Page 133 of Smooth Sailing

“Got it made,” he stated.

She bent over the painting with her cotton swab.

“Not really. Though Annie pays well, since she takes private commissions from people who can afford it, the holy grail of conservation work is getting a position at a museum. I keep my eye on PHAM’s career page, but alas, nothing has come up.”

“PHAM?”

“Phoenix Art Museum. Outside of going somewhere like The Met, or one of the Smithsonians, which would be a dream, locally, that would be where I’d want to be,” she stated. “Don’t get me wrong, this is good work and I love it. But the diversity of work I’d have access to, the things I could learn, and the collegiality is missing here.” She shot him another smile. “Not that Annie isn’t collegial. Just that she’s, well…Annie.”

That woman was definitely…Annie.

“You’d take a hit to your salary if you went to a museum?” he asked.

She was rolling the other end of the swab in her mouth.

She took it out and went back to the painting, saying, “Yeah. So it honestly might not be in the cards. Things are steady for me, but if I took a pay cut, they’d get tight.”

Not if she halved her expenses by having a man.

He turned to the window again, thinking the Denver Art Museum was supposed to be awesome. He’d never been, but he knew where it was, and it was his favorite building in the city. It looked like a gray spaceship. It was the total shit.

“If I’m not doin’ a job like this, I work as a sales associate at Ride Auto Supply Store, the Club’s business,” he told the window. “And I got a two-bedroom crackerbox house I furnished all at once from a charity shop.”

When Diana had no reply, he turned to her to find her looking at him.

“Sunday,” she said.

Okay.

Yeah.

But she had to know what she was working with on Sunday.

“Babe, the brothers share profits equal across the board, and we got a slew of auto supply stores, and the builds from the garage bring in a shit ton. I’m not hurtin’. But I don’t live like you do.”

“So, if you wanted to live like I do, you could, because you have the money to do it. You just aren’t really bothered, so you don’t.”

“Honestly?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” she answered.

“I never had good like you got, so I didn’t really think about it, even though a lot of the brothers, especially the ones with old ladies, got it pimp.”

“Do you like it pimp?” she asked quietly.

Her pad?

The scent of her hair and her perfume on her soft sheets?

A home-cooked meal every night?

Fuck yeah.

“Definitely gonna look at some rolls of wallpaper when I get home,” he joked.

She gave him another smile and went back to the painting, asking, “What did you want to be when you grew up?”

Hugger returned his attention to the window.

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