Read The Art of My Life Online
Authors: Ann Lee Miller
Tags: #romance, #art, #sailing, #jail, #marijuana abuse
The Art of My Life (21 page)
Cal followed Aly into her condo. The
charcoals he’d given her for her birthday hung on the wall behind
the sofa. One of his doodles he’d seen there before hung in the
hallway.
Aly set her purse on the counter.
“Thanks for going with me to Mom’s for Christmas
dinner.”
“
Sure. No problem.” He
pulled an envelope from the back pocket of his jeans and sat on the
couch.
Aly had given him a Nichols surf shop
T-shirt last night at his family’s gift exchange, but he’d told her
he’d give her gift to her today.
“
I wanted to get you
something for Christmas. This isn’t exactly a gift. It’s already
yours, I just got it in writing.” He handed her the
envelope.
Aly sat on the chair across from him
and ripped open the envelope. Her eyes scanned the forms he’d
downloaded and filled out. Disbelief, annoyance washed her face.
“You want to put me on the boat title? Why? You know how I feel
about Dad’s money. I don’t want to be half owner of the
boat.”
“
Think about how I feel.
You bailed me out of my loan, quit your job, and the business still
tanks. At least, let me keep my pride when this is all said and
done. You really deserve the whole boat, but I knew you’d pitch a
royal fit.”
“
It’s your grandparents’
boat.”
“
It’s my boat. When the
loan was paid off, my folks signed it over to me because Henna gave
me the
Escape
. You’ve always wanted your own business. We
can sell it, and you’ll have capital for whatever business you
want.”
Aly crossed her arms. “I’m not giving
up on the business.”
“
If you want to believe
there is still life in the business, that’s your choice.” He leaned
forward, elbows on his knees. “You of all people know how broke I
am. I wanted to give you a gift. This is all I’ve got. Just take
it.”
Aly sighed. “Fine. I’ll sign the
papers tomorrow. You could have just shown me your
tattoo.”
Cal laughed. “It’s really been eating
you, huh?”
“
Like, since high
school.”
He grinned and slowly sobered as he
stared into her eyes. Call it craziness, but he wanted Aly to know
how he felt, even though he was back to square one in becoming a
man Aly would consider marrying. No matter what Aly thought, the
business would never fly. “Okay.” He stood.
Aly’s eyes rounded.
He sucked in a breath. Getting naked
with Aly was at the top of the list of things he wanted to do in
life, but this was awkward—all but stripping in front of her under
enough wattage to illuminate a soccer field.
But only a wuss would back out now. He
stared her down and unbuckled his belt.
Aly swallowed.
His eyes slipped to the cleft between
her breasts, now visible in the vee of her sweater because he stood
above her. Awkward turned riveting. He slipped free the button on
his jeans and felt the fabric loosen around his hips.
Aly’s gaze intensified. She caught her
bottom lip between her teeth.
He turned his back on her and slid his
jeans and boxers down a few inches. His heart hammered. Would she
laugh? Would she pity him? Would she feel honored? His lungs
inflated and deflated. A minute stretched into two. He stared at
the blank, olive wall. In his mind he imagined what Aly saw on his
lower back near his left hip—a pink ornate heart encasing a blonde
girl on a pink surfboard.
Aly
scrawled across the board. A
heart matching the outer border had been engraved on the fin. He’d
designed it himself when he was seventeen.
He looked over his shoulder at
Aly.
Tears trickled from the corners of her
eyes. She cleared her throat. “Th-thank you for showing
me.”
He looked back at the wall, puzzling
over the expression in her eyes. Something soft, happy—almost as if
she loved him, too. His hands went to the waistband of his
jeans.
Aly’s fingers closed around his bare
hips.
He froze. His breath sucked
in.
Her mouth pressed against the tattoo,
then whispered kisses across the ink.
Goosebumps rose on his flesh. His body
turned hyper aware of every touch, the warmth of her breath on his
skin.
