assure you, you both did. But the job’s yours if you want it.”
“John, I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do. It’s the art of love. Sacrifice. To love is to sacrifice if you have to for the person you love. It’s true love, Jia. Looks like you both had the same idea.”
My lips parted.
“Oh my God.”
John smiled wide. “He left this for you.”
He moved to the little table and picked up a package. It looked like a painting was in it because of the shape and size.
I took it and opened it.
When I saw what it was, I sucked in a sharp breath.
It was a picture of the English country side.
There was a cottage with a lake running around and a silhouette of a man with shoulder-length hair. A woman and a child played in the field near a bunch of willow trees.
God in heaven...
This was the cottage in England he’d teased me about when I’d panicked about being pregnant.
I smiled ear to ear like an idiot and started laughing.
“Good picture?” John asked.
“The best.” I showed it to him. “Thank you for everything, John.”
“You’re most welcome, Jia. You’re not accepting, are you?”
I shook my head. It didn’t feel right. I appreciated Hunter’s sacrifice, but I’d always feel like I took something that should have been his.
“Okay. I’m leaving the position open until we set off to Europe. So, you guys have until mid-January to decide which of you will take the position.”
That was nice of him.
I gave him a hug and smiled up at him. “Thank you.”
“Don’t be a stranger. Not like last time.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” I promised, and as I left, I marveled at the way I felt.
This was so different to the day I’d thought I was going to have. It also felt like a new beginning was on the horizon.
***
I found Hunter in the basement, painting.
I must have taken two steps inside before I realized that every single painting in here was of me.
I held the one he gave me to my chest and looked around me in complete awe.
There were a about ten pictures, all of me in different poses. My gaze travelled across to where Hunter was standing. He hadn’t seen me yet, but I was sure he would have heard me. The painting he was working on was of me with wings on my back like an angel. I was naked like the goddess Venus. Unlike her, my picture showed off my breasts, and there was a shell over my privates.
I cleared my throat, and the sexy devil turned to face me. He had pink and green paint staining the ends of his hair and the paintbrush in his mouth. The black tank top he wore clung to his muscles, making him look all the more alluring.
He set the brush down and offered me a tentative smile.
“Congratulations.” He beamed, holding his palms out.
“Wanker,” I snapped.
“Why, love, why am I a wanker?”
“Clearly, you’re taking the piss out of me because you bloody well know what I’m talking about.”
He laughed at my poor attempt to use his British slang.
“It suits you. Woman of my own heart.”
“Hunter Kane, what did you do? You crazy English man. What did you do?”
“I fell in love. I love you, Jia.”
That was the very best thing I could have heard in my life.
“I love you too,” I told him. “And I love my painting.”
“Yeah?”
“Is this where we’re going to live?”
“Mmmm hmmm.” He nodded.
I giggled. “Can we have a dog?”
“We may need two with so much land. We could get a Labrador. They’re good with kids.”
I moved closer to him, set the painting down on his little table, and moved into his arms.
We kissed briefly, and he brushed his nose against mine.
“Thank you for what you did for me. I will never forget it.” I thought he should know.
“Loving you is all I need. I want you happy. I wanted you to remember something good happening to you. So, I’m glad you took the job.”
The backs of my eyes stung.
“I didn’t.”
“What?” He frowned.
“I didn’t take it.”
“What about all your hard work? Your portfolio.”
“I never planned to take it, Hunter. I just made you think that. The last two weeks, I’ve been painting pictures of Greek gods.”
“And I’ve been cooped up in here painting pictures of you.” He laughed.
“I thought we agreed not to sabotage anything.”
“I never agreed not to sabotage myself.”
“The job should be yours,” I cooed.
“The job should be yours.” He copied me and smiled playfully.
“This isn’t the part where we need to work as a team. I’m mad at you.”
He narrowed his eyes, then widened them like he just got an idea.
“Okay, that’s fine. I have an idea. First, you can take out all your frustration on me with lots of angry sex. Please don’t hold back. Then we can talk about team work.”
I was stuck on the sex part, but I was sure my brain would work when the time came to think.
Until then, I’d enjoy getting lost in him.
Epilogue
Jia
***
Three years and one month later....
We didn’t care that it was cold outside.
I loved it. I loved the change in the seasons and watching the landscape change in the English countryside.
