Chapter 16 #2
I’m shaken by Sienna’s text and think about texting Jack to ask if we can get together another time. But as appealing as crawling into bed and pulling the covers over my head might seem, I don’t want to be alone.
So I arrange the crackers, cheese and fig spread I bought on a plate and then wash the grapes I got to have with it.
I tuck a bottle of Chardonnay under my arm and head across the yard to Jack’s back door.
From outside, I see lights on in his third-floor studio, so I follow his directions to the stairs.
The beat of loud music gets closer as I go up two flights.
The door to the studio stands open, and Jack is singing along to “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones.
I stand back and watch him as he studies something on a huge drawing board, hands stuffed into the back pockets of his jeans, feet bare as usual and Fenway asleep on a bed by the window.
She senses me there first, and shoots to her feet, barking happily as she comes to greet me.
Jack turns to me, smiling, and cuts the volume on the music. “There you are. We’d about given up on you.”
“My meeting took longer than expected.”
“No worries. Come in.” He takes the plate and bottle of wine from me and puts them on a table, out of the dog’s reach.
“So this is where the magic happens, huh?”
“That’s what I’m told. I’m sorry it’s such a god-awful mess. It makes sense to me.”
Chaos is definitely the word I’d use to describe the colorful drawings tacked up on every available space on the wall, the works-in-progress on just about every surface as well as the paint and ink that stain the floor.
I point to a vivid illustration tacked up on a far wall. “May I?”
“Please. Make yourself at home while I check out the snacks you brought. I was just starting to get hungry.”
The color and detail are striking. He’s done everything from super heroes to fiery dragons to gentle scenes from a children’s story. Animals seem to be his specialty. I gasp at the drawing of Fenway that perfectly captures her, right down to the active tongue.
His talent is truly dazzling. “I’m seriously impressed.”
“I used to get in trouble in school for doodling nonstop.” He shrugs as he grins. “I showed them, right? Making a living out of coloring.”
“You sure did. I can’t believe the sheer breadth of it. You do it all.”
“But you can see where my interest lies.” He uses his chin to point toward the animals as he eats a cracker and cheese. He brings me a coffee mug with wine in it. “Nothing but the best in my studio.”
I touch my mug to his. “Cheers. Thank you for inviting me to the inner sanctum.”
“My pleasure. When you tell someone you’re an illustrator, they tend to look at you with skepticism. It helps to show them what that means.”
“Was I skeptical?”
“Not at all, which is why I liked you right away.”
“Oh, well, that’s good.” He’s flirting, right? I’m so out of practice, I’m not entirely sure.
“It’s very good. I appreciate people who aren’t skeptical of things they don’t understand or actually say things like, ‘oh, so you color for a living’ in an insulting tone.”
I laugh at the way he says that. “Do people really say that?”
“More often than you’d believe. My cousin tells everyone that’s what I do.”
He makes me laugh twice in two minutes, which has to be a record. It’s been such a long time since I felt like laughing or smiling.
He holds up the jar. “What’s this stuff?”
“Fig spread. Try it. It’s good.”
“Hmmm, I’ll be the judge of that.” He spreads some on a cracker and takes a bite. “Wow, that is good.”
“Told ya.”
“I never would’ve pictured figs in a spread.”
“You learn something new every day.”
“So it seems. Do you like pizza?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“I have a really cool pizza oven and every imaginable topping since I didn’t know what you’d prefer.”
“So you, like, planned ahead for my visit?”
“Something like that.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be. Pizza is the high-water mark when it comes to me and cooking. But my pizza is extraordinary. People come from all over for it.”
“If you’re going to do one thing well, you may as well kill it.”
“That’s my philosophy for all things that I do well. Which is draw and cook pizza.”
“You’re a great dog dad, too.”
“Okay, three things.”
“I bet there’re more.”
He waggles his brows at me. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I feel my face turn bright red, which is mortifying.
“Adorable,” he says with a chuckle.
I grimace. “Awful.”
“Super adorable.”
“Who blushes at thirty-something, especially when their name is Blaise?”
“You do, and I’m digging it. What else can I say to make it happen?”
“Don’t you dare!”
His grin lights up his face with a mischievous glee. “I do so love a challenge.”
“I urge you to decline that challenge.”
“If you’re going to be that way about it.”
“I am.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“So,” he says with the grin I’m coming to like more and more, especially when he’s not trying to embarrass me, “how about that pizza?”
