Chapter 24
FISHER
I tear my eyes away from Lila and reach for a grilled cheese, pretending I wasn’t just staring at her like a weirdo.
For once, I wasn’t even thinking about how gorgeous she is and how badly I ache to touch her…
instead, I was thinking about how easy it is to be in her orbit.
How nice it is to share the night with her, talking while everyone else is asleep.
It feels intimate, sitting here in the darkness together, and I want to take the opportunity to learn more about her. Go deeper with her.
“Tell me what it’s like to be an artist,” I say, curious about what she was drawing before I walked into the kitchen. How she said she often paints at night. Is that what it’s like, having a creative career? Working round the clock?
She chews and swallows. “Every day looks different.” Lila bites the inside of her cheek as she thinks. “It’s not all playing with paint; sometimes I just stare off into space, trying to visualize the end result. Other days I’m visiting galleries, showing them my portfolio.”
I hum. “Do you ever feel uninspired?”
Lila huffs a laugh. “Oh yeah…like authors get writer’s block, I get artist’s block.” She leans back against the couch, crossing her legs. “I’m having trouble with my current project, actually. The series for that gallery I mentioned to you.”
“I thought you were doing a sequence of scenes around San Francisco?”
“I’m meant to be…but my brain and hands aren’t communicating properly to make that happen right now.” She laughs, but by the wrinkle on her forehead I can tell she’s stressed about the project.
“What sort of stuff do you usually paint?”
Her gaze goes to one of the Santi paintings hanging on my wall, but she quickly looks away and studies the grilled cheese on her lap instead. “A little bit of everything.”
“If you're more specific, I could help you brainstorm,” I tease at her evasive answer.
My eyes move to the sketchpad on the counter that she firmly smacked closed when she saw me watching her draw.
She looked fully absorbed in whatever she was sketching.
It was beautiful to watch. I so badly want to know more about the art she creates, but she’s uncharacteristically cryptic when the subject comes up.
I’ve wondered more than once if she paints something she’s embarrassed to tell me about…
like pig testicles. Which wouldn’t be too farfetched—in the gallery where I bought my latest Santi painting, there was a pig testicle painting on display.
Lila breathes out a laugh. “Thanks for the offer, but something will inspire me soon.” Her worried expression tells me she’s not convinced.
Taking a bite of my sandwich, I watch her.
She glances at the Santi painting once more, then lets out a breath. “Anyway, enough about me. You said a moment ago you had hockey practice as a kid—how did you even get into hockey, growing up in Georgia?” she chuckles darkly. “Because it’s obvious your parents aren’t fans.”
Finishing my bite, I stand and pad to the kitchen, removing two glasses from the cabinet and filling them with water.
“Well, like I mentioned, I wasn’t as good at anything as Louis.
I was endlessly frustrating my parents, easily distracted, and never meeting their expectations.
” With the two glasses of water in hand, I walk back to the couch, handing one to Lila.
“I had so much energy and a hard time focusing in school.” I take a sip, then set my water on the coffee table and sit down.
“One of my father’s friends owns the Atlanta Cyclones, and when I was eight, he suggested my dad put me in youth hockey to help me burn off energy.
” I smile, remembering my first day of practice with the Cyclones’ 8U team.
“I loved it. Hockey was the first thing I was ever good at. Actually, it’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at. ”
Lila frowns, turning to face me. “That’s not true, Fisher. You’re good at so many things, and I know that after only…what? Three weeks?”
Has it really only been three weeks?
She rests a hand on my knee. “You’re good at making everyone around you feel welcome and wanted. You’re good at caring for others. And you make a damn good grilled cheese.”
I laugh. “Thank you.” My heart squeezes at her words of encouragement. “I guess I’m just not good at the things Louis Fisher the Fourth hoped I’d be good at.”
“Well, in my humble opinion, Louis Fisher the Fourth cares about all the wrong things. He should feel lucky to have a son like you.”
“My father has always seen me as nothing more than a problem to fix. A blip on his otherwise perfect family landscape,” I confess, shaking my head.
“Nobody’s perfect, Fisher.”
