Page 59 of Code Name: Michelangelo

“You do have a fabulous kitchen.”

I shifted so I could see his face. “Are you antsy? Is that why you suggested we go out?”

Brand shook his head. “I thought you might be. I’m perfectly content.”

“I don’t spend very much time here. Mostly, when I’m not here, it’s because I’m at the gallery. When we’re closed and I’m here alone more than a couple of days, I get…”

“Lonely?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t call it that. It was more that I knew there was a hole in my life I had no idea how to fill. A big empty hole.”

“And now?” There was a glimmer of mischief in his eyes.

“Yes, Brand, you have filled my hole. More than one, in fact.”

He chuckled and tightened his arm around me. “As pathetic as it sounds, there’s never been a time in my life when I felt happy.”

“I get it, and it’s not pathetic at all. I’ve had fun, experiences I enjoyed, especially time spent with the tribe. But happy? I’m not sure I believed in it.”

“But now, you do?”

I shifted to kiss his cheek. “I don’t just believe; I actually know how it feels.”

The day Brand left for the UK and I returned to the gallery, I was unsettled. More, it was a feeling of dread.

“Are you okay?” Tara asked when she came downstairs from her studio. “You’re moping.”

“Brand left today.”

She sat in the chair in front of my desk. “You don’t say. At least not twenty or thirty times.”

“I haven’t been that bad, have I?”

“Not at all. It’s nice to see you like this.”

“Moping?”

“Missing someone.”

“I don’t like it. My emotional stability should not be tied to another person.”

“I feel as though there’s this much”—she spread her arms as wide as she could—“between missing someone and emotional stability dependency, Pen. Maybe shoot for something in the middle? Better yet, just stick with the missing-him part.”

“I’m not that person, Tara.”

“I agree you haven’t been in the past. I’ve also never seen you in love before.”

“I need to take a walk. Would you mind holding down the fort for a little while?”

“Not at all. The gallery does have my fake name on the front door.”

I rolled my eyes, but inside, every time I thought back to the weeks and months when none of us knew where Tara was, my heart hurt. We’d eventually learned she was living in Italy under the alias Catarina Benedetto. That was right before Brand went to prison and the two, along with their father, were almost killed.

Those were really dark days, and that I felt the same sense that something terrible was about to happen reminded me of that period of time.

I thought about walking home and sitting in the garden, but that would only make me miss Brand more. Instead, I went in the opposite direction, toward my favorite park.

I sat on a bench and noticed a woman on the one next to mine. She intrigued me. It was almost as if a voice inside me was saying I should speak to her. Odd, since it wasn’t something I ever did. I glanced over when I noticed her pull out a small sketchbook.

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