Was Aly simply accepting his love? Was
she saying she loved him, too? Did she mean to make him crazy with
wanting? Hope bottle-rocketed inside him.
She tugged the material at his hips
and it slipped another inch.
His breath came quick and loud in the
silence.
He latched onto the last rational
thought in his brain—whether or not he had a prayer of a future
with Aly, protecting her meant no sex today. He grabbed hold of her
wrists. “No.” The word tore from his throat and came out in a
croak.
Aly’s fingers went limp, and she
pulled out of his grasp.
Cal tucked in his shirt, buttoned his
pants, and buckled his belt, his body screaming for the opposite.
He faced her and drew a shaky breath.
She had drawn herself into a ball in
the chair, face tucked into her knees. Her shoulders
shook.
He didn’t trust himself to touch her.
“Aly.”
She looked up, mascara smearing her
eyes black
“
I want to do this right.
Us.” He’d get a job, enroll in college part time, propose to
Aly.
“
I’m so
embarrassed.”
He knelt down beside her chair. “I
want you. But not like this—”
His text message alert chimed, and he
slipped his phone out of his pocket without thinking. His probation
officer. On Christmas Day. Really?
Reminder: your appointment is
4 p.m. 12/28. There are consequences to skipping meetings. Tell me
what’s going on. Look at options.
Dread sloshed over him and chilled all
desire to finish this conversation with Aly. He shoved his phone
back into his pocket. “I have to go.”
December 26
So, I made a wrong stroke.
I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway because I wanted to. Now
the picture is ruined. I suspected I’d already screwed it up a long
time ago, but now sunlight gleams on my personal disaster. It
doesn’t matter what I do with the canvas, it’s etched on my soul
and will always live inside me.
Aly at
www.The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com
Fish leaned back against the hull and
listened to the water slosh against the outside of the boat. The
space-heater hummed on the sole beside his bunk. He downed the last
quarter of a Pabst Blue Ribbon, crushed the can, and shot it into a
cardboard box against the bulkhead. Maybe he’d worked up the
courage for his New Year’s Eve ritual. He fired up his
laptop.
A knock sounded on the cabin door,
then Missy’s head poked in. “Sean, you here?”
Surprise stunned him for a moment,
stopping his answer until after Missy had already stepped inside
and shut the door. “Yo…. Geez. Walk right in. I could have been in
my boxers.”
“
I’ve seen them fifty
times—you and Cal sprawled on the living room floor after a
sleepover.”
“
Or less.”
“
Seen that,
too.”
He chuckled. “You were, what, all of
six?”
“
Nine. I didn’t know
jumping naked off the roof into your parents’ pool required that
much noise. You’re lucky only Chas and I came running.”
Fish laughed outright. “Hoo, baby, did
Mom come unglued.”
Missy’s orange blossom scent wafted
toward him. Her coat gaped and he glimpsed a plunging neckline of
yellow material threaded with sparkly silver.
“
I’m on my way to a New
Year’s Eve party.” She fanned herself and slipped off the coat.
“It’s five hundred degrees in here.”
His eyes skimmed down her dress and
silky stockings to her high heels, then meandered north again.
“You’re smokin’ hot tonight, Mis.”
“
You’re drunk.”
“
Two PBRs down, hardly
drunk, but four to go.”
She fingered the pearl that rested on
her chest. “I stopped by to say the necklace is really
sweet.”
His gaze stuck on her chest. “You
could stay for my seventh annual New Year’s
Eve-getting-loaded-and-re-reading-all-my-family’s-e-mails.”
“
I’m on my way to a party,
and I’m going to get kissed. I’m going to find The One by the time
I graduate at the end of the semester—like
Where’s Waldo,
only in real life.”
He knew better than to offer to do the
kissing. “How did you frickin’ get to be a senior at the same time
as I am?”
“
Ever hear of
dual-enrollment, summer school, on-line classes?”