“Yeah, I know,” I agree. “But I was a disappointment to him from the beginning. In fourth grade, I was diagnosed with ADHD, and the way my parents reacted, you would’ve thought I was dying of a rare illness.
They even made me promise to keep it quiet around my granddad and the rest of my extended family—I guess they were worried I would bring shame on the family. ”
Lila’s so easy to talk to, I’m sharing stuff right now I’ve never really shared with anyone.
I have great friends I know I could talk to about this stuff, but before now, I’ve never felt the urge to do so.
With Lila, I’m willing to open myself up to her in a way I don’t usually do.
Maybe because somehow, she looks past the arrogant, carefree version of myself I present to the world and sees who I really am underneath the surface.
And she seems to like who I am—flaws and all.
Lila closes her eyes then opens them again. “Just when I think I couldn’t hate your parents more, they somehow get worse. They should be so damn proud of the man you are.”
“Sometimes I hate that I share a last name with them,” I admit.
Lila smiles at me. “Hey, it’s technically my last name now, too. I redeemed the Fisher name because I’m so amazing.”
She’s teasing, but she has no idea how right she is. Thinking of my wife as Lila Fisher makes my skin feel warm all over.
We finish our grilled cheeses, but don’t move to clean up and go back to bed. Instead, we stay on the couch talking until Lila can’t stop yawning, and her eyelids look heavy.
I glance outside, and I’m shocked to see the sun coming up. We’ve been sitting here for hours.
“Why don’t we head back to bed?” I suggest, causing her eyelids to fly wide open.
“I might just crash here. I haven’t been sleeping great…” She grabs a fluffy blanket off the edge of the couch.
I shoot her a pointed look. “I’m keeping you up at night, aren’t I?”
She grimaces, then nods.
“My brother used to complain about sharing a room with me in our summer cottage. He said I flop around and talk in my sleep.”
“I can confirm you still do both of those things.”
“Damn, I’m sorry.” I scratch the back of my neck. “Apparently it’s common with ADHD to sleep talk and even sleepwalk.”
She shrugs, unbothered as ever. “It’s okay; I don’t mind. And I’ll get used to it eventually…I think.”
“So, what do I say in my sleep, anything interesting?” I ask, hoping it’s nothing too embarrassing…especially considering the dreams I’ve been having since she moved in.
She slides her tongue across her front teeth, looking away. “Nothing in particular.” Her voice is higher than usual. “You mostly just mumble.”
I scoot closer to her on the sofa, getting in her face so she has to look at me. “You’re lying.”
She tuts. “I am not.”
I arch an eyebrow, not believing her for even a second. But I don’t press, because her eyes look so tired.
“I’ll take the couch, though. You go back to bed.”
Lila worries her bottom lip. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” I shrug. “I nap on the couch all the time.” I don’t really, I love my giant bed…but she doesn’t need to know that.
Lila shoots me a grateful smile and stands, taking a few steps toward the hallway.
“You can bring all your art stuff here if you want to, you know? So you don’t have to go back and forth all the time. And so you have it for when I wake you up in the middle of the night with my talking.”
Lila glances over her shoulder, smiling softly. “Careful, I might take you up on that. You’ll come home one day to a full art studio in the living room.”
I know she’s teasing, but that doesn’t sound so bad to me…I actually love the idea of her making this space her own and getting to watch as she paints and creates beautiful works of art.
Lila’s gaze moves to the Santi art on the wall again, and I smile.
“I love that you’re a Santi fan, too,” I tell her, because from the way she keeps looking at the paintings, that much is obvious.
“It’s kind of cool to me that we have the same taste in art.
” I waggle my eyebrows. “And I’d still love an introduction someday soon, if you could make that happen…
I want to buy everything she has for sale. ”
Lila opens her mouth like she’s about to say something, but then closes it.
She heads off to bed, and I lie on the couch for a while, staring up at the Waking Dreams painting I bought a few months back.
It’s my favorite piece of art I’ve ever owned, but somehow, I just know that when I finally see Lila’s art, it will blow my feelings about my beloved Santi works out of the water.