Page 38 of Angel Eyes

I frowned. “I thought James wanted me doing weekend tours to pay for the bike repairs.”

“Oh, you’ve more than covered that with all the extra shifts you’ve been picking up. Besides, we know you have your art opening coming up. We’re not total savages.”

“Could have fooled me.” I grinned as she landed a smack on my shoulder.

“Out, Beaumont.” She paused, folding a grin between her teeth. “Unless you’d rather stay and share the details of your private affairs.”

She snorted in amusement as I collected my phone and wallet in record time, snatching up the bag with the last slice of bread and making a beeline for the exit.

Outside, I squinted in the morning light, contemplating what to do with the rest of the day. Heading down the street in no particular direction, I fired off a quick text to Juliet. My fingers hovered above the keyboard as I pushed down the urge to ask her what she was up to. After last night, I wasn’t sure where things stood between us. The best thing to do would be to keep things simple and uncomplicated. Just because I couldn’t get her out of my head didn’t mean I should find a reason to see her now that my schedule was clear.

My phone pulsed with a new message, her name lighting up the screen.

Good morning to you too. Hope you’re having a great day!

I drew up short, nearly swallowing my tongue when she followed her response with a photo of her sitting on her sofa in a loose-fitting T-shirt and pajama shorts, her hair spilling over one bare shoulder as she smiled at the camera above the lip of a coffee mug.

My throat thickened.

It was no good—I needed a distraction. Luckily for me, I had the perfect one.

The gold lettering shimmered above the doors of the white brick building, reflecting shards of sunlight onto the concrete sidewalk. Domus Dei. I had chosen the name myself when I rented the building several months ago. House of God. It seemed like an appropriate name for an art gallery. After all, this was my sanctuary, my personal refuge. The place where I came to paint, to create, and to draw inspiration from the greatest creator of all.

Turning the key in the lock, I stepped inside, pausing to take in the stillness as the glass door slid shut behind me, sealing out the hum of the street. Warm light filled the space, slanting in through the skylight windows and sliding across white walls and pale wood floors. My shoulders relaxed at the smell of sun and air, of paint and fresh canvas.

Punching in the code to the security system, I crossed the main gallery to a door leading to a smaller space I’d converted into a studio. This room was less polished with its battered floors, vintage lighting, and exposed brick. But what it lacked in style, it made up for in comfort.

Against one wall was a weathered oak desk, cluttered with an assortment of sketches alongside my laptop, a brass work lamp, and a couple of framed photos. Opposite that was an overstuffed leather couch that I’d spent one too many nights on. The rest of the room was taken up with crates of supplies—bottles of acrylic paint, brushes, graphite pencils, drop cloths, palettes, canvases—along with several easels, propping up paintings in various stages of completion.

I loitered in the doorway, surveying the space.

Perhaps it wasn’t much, but it was mine.

Dropping my keys on the desk, my eyes fell across the pictures in their frames. The one closest to the lamp was a candid of James, Nora, and me at a film festival last year. My face was twisted into a smile as James ruffled my hair while Nora looked on, a laugh splashed across her features.

I shook my head, grinning at the memory.

Slowly, my gaze shifted to the only other photo I cared to keep around. A woman sitting in a bay window, her dark tresses framing a heart-shaped face and falling over the sleeves of her sundress. She was gazing up at the camera, her blue eyes sparkling with amusement.

My mother.

When I first rented the building, I debated whether to keep her photo here, thinking it might be a distraction. But her presence was a welcome comfort, keeping me company for hours on end and whispering bits of encouragement only my soul could hear.

I collected a few items and settled onto a stool in front of my latest work-in-progress. The photo aside, I rarely sat down to paint without thinking of my mother. My passion for creativity, my devotion to art—it had been her gift, one that she passed down to me.

Growing up, it had been common knowledge in our house that my mother had given up her dream of becoming an artist to follow my father to the southern coast where he planned to open a restaurant. I never asked whether she regretted her decision, but it was clear she never lost her love for painting. It became a thing that was special to us both, bonding us together.

I could still remember those afternoons we spent on the terrace of our two-story terra-cotta house, sitting in front of a blank canvas and ruminating over the perfect shade of blue for a slash of sky or the right red for a sunset. I didn’t know it at the time, but those moments would stay with me long after she was gone.

My mother died the summer I turned seventeen. The doctors said it was pneumonia combined with iron-deficiency anemia that took her, but the cause made little difference to me. The only thing I knew was, from that day forward, my world was forever changed.

In the months that followed, I considered giving up painting, the empty terrace a painful reminder of all I had lost in her. But, for reasons I couldn’t explain, I kept showing up every afternoon whether or not I painted anything. Planting myself in her chair, I would envision an idea coming to life in a burst of color, holding on to my mother’s love for creativity until, one day, the images in my mind found their way onto the canvas again.

Everything I had done since then, from those early efforts to the half-finished painting sitting in front of me now, was in honor of her memory and represented all she’d hoped for my future. And even though she wasn’t here to see my work or the gallery, I had to believe, somehow, she knew her dream for me was coming true.

I yawned, twisting the cap off a tube of Quinacridone Magenta and squeezing a healthy measure onto a palette, mixing it with Ultramarine Blue. Most people don’t know this, but the key to creating a vibrant shade of purple is to use magenta, not red. In a pinch, you could use Alizarin Crimson, but the red hue would dull the purple, creating a subdued color.

I had explained this to my father once, sitting in a booth at our family-owned restaurant while he hovered at the maître d’ stand, writing out the evening’s dinner menus. At the time, I was in my first semester at the local college and was taking a course on color theory. I loved that class. Was I aware the average person didn’t find the visual effects of specific color combinations nearly as interesting as I did? Yes. Did I attempt to bring it up in every conversation anyway? Also, yes.

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