Page 86 of Sawyer
Was he the only one not enjoying this? He picked up the phone and called Beverly, glaring at Brooke as he pressed it to his ear. “Beverly, I’m so sorry about that. The call kept dropping. Maybe it’s all the holiday calls on the Paris network. Well, it’s probably a sign that I should let you get back to your own festivities. Thank you for clearing things up. Have a great New Year.”
“You too, Sawyer,” she responded with her usual grace. “I’ll check in with you after the holidays, but I’m thrilled tohear the paintings are coming along. I can’t wait to see them. It sounds like you’ll be finished soon. Bye for now.”
Soon? His mind went blank. How was he supposed to paint now?
“Good job.” Brooke gave him another one of those manly fist punches to his arm. “How did she leave things?”
He told them, putting his face in his hands. “I don’t know how I’m going to paint. I feel awful. Conflicted. Guilty.”
“Sawyer, you have nothing to feel guilty about,” Brooke reasoned.
He thumped his chest. “I thought we all had what we wanted. Me and Phoebe. It was like we were a secret team—in love and in work. Now it’s all gone to shit.”
“She’ll get the misunderstanding when you explain it, Sawyer,” Kyle told him. “She won’t like it maybe, but Phoebe wants the best for you. Beverly chose the best gallery. It’s not hers this time.”
“Sucks that it is her mother’s, though,” Brooke said gruffly. “I don’t imagine that will help their relationship, but that’s not your concern.”
“Of course it is!” He could hear the emotion in his voice and couldn’t seem to stop it from erupting. “I love her, and this hurt her. So badly she doesn’t want to talk to me. Maybe I can do a show at her gallery on the side.”
“No, you cannot,” Axel interrupted, crossing until he sat down beside him. “Your agent is your guide. She knows what she is doing with your career. You cannot go behind her back and have a side show. This is where Brooke is correct. It’s career suicide.”
That word had his stomach dropping to the floor.
“You might as well cancel your representation with her as well as any other reputable agent,” Axel continued in his deep voice. “You’ll be dubbed an unprofessional, and worse, a lovesick prima donna. How will you explain why you suddenly don’t want to do the Anderson Gallery when you'dseemed so delighted about it earlier? You’ll have to explain, and then you’ll look like you’re trying to do a favor for your girlfriend, which also makes her look bad, I might add, and that she can’t be a success on her own. Your career will be over before it has begun, and hers will be harmed.”
Not being able to find solutions was worse than frustrating. How could this be it? He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “So these are my choices? If I help Phoebe, then I lose Beverly? But if I go along with Beverly, I lose Phoebe?”
“You’re going to clear things up with her,” Brooke told him in her no-nonsense voice.
“What if I can’t? Or what if she does understand, but she’s still hurt by all this? I’m going to feel awful. Being the cause of any hurt for Phoebe destroys me. On the inside. I won’t be able to create anything.”
Kyle stood and came over until he was standing before their group. He shoved his hands in his pants pockets. “Sawyer, I love you like a brother, but this is when you have to make the leap and paint for you. All the way. Forget everything else. Life is never going to be perfect.”
“I agree.” Axel pointed to the fireplace. “Every true artist must fan the flames of their creative fire, whatever comes. Also, making someone your sole reason for painting is like making someone your sole reason for living. It’s an impossible loop. Way too much pressure to put on yourself as an artist, and much too much pressure to put on another person. Especially when you have a relationship with them.”
He wanted to pull out his hair. All of his earlier epiphanies seemed to have burned to ash at his feet. “I know you’re right, but I can’t feel that right now.”
Brooke put a comforting hand on his arm this time and not one of those coach punches, thank God. “You’re hurting because Phoebe thought you were capable of going behind her back and setting this up, betraying her. You’re going toclear that up, and if she’s who we think she is, she’ll support what’s best for you career-wise. Even if it means you don’t do her gallery right now. Who knows? Maybe in a few years.”
But that seemed like the distance between the planets right now—too far to travel in this lifetime. His hurt seemed to pulse under his skin. “I thought everything was going so good?—”
“It is!” Brooke did sock him gently this time. “Don’t let this bring you back down. You’ll talk to her.”
“After she simmers down,” Kyle cautioned. “She’s a reasonable woman and a professional.”
He was going to text her with his side first, so he could make the words right. No way was he just sitting here twiddling his thumbs.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Axel broke in, “I was surprised when you mentioned Beverly wanted to go with Phoebe’s gallery.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
Axel sighed. “Because art showings are changing, and I thought perhaps she was taking a more nouveau tack with you. It seems I am right that Beverly recognizes that Phoebe’s gallery isn’t in the big leagues yet.”
“But I want to support her.” He could feel that knife in the back of his throat again. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do for the person you love? I mean, look at you two.”
Axel and Brooke shared a loving smile before Axel said, “Sawyer, if a client called and wanted the best interior designer in the world, I would not refer them to Brooke, simply to support her desire to be in the business. She must carve her own path. Phoebe must do the same.”
“I also don’t love Axel less because he wouldn’t give me a plumb client,” Brooke added. “I wouldn’t think Phoebe would want that either.”
