Chapter 30
LILA
The remainder of the meal consists of Louis sporadically attempting to fill the awkward stretches of silence with conversation, while Mr. Fisher saws at his rare steak until a pool of blood gathers on his plate.
Fisher keeps his arm casually draped around that back of my chair, nodding along politely when his brother speaks, but not saying much.
Thankfully, nobody orders dessert.
Mr. Fisher pays the check and bids us a curt goodbye before striding out of the restaurant without a backwards glance. No doubt he’s off to hire a PI to look into me…if he hasn’t already. Louis smiles at us almost apologetically before running after his father like a dog who disobeyed their master.
Fisher and I walk side by side to his G Wagon in silence. It’s a far cry from how we entered the restaurant less than an hour ago, a united front, my hand a perfect fit in his. Then I went and screwed everything up.
“I was just trying to help,” I blurt the second we’re inside the vehicle.
Fisher’s thumb hovers over the start button on the dash for a moment, but he makes no move to press it. Instead, he turns to me.
“Is it true?” His tone is light, his expression carefully neutral. But I know him well enough by now to know he’s not in a jovial mood.
“It is.” My heart flutters in my chest at the displeasure of seeing the flash of hurt that moves across his eyes and knowing I put it there.
“Oh, cool. Good for you, Lila.” He nods, then starts the vehicle and throws it into reverse.
“That wasn’t how I wanted to tell you.” I reach out and touch his arm, but he continues to back out of the parking spot. “I didn’t mean to blindside you, I just said it because at the moment, it was my only idea on how to divert your dad.”
“Yeah, that was quick thinking.” Fisher sounds perfectly casual and relaxed, but he doesn’t look at me. He keeps his eyes fixed on the road as he pulls up to the exit of the parking garage. “Smart to use that to convince him this thing between us is real.”
Fisher turns the SUV onto the street. It’s getting dark, the last of today’s golden daylight clinging to the roofs of the surrounding buildings.
Usually, this brilliant sunset would inspire me, and I’d obsess about how I could capture this in a painting, but all I can think about right now is how the beauty of the evening can’t hold a candle to the man beside me.
I hate that he’s subdued and not grinning over at me like he normally does. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”
“Don’t apologize; it’s all good. Hey, want to hit up a drive-thru for ice cream or something?” He shoots me a smile, trying to act like everything’s fine. Like we’re still on the same team, when I’ve clearly been benched. “I know there’s a DQ around here somewhere.”
“Fisher, please,” I start, realizing I’m desperate to fix whatever I might’ve broken between us. “Can we talk about this?”
“Sure, but there’s not much to talk about. I think my father bought your story, so your firehouse is still safe. And that is what we’re doing here, right? Saving the firehouse and sticking it to my father?”
I know in my rational brain that yes, that’s why we’re in this marriage in the first place and what we’re meant to be working towards…but none of that seems as important anymore. Not if it comes at a cost to Fisher’s feelings. To what we have together outside of our initial agreement.
“I can explain why I didn’t tell you earlier—”
“Nah.” Fisher cuts me off with a shake of his head, and my stomach twists.
His eyes are far away, his expression too polite.
It’s like I’m talking to a stranger right now, and that makes me want to cry.
“It’s not like we’re really married in the traditional sense of the word; you don’t owe me apologies or explanations… or anything at all. Okay?”
But I want to. The words are on the tip of my tongue, and I swallow them back because the way Fisher is looking at me is way too formal and polite.
Instead, I busy myself with pulling the pins out of my updo until my hair falls down around my shoulders.
I dip my head down, causing my hair to fall forward.
My hair creates a curtain of privacy, blocking my expression.
“Okay,” I finally say in a whisper.
I don’t want him to see how sad this conversation is making me. Because he’s right. I owe him nothing—and he doesn’t owe me anything, either.
“Awesome. Now let’s go get some Blizzards to make up for the tiny portions at that fancy restaurant.
" Fisher smirks at me, and his apparent indifference to what just happened is so convincing, I start to spiral.
Did I imagine the flicker in his eyes earlier at me keeping my identity as Santi from him…
or, worse, was I looking for it because I wanted it to be there?
His indifference to something that means so much to me should be a good thing. It should feel like relief to look at him and feel distance between us, because we’re not supposed to be falling for each other for real.
But instead, it just hurts.
“Actually, would you mind dropping me off at the firehouse? I think I want to paint tonight.”
I know it’s stupid, but a part of me hopes he’ll say he wants to spend the rest of the night together. That he wants to hang out after being gone last night.
Instead, he shrugs. “Sure.”
Fisher taps the screen on his dash and “Undressed” by Sombr fills the vehicle, drowning out our silence until we pull up at the firehouse a few minutes later.
I grab my bag and ease my door open. “Thanks for the ride.”
“You’re welcome.” He doesn’t ask me how long I’ll be, or when I’m coming home.
“Are we…okay?”
“Of course.” He smiles. “Have fun.”
The moment I step inside the firehouse, he’s gone.
I stand with the door open, watching the glow of Fisher’s taillights as he drives away from me.
I feel more alone than I have since my mom passed away, yet when I let myself into the firehouse, I’m relieved to discover all of the other artists are gone for the day.