“
So, besides sex—” He held
up a hand. “You’re the one who brought it up on Thanksgiving—why
are you so hot to get married? I’m twenty-five and don’t care if
marriage is another ten years down the road.”
“
Mom said I take Cal’s
drama and Jesse’s preoccupation with his family too hard because I
expect things from my brothers I should only expect from my
husband.”
God, she was beautiful. She
should
be the center of somebody’s universe. He patted the
bunk beside him. “Come on, look at a few pics. Get me
started.”
Missy softened. “You’re killing me.”
She dropped her coat on the bunk, stashed the four sweating beers
he’d lined up on the shelf back in the cooler, and slid onto the
rumpled sleeping bag beside him.
He pulled up last year’s family photo,
and it axed into his gut like it had the only other time he’d
viewed it. He needed another beer, but he dreaded Missy’s
disapproval more than the pain.
He made himself stare at the images on
the screen as if the hurt would eventually cauterize. He looked at
his parents first. They were the easiest because they had changed
the least in the five years since his family had visited the
States. There were more lines on Dad’s face, Mom had gained some
weight. They looked… happy. They should feel as ripped up inside as
he did.
Chelsea had been eighteen when he saw
her last. This was the first photo where she wasn’t wearing
glasses. Could she get contacts in the jungle, or had she just
started taking off her glasses for photos. She’d gone to college
online, and taught at the orphanage, dated a black-haired,
black-eyed Peruvian named Luís Angel who was a stranger to Fish.
Resentment bubbled up that Chelsea hadn’t waited for him to work
out his issues before plowing ahead with her life.
Seventeen-year-old Susanna had gone
through puberty since he saw her last. Gone were the knobby knees
and giraffe legs. Even though he could see remnants of the little
girl he knew, she was almost as much a stranger as Chelsea’s
boyfriend.
Chas, at nineteen, had grown the
shoulders of a man and the body of an athlete. Missy’s arm brushed
against him, reminding him of her interest in Chas.
But Missy was here, not in Peru,
lounging across the landscape of his sleeping bag in her clingy
yellow dress. He scooted closer to Missy, sealing his arm against
hers, soaking up the comfort of her presence.
They read e-mail after e-mail. At some
point Missy kicked off her shoes. She made no mention of
leaving.
His eyes returned to his pearl and
dipped lower, as they had too many times to count.
Missy looked up from a photo of the
orphans playing soccer. “Hey!”
“
Just admiring my
excellent taste in necklaces.”
“
Right.”
He shrugged. “Can you blame me for
admiring the view?”
“
You’ve had too much to
drink.”
“
I don’t think any
differently drunk—which I’m not. I just say what’s on my
mind.”
“
You’re a
perv.”
“
I’m a guy.”
Missy sobered. “Sean, what you’re
doing to yourself and your family is sick.”
“
Your family didn’t ditch
you before your senior year to chase some humanitarian
dream.”
Missy’s eyes seemed to peer into his
soul. “I’ve always wondered why you didn’t go with
them.”
He debated telling her. It wasn’t
something he’d ever said out loud. He fortified himself with a deep
breath. “Cal was just starting to smoke Henna’s weed on a regular
basis. A lot of people can party on the weekends and not give it
another thought the rest of the week. It was different with him. I
thought if I were around, I could sort of keep a lid on
things.”
“
And did you?”
He shrugged. “I sure gave it my best,
but who knows? He was always there for me….”
“
If you made the choice to
stay behind, why are you angry with your folks?”
“
When you put it like
that, I sound pretty childish.”
“
Well—”
“
Cal razzes me about being
sentimental—like keeping all your gifts. But my senior year was
important to me. A milestone. My parents didn’t come home for
graduation. They didn’t see me walk, my honor cords, didn’t go to
baccalaureate, didn’t watch me win the Elks scholarship. They had
to follow my senior year on the golf team long distance. I missed
Chas’ entire soccer career, Susanna’s first training bra—which
evidently was quite a crack-up in the family lore. Chelsea and I
were close, and we’ve grown apart.”