Page 7 of The Man I Love

“Sam?” Margaret was startled, pushing the gentleman firmly away. “You’re up?”

Margaret waved a drunken hand in the air and staggered toward the kitchen. “This is Edward. Eddy, this is my roommate, Sam.”

Sam stared at the dark-eyed, dark-haired stranger like she’d seen a ghost. He reminded her of Tristan. He held the same unwavering confidence like Tristan. Had the same dimple in his right cheek.

Realizing she was making a fool of herself, she averted her gaze, but not before she caught him grinning at her—a sly and lopsided grin, like he’d just read every dirty thought she’d had since middle school.

He moved toward her, his brandy colored-leather boots thudding on the concrete floor. Then he un-looped the scarf from his neck. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Samantha.”

“Sorry, I...” Feeling like an ass, she wiped her fingers over her apron and tried to ignore the fact that her cheeks were hot. “The pleasure is mine,” she said, extending her hand for a shake. His movement surprised her, as he wrapped his fingers around her palm and pulled her closer. Her feet lost balance, and she stumbled forward. His eyes met hers, and his lips touched the back of her hand in a gentle kiss. “I’ve been admiring your work for months.”

Alarm bells rang throughout Samantha’s body, and she stepped backward, yanking her hand away until her bottom crashed against the butcher-block counter. “My work has only been in the window for eight weeks,” she stammered out.

“Eight weeks is two months,” he countered, making his grin widen.

A few seconds passed before he looked over his shoulder. “Do you mind?” he asked, pivoting his torso toward one of her sculptures.

She wasn’t sure what he was asking, but something in his tone caught her off guard. “Mind what?” she asked.

“Mind if I look?”

The sculpture he referred to sat in the corner of the room, covered with a clay-stained cloth that she’d abandoned weeksearlier. He moved closer to examine it, causing hairs at the back of her neck to prickle. He seemed so genuinely curious that she didn’t quite know what to say. Of course she didn’t want him to see it. The sculpture wasn’t ready, which was exactly why she’d covered it with a tarp in the first place.

A floodgate of insecurities opened inside. She shook her head, but it was too late. With one shake of the cloth, the tarp was on the ground, and her sculpture was exposed.

A violated gasp escaped her. She’d never been in the presence of someone with such nerve!

She glanced toward her roommate, wondering where in the world she’d found this guy, but his words yanked her attention back to her art.

“This is brilliant,” he whispered.

She paused, turning back in his direction. He moved around the sculpture like a cat assessing his prey––like her art pulled at some feral part of his soul.

Samantha exhaled, fighting the urge to cover the sculpture with her own body and ask him what he found so ‘brilliant’––because she couldn’t see it. She forced herself to remain quiet, to slow her racing heart, to shush the voice in her head that told her she wasn’t good enough.

“I’ve walked past The Gallery every day since the remodel,” he began again, “and every time”— his words softened as he turned to face her— “I see your sculptures in the window, and they stop me. Like some sort of gravitational pull dragging me closer.”

Her heartbeat quickened. Its rhythm, so intense, the beats were almost painful.

His words were exactly what she’d hoped for when she’d moved to the city. Her entire purpose for moving to New York. For people to stop. For them to think. To feel. In a world that was so busy with technology that they’d forgotten about the thingsthat live and breathe all around them. In a time composed of so many filters that genuine beauty had been mistaken as flaws that needed to be erased. Laugh lines, wrinkles, and the natural texture of skin.

But hearing his words—a man she’d only met two minutes earlier—forced her toward the sink. She grabbed a sponge and immediately began scrubbing the dirty instruments in the basin. Yes, she had no damned clue what she was doing, but whatever it was, it was personal.

She gathered the water pan next, scrubbing so hard her fingertips went numb. “Thank you,” she said gruffly. She was being rude, even when nothing he said was wrong or offensive. Yet his words had awakened something inside of her she didn’t quite have the words to express.

You’ve been working for eight hours straight, Samantha.Without dinner, without a break, which was exactly why she felt so lightheaded right now.

Edward seemed to take the undeniable rejection in stride and quietly retreated. “So what do we have here?” he asked Margaret as he stopped behind her at the small fridge.

Samantha breathed easier with distance. Her lungs filled with the air she needed as she turned to hang her apron on the wooden peg. She then rested her back against the counter and dried her instruments one at a time, trying to understand her reaction.

Margaret and Edward were still in the kitchen, bent over the too small fridge, when she finally figured it out. It wasn’t Edward that made her uncomfortable. It was the way he looked at her art that did. Like he could see something she couldn’t. Like he understood what she’d mentally blocked the moment she’d moved to New York.

Despite herself, curiosity made her walk toward them. “I thought you’d be closing down the bars tonight,” she said toMargaret, stopping to sit on a barstool opposite the couple at the counter.

Margaret didn’t hide her surprise. Her eyes scrunched into tiny slits, and she shrugged. “I guess I’m over it.”

She pulled two beers from the fridge, then searched the drawer for a bottle opener. “Want one?” she asked, popping off the top and sliding the beer across the counter to Samantha.

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