At my station, I kick off my strappy heels, then find the change of clothes I brought here after the pink paint fiasco last week.
I shimmy out of Ally’s pants and Hazel’s vest, replacing them with an oversized, acid washed Picasso tee I bought at a flea market years ago.
I don’t bother with the pants—there won’t be anyone here but me for the rest of the night.
Barefoot and belligerent, I stalk over to my canvas and glare at my skyline painting. I don’t care how technically good it is. I hate this piece. It has no soul, and it doesn’t feel like me. And after everything that went down tonight, all I want to do is feel like me again.
Before I can think about the implications of throwing away a week’s work when I’m on a deadline, I toss the canvas aside and smile in satisfaction as it hits the concrete floor.
Then, I grab a fresh canvas from the supply I keep in the back and prop it up on my easel.
I open my palette of acrylics. The second my brush connects with the canvas, I breathe out a sigh, exhaling all the words I wanted to say tonight with every brushstroke.
I throw everything I have into letting the image take shape in front of me.
I’ve been burning to paint him for weeks now.
Since the first night he showed up here, so golden and imperfectly perfect in every way.
At first, finally giving in and painting Hercules the way I want to and not holding back is a sweet relief.
But as I work, it begins to feel like so much more than just channeling all the tension that’s been building between us.
There’s admiration…love…in every brushstroke.
I’m not just attracted to my husband physically…
I’m attracted to his soul. And this painting of him, so early in the process, already has all the emotion my work has been lacking lately.
By the time the portrait begins coming together, I’ve been lost in my art for hours. My shoulders sag, realizing Fisher hasn’t called or texted. I really hurt him.
I consider checking my old apartment upstairs for pillows and blankets to stay the night here, when I hear loud banging against the firehouse door. I nearly jump out of my skin until I hear, “Lila!”
The yell cuts through my clouded thoughts, and my heart leaps when I register that my name was spoken by the only person whose voice I want to hear right now.
Fisher bangs on the front door with his fists. “Lila! Let me in!”
I drop my brush and run across the room, flinging the door open to find him standing there. The real thing is even better than my art could ever portray.
“I’m so sorry,” he says, just as I blurt, “I was scared.”
Fisher blinks. “Scared of me? Shit, Lila, I should’ve called first. But I rushed over here to apologize for being an asshole and clamming up after dinner.”
“You weren’t an asshole. And I didn’t mean I was scared when you got here; I was happy to hear your voice…I was scared to tell you I was Santi.”
His forehead wrinkles as he stares at me. “Why? You know how obsessed I am with your art.”
My throat grows thick. “Because you saw me before anyone else did. Understood me in a way so few people do…and before you ever even met me. The sale of that painting of the Bay changed my whole career, and then on the day I moved in with you, I found out that somehow it was you who bought it. You, who believed in me before anyone else did. Like it was serendipity or something.”
My husband’s eyes soften at my words, but he’s still frowning in confusion. “I’m not really understanding how that’s a bad thing.”
I wrap my arms around myself, hugging my shoulders against the chill of the night air blowing in through the open door.
“I didn’t tell you I was Santi because when I met you, I’d been going through the motions of my life without really letting myself feel any of them for over a year,” I explain, glad to finally be transparent with him.
“After my mom died, I felt broken, and my only escape from that feeling was when I could get lost in my paintings. Moving into the firehouse allowed me to live and breathe my work twenty-four-seven. And I did that so I could externally channel all of the emotions I was afraid to feel, because it hurt to feel love and light and beauty after losing the one person who brought those things into my life every day. Pouring every emotion into my work was how I coped.”
He runs his hands along my chilled arms, warming me to the core. “You’re so strong, you amaze me.”
“No, I’m not. I thought I was being strong by doing that, but I wasn’t allowing myself to grieve.
” Tears begin to prick the back of my eyes as I meet my husband’s beautiful green gaze.
“But then you came into my life, and I started feeling everything again. It’s like you made me remember how to feel.
I told myself not to go there, that wasn’t in our plan, but when I saw those paintings hanging on your wall I panicked, because I understood in that moment how connected I am to you.
And once again, I had someone in my life I was scared of losing. ”
The tears are flowing freely now, and Fisher gathers me into his arms, holding me against his firm chest and stroking my hair as my tears soak through his shirt.
“Not happening, Lila,” he whispers before kissing the top of my head.
“I’m not going anywhere. So, in one way or another, you’re stuck with me forever.
Whatever that might look like. I’ve never connected with someone the way I have with you, what we have is…
it’s something special. I’m sorry for shutting you out earlier. ”
“I’m sorry for shutting you out first.” I pull back and tilt my head up to look at him, and his eyes are misty, yet we both end up smiling through our tears. “But we’re doing pretty good for a couple of emotionally stunted, avoidantly-attached people, don’t you think?”
He laughs, and I do, too. It’s cathartic.
“Every minute spent with you is perfect, Lila. You’ve made every color of my life take on new tones, new depth. I want to keep seeing things in full color. I can’t go back to monochrome living.”
I huff a laugh at his art analogy. “And I want to keep letting my walls down, because I don’t feel so afraid anymore…of letting you see me.”
“Good. Because I like what I see.”