“Lead the way.”
We gather the treats I brought and the open bottle of wine and head downstairs.
“Watch out for Fenway. She’s an underfootnik.”
“Is that a word?”
“My own personal creation. I almost fall over her at least once a day because she tries to rush past me on the stairs.”
Just as he says that, the dog darts between us, forcing him to grab me so I don’t fall.
“Case in point. Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine. I love her. She’s adorable.”
“She’s a demon.”
“Don’t say that about your little girl!”
“It’s the truth. I love her madly, but she’s going to be the death of me. Literally, if she knocks me down the stairs.”
I stop on the second-floor landing to study photos on the wall that I missed on the way up. Young Jack with his parents, with other dogs, with groups of kids, birthday parties, soccer games, baseball, proms, graduations.
“My mom did that in case you’re wondering if I’m in love with myself.”
Again, he makes me laugh. I’ve laughed more in the last half hour than I have in years. It feels good.
“I didn’t have the heart to take it down.”
“Why would you ever take it down? It’s the sweetest thing.”
“If you say so. There’s nothing more precious than the only child of a mother who yearned for kids all her life and finally got me when she was thirty-eight.”
“Aw, she must’ve been thrilled.”
“That’s one word for what she was.”
His affection for her comes through loud and clear.
“Where’d you go to high school and college?”
“Bishop Stang and RISD.”
The Rhode Island School of Design in Providence is one of the nation’s premier art schools.
“Oh wow. RISD is amazing.”
“I loved every minute of being in school with people who understood that there’re worse things than wanting to doodle for a living.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Took a long time to convince my folks I could actually make a living out of doodling.”
“I bet they were very proud.”
“They were, especially when I started making some money at it.”
“That does tend to get the parental attention.”
“Right?”
We land on the first floor, and he leads me to a spacious kitchen in the back of the house that’s been fully renovated. The cabinets are painted a rich navy blue with a matching tile backsplash, white counters and high-end stainless-steel appliances.
“This is gorgeous.”
“It was my first project after I inherited the house. I couldn’t very well tell them their kitchen was hideously outdated while they were still alive.”
“True. That would’ve been rude.”
“I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it, though. Do you watch HGTV?”
“God, yes. I’m addicted.”
“Me, too, and I did this myself based on my HGTV degree.”
“You did not!”
“I did and let me tell you—watching it done on TV is nothing at all like doing it yourself. I was very quickly humbled.”
“I can’t believe you did it yourself.”
“It took almost a year because I was determined not to ask anyone for help.”
“Why didn’t you list renovation on your list of talents?”
“Because if it takes a year, that’s not a talent. That’s a fool’s errand. I got really good at microwaving during that time.”
“I’ll bet, but the final product is amazing. I’m impressed.”
“That was my only goal for this project. To someday impress an important new friend.”
I roll my eyes at him.
He’s too cute for his own good—and mine. And it occurs to me that before he decides he might like me, he needs to know why I came to town in the first place. Hearing my story might make him never want to see me again.
After he washes his hands, he dries them on a towel as he studies me. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
I shake it off and force a smile. “Nothing.”
“Something…”
“I want to tell you why I’m here, but I’m afraid you won’t want to be friends with me anymore.”
“And it would bother you if we weren’t friends anymore?”
I think he might be asking about more than just basic friendship. “Yeah, I think it would.”
He surprises me when he tosses the towel aside, takes my hand and leads me into a cozy living room with a wood-burning stove and two full walls of bookshelves.
I scan the shelves stuffed with books. “All this, and you read.”
“I saw a thing once advising women to quickly run for their lives if they come to a guy’s house and he has no books. So I bought these at a yard sale.”
“You did not.”
Laughing, he says, “Made you wonder, though, didn’t I?”
He’s fun, funny, handsome, talented, smart, sexy, sweet and kind. He’s all the things. And he deserves to know what I did before he decides if he wants to spend more time with me.
When we sit next to each other on the sofa, he doesn’t release my hand.
I’m one hundred percent sure that if I give even the slightest tug, he’ll let go instantly.
The only fear I have of this man is the possibility of losing my heart to him.
I’ve never experienced this kind of connection before, and I’d be sad to lose him before I ever got the chance to really know him.
“Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.”
“It is. It’s terrible.”
He turns to face me. “Tell me.”