Page 81 of Until You're Mine
Shane would definitely call him soft.I wonder how he’s holding up. If Liam decided to show him my text.
What if he did and it does the opposite of encourage him?I bit my thumbnail, an old habit I thought I’d kicked long ago, as worry gnawed on my insides.
And this was exactly why I wasn’t allowed to think about Shane right now.
I tipped back the rest of my champagne, and I’m sure it was less than ladylike, but at the moment, I didn’t really care.
Chris stepped closer, breaching my bubble. “Tell me about your pieces.”
I gave him a condensed version of my process, and talked about each of the faces and what they meant to me. Then I got to the piece that made it impossible to follow through with my attempt to not think about Shane. The woman who ran the exhibition told me she’d like me to add a few extra paintings to fill my wall space if I had more, and I’d just finished my most recent piece last week. The card underneath saidThe Fighterin big bold letters. In my head, I’d titled itMasochism in Paint. It’d been my coping mechanism, my way to get all my emotions onto a canvas, where I hoped I’d be able to better deal with them. I’m sure a licensed therapist would call it repression and failing to move on. At one point, I thought maybe I’d burn it, like they did in TV shows and movies as a cleansing ceremony for exes. Before I’d even finished, I knew I’d never be able to bring myself to do it, though.
“Are they based on real people?” Chris gestured with his champagne flute, making a wide arc that encompassed all my works.
“Some are, some aren’t,” I said. “For the most part, I focus more on moods than certain people.”
“And this one?”
I couldn’t tell if he’d indicated the one I’d painted of Shane as a way to ask if I was single, or if he connected to it on some level that clearly wasn’t based in reality.
Now I’m being judgmental, and he’s been nothing but nice.
He put his hand on the small of my back. So maybe he had ulterior motives for the nice.
“Yes. It’s based on someone I know.”Someone who’d glower at you until you removed your hand.Or he would’ve back when we…
I took a step forward, waving my arms as I talked more about my method. It didn’t help with the ache that’d claimed my heart, but it was effective at keeping Chris from touching me again.
The guy did a double take at the door, and the way his eyes widened made me follow suit. I blinked, thinking I must be seeing things.
“Dad?”
He glanced around as he closed the distance between us, clearly feeling out of place. “I, uh…I came to see your pictures.”
So not pictures, but the fact that he’d shown up made a lump form in my throat, and I had to blink my eyes to keep from crying. Chris had backed away, instinctively giving my dad a wide berth. I looped my arm through Dad’s elbow and led him to my display wall.
“This is different than what you used to do,” he said.
“Yeah. As I went through art school, I got braver and started messing with different mediums and effects. This is the one that I do the best, and it fits what I want to convey with my art.”
“Which is…?”
Once again I thought of Shane saying it was where I threw my punches, and the dam holding back my tears shivered with the pressure. I shrugged. “I want them to make peoplefeel.It’ll be different for everyone depending on who they are, and what they’ve experienced, but I hope my paintings evoke some kind of strong, visceral emotion.”
Dad nodded, his forehead creasing and smoothing, and it was okay if he didn’t understand, because he was here. There was a huge fight going on in another city, and he’d shown up. Earlier today, I would’ve bet thousands of dollars he’d never come to a single showing.
“Pride,” he said, and then he smiled down at me. “I feel pride.”
The dam broke, and I hugged him, hoping he didn’t mind a few teardrops on his shirt.
“That one…” He jerked his chin at the one of Shane. “I’m assuming it’s—”
“Yeah,” I said, afraid hearing his name would hurt. But the can of worms had already been opened. Might as well let them wiggle free. “Any idea how he was before the fight?”
“Pissed off and mouthy.”
Of all the things Dad could’ve said, those were certainly unexpected. Worrisome, too. “Did he try to fight Conrad in the hallway or something? Did he get in trouble? Is he okay?”
Dad held up a hand, likewhoa, and I pressed my lips closed so the questions would stop bubbling out. “At me. He was pissed off at me for showing up in the locker room. Told me he didn’t need me there, and added that if I didn’t want to lose you, I needed to get to your art show.”