Most of all I loved the scene before me and it would make a pretty picture.
It was of Hunter chasing Ariel through the garden and around the fish pond.
My husband, and our two year old who already had a love for Disney princesses. It was our fault for calling her Ariel as in Princess Ariel, in The Little Mermaid. And, sure to sure our baby loved the Princess Ariel dress.
She wore it now for their game.
I’d stopped to catch my breath. These days I couldn’t run that fast. I was only two months pregnant with our second child but the tiredness seemed to have taken its toll on me a lot quicker this time around than with Ariel.
Hunter scooped her up and brought her over to me. She was giggling and started playing with his hair.
He put his arm around me the minute he got to me and pulled me close to the hard walls of his chest.
“You need to rest before later, love. No more dungeons and dragons.” He laughed planting a kiss on my lips.
“Daddy I want dragons.” Ariel giggled in her cute way.
“We’ll come back out later princess.” He brushed his nose over hers.
“Hunter, you are going to spoil her. We have a show tonight.”
Every time I said anything to do with our gallery it gave me this buzz of excitement. Like him and our sweet baby girl, it was the thing I couldn’t believe I had in my life.
Our own gallery where we worked together to create magic.
That was Hunter’s grand idea. The idea he had that memorable day when we each took ourselves out of the competition for the job at Impasso.
All that talk about dreams of wanting our own gallery to showcase our work. We had it. We did it together. Together we accomplished a dream we both wanted and it was the best job ever.
More importantly, we had each other and that was a dream by itself.
God. It didn’t feel real. None of it did.
Not the husband holding me, the beautiful baby in his arms, and the one inside me.
Not us walking toward our cottage in Warwickshire, in the English countryside.
It was just like his painting. All those years ago.
As we stepped inside the house it greeted us. It was the first thing I saw, along with the wedding present Hunter painted me. Hercules and the goddess Athena standing on the moon with the planet Jupiter off in the distance and blue butterflies surrounding them.
That was supposed to be us. Knowing my love for anything mythical and fantasy he did that for me and like everything I treasured it.
His parents would be here soon to pick up Ariel and we’d go off to our gallery where we’d open the first show of the new year.
John was going to be attending. Although we both saw him regularly, it was the first time since we’d set up that we managed to have him grace us with his presence. Simply because Impasso started their European tour in January too.
We opened officially two years and a half years ago, and God were we ever doing well. We travelled backward and forwards from England and LA mainly for Lana, but when it was clear she didn’t need me anymore we stationed our base here. She knew she had a home here and we bought her an apartment in LA she was happy with.
It ended well. This was the vision I never imagined but my heart hoped for.
It was everything and it all began with a chance meeting with Hunter and I in a bar, and the mother of all coincidences that threw us together.
The thing was I didn’t think there were any coincidences in that now.
I felt my angels were watching over me.
Mom, Todd, Grams, and definitely John, the living angel we had on earth.
We called our gallery The Art of Love.
It seemed fitting because as long as we had art we had love, and as long as we had each other, we had everything.
I couldn’t ask for more than that.
It was everything and I didn’t think I could have been more happier.
Finally I was happy and I spent my days in a bliss of love with the man of my dreams and the dreams that kept on coming.
***
Hunter
***
Another successful opening. It was amazing to see a dream come to life, but God, the dream that I valued most of all was Jia.
The woman of my heart, the woman of my dreams.
Three years had gone by since that year we got together and there wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t make me feel her love for me.
Jia, my beautiful wife, our precious baby girl and another one on the way.
I couldn’t believe it was me. I never expected to have such happiness and all that we were kept increasing in goodness.
Lucky me.
We were happy in England. We still saw and spoke to our family and friends who lived in the States and missed them terribly, but we were happy here.
The gallery had taken off in a way I never imagined. When I had that idea of us combining our talents I didn’t think it would explode into something truly phenomenal.
Jesus Christ. I never thought that.
We run the gallery through the year featuring our own exhibits that we rotated with the change of the season. It was our own thing that we combined music and art and often times we had guest artists. It was a really good set up and the ideas kept popping out of my head.
Tonight was a huge success with a big turnout for our exhibition we called Whispers in Ice. We teamed up on this one because it was the start of the year and the start of a new season for us. The place looked like a winter palace, like something from Narnia. I made a series of paintings inspired by ice and Jia made some ice sculptures of mythical beings she created. Mostly ice mermaids, and fairies.
