Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 131651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 658(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 658(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
I imagine what he’ll say.
My stomach knots.
Kit’s so wrapped up in the project like the little perfectionist she is. She doesn’t notice my feelings, and when we’re finished, she spins around to face Holden working on his laptop.
“Dad, look!”
He glances up with a shadow smile, deliberately avoiding my eyes.
“Oh, hey. Looks like you made it rain gold. Cool effect,” he says.
“I was going for snow! Gold snow. The kind you’d see with dragons flying around the mountains,” Kit announces proudly.
Holden nods.
She beams under his praise. I wait for Holden to look at me, to give me his small nod of gratitude and show he appreciates me indulging his little girl.
Instead, his eyes flick back to his laptop.
The hole in my belly deepens and my palms go clammy.
I know we need to confront this, but I’m dreading it. I want to flip him off and run upstairs, press my face to the pillow, and cry.
For Kit’s sake, I keep it together.
She’s adorably oblivious, chattering on about some local poet who did a dramatic reading about lost seagulls. I can just see Holden hunkered next to her in a flimsy library chair too small for him, his arms folded, trying not to roll his eyes right out of his head.
There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Kit and it still makes me smile.
If only I could say the same about me.
That puts a hard lump in my throat.
But I choke it back down.
No point in throwing a pity party over a man who’s decided I’m chopped liver.
If Margot was here, she’d tell me to stop. Just tell him point-blank what I’m thinking and feeling.
Holden throws together a simple stir-fry dinner and I pretend I’ve eaten. Kit heads off to bed while I clear up art debris.
Seeing how well Kit’s gold complements the final version—like there’s a piece of her in this thing I made—makes me stupidly emotional.
Ughhh.
I haven’t made much progress organizing my paints by the time he plods back into the room. He halts in the doorway, and from the way he watches me, I know he’s debating turning around and leaving right now.
Putting off the honesty we desperately need. But there’s no point delaying the inevitable, and I think we both know it.
“Sit down,” I say. “I won’t be long.”
“You didn’t eat with us, Clee. You sure you’re not hungry?” His eyes flash skeptically when I shake my head. “Want a drink of anything?”
“I’ll have some tea, if you have any.”
“Got peppermint. Kit likes to have a cup every so often to settle her stomach.”
“Peppermint works. You owe me a settled belly, too.”
He doesn’t smile, and I regret the joke.
Lovely.
I brush the bigger plaster fragments into paper bags and pile them up in a small beer box by the door. I might be able to reuse this stuff for future projects.
At least I’ll keep their living space clean until I leave.
My chest aches again, but I shove the feeling away.
By the time Holden returns with my peppermint tea and a strong-smelling black tea for him, the living room is almost tidy.
“Once I get this stuff out of here, you’ll have your space back,” I say.
Holden sinks into the sofa, and I sit beside him, leaving just enough space between us so we’re not in any danger of touching. “I didn’t mind it, really.”
“You sure? Seemed like you hated it.”
“Nah.” His eyes flick to the canvas. “What will you do with that piece? Another moneymaker?”
“That was the plan.” I blow on my tea. The steam curls around my nose and eyelashes, adding to the burn I’m trying to control. “Feels wrong after Kit helped make it so pretty. But that’s art. You throw a piece of yourself in, and then you let some stranger take it away.”
He makes a low thoughtful sound, a rumble of agreement, or maybe just acknowledgement.
I wonder if he sees the double meaning, the way we’re not so different from art. Regardless of how this ends, he’s going to walk away with a piece of me.
“I talked to the museum curator again today. That museum of Western art.” I steer us back to the conversation we need to have. “It’s no big goldmine and I know they’re a newer place, but I’ve got a good feeling. He talked a lot about their security, said they went all in with state-of-the-art systems. He also shared a decent profit-sharing schedule.”
“Good. I’ll have a look at their security.” He shifts, staring into his mug.
“Yeah, I’ll forward you the email. The payments will be a small boost for the next three years at least. Not that I need it, it’s more about reducing worries. Then I guess I can decide where to go from there.”
“Great news,” Holden says. “If it’s what you want.”
I try not to look at him and fail miserably.
What I want right now is sitting beside me in stony silence.