Page 158 of Before Now

“What is it?” she asks, watching as the video approaches the door.

I wait until right before the contractor opens it. “It’s a gallery.”

She has a tiny dip in her brow. “A ga?—”

The words stop, the rest of her stilling.

I don’t need to look to know what she sees. All I need is to stare at her while she experiences what I’m confident checks the box for better than best.

Remi swallows, her head slightly shaking as she blinks away tears. “This is … Foster?”

“I used the investigator who helped me with my parents. The private commissions were harder to track down, but most ran in the same circles. A lot commissioned more than once.” I glance long enough to see the close-up of a snow leopard, but then I’m right back to her. “Not many stopped at a single one-of-a-kind from Dimitri Sinner.”

I have the ultimate one.

She smiles and wipes her tears. “You bought all of these?”

“Every single one I could find. A few more are on their way?—”

“Foster.” She looks at me, and I look at the screen. The mantel. Stone with wrought-iron details. “Tell me those aren’t…”

“They are,” I say.

She inhales shakily, seeing the half dozen cameras the investigator recovered. “I don’t understand. Everything he owned passed to my mom because I was a minor, and she got rid of it all.”

“The investigator found records of a storage locker in your dad’s name. Your mom must not have claimed it, and they auctioned it off. I expected it to lead nowhere, but a lot of the equipment in there ended up with a collector. And it wasn’t just the cameras, baby.”

She stares at the screen, and I can barely make out the reflection in her gorgeous eyes when the video pans to the easel beside the fireplace. Her entire face crumples when she sees the photo of the little auburn-haired girl. What I know to be gorgeous green eyes are closed, her face tilted up while butterflies flutter around her. In the picture, Remi has her hands out where a butterfly landed in her open palm.

“The butterfly garden.” She swipes over her cheeks, only for a new set of tears to trail down them, but she doesn’t care. “But this was just us. He’d taken me along once for a commission, but that picture’s from when he took me back.”

I smile at her. “You have another SD card to not look at. Only this one’s personal pictures. I scanned through some Smith sent but stopped when I found that one. If you decide to look, I’ll see the others then.”

She is doing her little head shake, neither of us watching the video anymore. “I … you…”

“Tell me words, baby.”

“I don’t think I have enough,” she says. Disbelief and something else duel in her eyes until the something else wins out. “I love you.” She smiles, ending me—I said my ending was her. “I love you, Foster.”

Better the second time, and I have no doubt it will hit even harder the next.

“I love you too. Fuck, I’velovedyou, Remi.” I swallow and lick my lips before deciding fuck it. “Come to the last show. I told you I’d play your song for you at MSG, and I want you there when I do.”

She smiles even more. “You wrote me a song, Foster West?”

“I wrote you all of them,” I tell her.

She huffs a laugh and nods, and I nod along with her.

“Meet us before the show. Be with me after. I know that key has been driving you mad. It’s to my place in LA because the house in Utah currently has a fucking padlock. But I’ll be anywhere as long as you’re there with me.”

“Yes,” she says. “I’ll be there before and after.”

I smile, the rest of my life smiling back at me. “I’ll see you in two days then.”

“I’ll be seeing you in two.”

The call ends. I close my eyes.

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