I was just saying goodbye to Mr. Pederson, one of our regular visitors when I turned and stopped in my tracks.
John was talking to Jia in the next room and I wanted to join them, but who stood before me stopped me right there.
Collin.
God. I hadn’t thought about him in years and I hadn’t heard from him either.
It was amazing, as we stood here face to face and I tried to conjure up that image of him and Emma, it didn’t come to me.
The memory was so distant it faded and all there was, was a blur of a pain.
Like a very old wound where you remembered the pain you experienced from the wound, but the action itself was the afterthought.
That was Collin for me and he was the last person I expected to see in England of all the places.
I heard on the grapevine that he and Emma never actually took off. She jumped to the next rich guy. A filthy rich older guy from Texas who proposed to her and they got married. One of those oil tycoons. I believe she was still married to him. I actually didn’t care. My friends filled in the blanks over the years, and she was more of a joke to us than anything else.
“Hi. I thought I’d try one last time to see you,” he began. His eyes never left mine.
The shock of seeing him paralyzed me. I didn’t know what to say to him. It was strange to think that a friend that had been a part of my life for such a long time had missed out on the most important parts of my life.
The night I proposed to Jia in front of all of our friends and family on her birthday, I took her to Hawaii and arranged for everyone to come. Even John came.
Then there was our wedding which was fitting to a royal wedding. I made sure my girl felt like the goddess she was on that day.
The announcement of our pregnancy with Ariel. I say our pregnancy, because I swear to God I felt like it was me who was pregnant too, and God in heaven when Ariel was born I didn’t think I could express to anyone how I felt holding her. Holding her and looking at Jia, the mother of my child. And, here I was again ready to be a father for the second time and living the dream I never expected with my wife.
Colin had missed it all. That day years ago when I shut him out I really did close the door.
“I can see from your silence that I probably shouldn’t have come, but can’t blame a guy for trying to make amends with his friend.” A solemn look filled his face. And he nodded. “Congratulations on your achievements Hunter, you did good. I won’t bother you again. But I just had to tell you from me, that you did good.”
He turned to go.
“Wait.” I still didn’t know what to say to him, and the facts of what he did were still there. He couldn’t change it and I couldn’t change it. But... maybe what mattered was his years of trying.
He was like a brother to me at one point and I had to admit that losing his friendship was like a hole in my heart. That should tell me something.
He stood there looking at me, hope in his eyes.
When Jia and I met we both had people who’d done wrong to us. Our circumstances were different but she forgave Sam and they were still best friends. The same with Stephan, who I still thought was an asshole who was after my wife. She forgave him too.
She always said while she could forgive, the forgetting part was the hardest. But, it got more manageable with time. It all depended on whether or not you wanted that person in your life.
“Thanks for coming. All this way.” The words fell from my lips.
“It was nothing.”
“How long you here for?” It was getting easier to talk, the constriction in my lungs was loosening.
“End of the week.” He nodded.
“Maybe... maybe we could get a drink together before you go.”
He looked at me like he couldn’t believe those words came from me. I couldn’t believe it either but it felt good.
“I would really like that.”
“Cool.” I offered up a smile and he almost looked like he was going to cry. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Thanks Hunter. Thank you.”
He gave me a curt nod and left.
At that moment Jia came up to me and placed her arm around me. “Who was that sweetie?”
I lowered and kissed the top of her nose.
“Collin.”
Her beautiful eyes widened. “Collin, as in Collin?”
“The same.”
“God, and you were speaking to him. Are you okay?”
“I am. I arranged to meet him some time tomorrow for a drink.”
She looked even more surprised to hear that. “Wow. That’s good, are you sure you’re okay though doing that? I remember he really hurt you.”
“Yes, but it kind of doesn’t matter anymore. Hey, in a way I should thank him. I wouldn’t have met you that first night.”
She giggled that sweet giggle I loved and slid her arms up my chest and around my neck. “We would have met the next day for the interview, but it would have played out differently.”
“Yes, I’d still pursue you but that bond from the night before was priceless.”
“I agree, Brad.” She teased. I decided long ago, she’d come with the Brad Pitt obsession so I wouldn’t change it.
