Page 63 of Dirty Shots

Chapter Nineteen

Eric

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Eric couldn’t be bothered todrive, so he took a cab downtown. He fought against his nerves as he watched the city go by from the back seat. He would talk to Anya’s father, Trent Bergman, man to man. He was Eric Rutherford, a successful artist in his own right, and even if he’d grown to fear art critics to a certain degree, he refused to let himself be afraid of this particular one.

The ringing of his cell from his pocket startled him from his thoughts. Though he’d just left her, his thoughts immediately jumped to Anya, but when he checked his caller display, the name ‘Logan Blanc’ glared out at him.

His heart sank. Logan. What the hell was he going to tell him? That the exhibition might be off? No, Anya hadn’t said anything about canceling, and he didn’t intend on putting words in her mouth. For the moment, he would simply have to stall and hope that his conversation with her father ended better than the last one had.

He pressed the green button to answer. “Logan, hey.”

“Hey, man. I hadn’t heard anything from you, so figured I’d better touch base. Everything okay on your end?”

He hesitated. Part of him wanted to have someone to offload onto, but he forced himself to keep Anya’s life private. “Yeah, everything’s fine here. How are the arrangements for the exhibition?”

“All good. I’ve sent out the private invitations already. I sent you one. Did you get it?”

Eric confirmed he had.

“So ninety percent of the invitations I sent out have already confirmed, and I suspect the few I haven’t heard from will be confirming in the next few days. And the phone has been ringing off the hook with people I haven’t invited hearing about the great Eric Rutherford smashing back onto the scene with an edgy project in a brand new direction,”

Eric interrupted. “Those sound like words you’ve put into their heads.”

Logan laughed. “Yeah, I might have been dropping a few press releases around mentioning those things.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Logan was known for his ability to get people talking as much as he was for selling art. The idea of the exhibition popping up in the local papers made his heart sink, though. While he knew the papers wouldn’t have any of his photographs, he could just imagine Anya’s father reading about it and blowing a fuse.

“Hey, I know my business,” Logan continued. “So when do you think you’ll have the pieces ready? I’d like them in the studio the night before the exhibition.”

Eric sighed. He was cutting things fine, but then he’d known that when he agreed to Logan’s date. He’d have to spend much of the next week working, even though he’d been trying to wean himself away from his work. “I’ll get it done, Logan. You know I will.”

“Yeah, just don’t go falling down the rabbit hole again.”

“I won’t.” Logan had been there to witness firsthand the mess Eric had been in the last time he’d allowed the obsessive dark thoughts to take over. He couldn’t explain it, how the fog descended on him, blocking off the outside world. He always felt that when he was speaking with Logan, the other man was cautious and careful, trying to assess him for any signs that Eric might be losing it again.

Logan paused, but he could sense he wanted to say something else. “So ... how’s that lovely model of yours?”

“Anya?”

“Yeah, of course, Anya.”

“She’s great.”

“No problems with the concerns she’d had then?”

Eric didn’t want to let Logan in on Anya’s problems with her father. He’d let Logan know only when a time came when he had no other choice than to tell him.

“Anya’s fine.”

“Did she speak to her parents?”

Eric hesitated, not wanting to lie directly to Logan, while unable to tell him the full truth. “She told her mom, and Saara Bergman was surprisingly okay about the whole thing.”

“That’s great. And if you ever want to set up that photo shoot we discussed, you know where I am.”

“Thanks, Logan. I appreciate that. The idea has played on my mind. It would be an amazing shoot. But I would need to discuss it properly with Anya first. It’s something she would need to be fully into.”

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