Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
Rowdy
Somehow, I convinced Riley not to cancel our fake date.
It might have been between the third and fourth orgasm yesterday.
“I have something to show you.”
When I pull up to her building on Friday night, Riley is waiting on the sidewalk and not dressed for a gala.
She looks…wildly excited.
She grabs my hand and practically drags me upstairs to the studio.
“Are we skipping this shindig to go to your bedroom, finally? Because I’m down for that, babe.”
She scoffs. “No! I just need a minute. I have to show you what I made. After you walked me home, I was up all night working on something new. Totally new. I think it’s really going to knock everyone’s socks off at the live auction tonight…I’m so excited about it…I’ve been so uninspired lately.”
“Hey, I like the little birdies,” I say, defending the collection that spans the walls of my house.
“I know, I know, but…oh…” Riley pauses on the stairs and turns to me. “I’m so rude. You look amazing, Rowdy. Really.”
She leans in, and I curl my hand around the back of her neck. We kiss for a long moment, and her excitement for whatever this new thing is radiates through me. She pulls away from the kiss, and I’m glad she isn’t wearing any makeup yet, because her lips are red from my kiss.
She pets the side of my hair and chuckles. “You even got a haircut. And you shaved! It looks good.”
“Respectable enough?”
She smiles. “Just enough to charm the money out of those city folks.”
I fucking love this girl.
“Thanks,” I say.
When we get to the top of the stairs, I can already see what she’s been chattering about.
It’s a new painting, something utterly different from what she usually does.
It’s wild and free and exploding with color and texture.
I smile as I step closer, almost feeling intimidated. “Is it even dry yet? Don’t you have to let it, like, cure or something for a few days before you move it?”
She nods. “Yes, but I really think this needs to be at the gala. Daphne and my uncle are already on top of it and are sending people with the equipment to move it without smudging it.”
“Is that fabric in the paint?”
She nods. “Mixed media. It’s got a bit of everything.”
“Wow.”
“What do you think?”
I study the canvas, and I’m not sure what to say.
Other than the silent vow that I’m going to marry this woman as soon as possible.
“This has been inside you for a while, hasn’t it?”
She nods. “You drew it out of me.”
Riley’s cheeks are flushed and her eyes sparkle. I pull her to me and give her a slow, lingering kiss that has her melting into me.
“It’s fucking incredible and I’m so proud of you. Now, it’s time to get ready to go.”
I wait on the sofa while she gets dressed. Curious, I sniff the blanket, just wondering if…but no. She laundered it since we did the deed on this sofa. Of course she did. What’s wrong with me?
Several minutes later, Riley comes out of the bathroom in a draping floor-length dress of silk, the color of pale lavender.
The plunging neckline makes her look like a movie star.
She wears her hair pinned up, with a few curly tendrils falling down, brushing her bare shoulders.
She adds a colorful wrap for warmth, sparkly heels and a funky clutch.
None of these items match, but they all make sense together.
“Wow…Riley…you look…”
“Different? Uncomfortable? Out of my depth?”
“Like an angel.”
She lets me kiss her on the forehead and we leave, with me helping her down the stairs arm in arm.
“This is starting to feel like a real date,” she says.
“No comment,” I say, and she laughs.
I help her into the car just as Hodges drives by in his patrol car, and he’s eyeballing me pretty hard.
I smile and wave, waiting for him to be out of sight before I get behind the wheel.
The gala is at the ballroom of a sprawling, Gilded Age mansion deep in the woods.
“I think I took a field trip here when I was in school,” I say as we pull up.
“Yeah. We all did.” Her laughter is tinged with nervousness. Sometimes I forget Riley was only a couple of years behind me in school. It’s crazy to me that we never knew each other until now. I really had my head up my ass back in high school, or I know I would have noticed her, for sure.
The valet takes my car keys at the front entrance, and I help Riley out of my truck, careful to make sure her long dress doesn’t drag on the ground.
“Look,” she says, pointing out the red carpet leading from the driveway to the main doors.
I think I understand the purpose of these carpets at fancy functions now. I’m also starting to realize just how out of my depth I am.
Men in white ties and white gloves stand at the door, ushering us inside.
The size of the foyer hits me like the first time I stepped off the train at Penn Station.
It’s a cavernous space with sweeping staircases, marble columns, and ornate wood arches.
There’s a fountain in the middle, and there are marble stands with enormous and fragrant floral bouquets.
A chandelier bigger than my entire bedroom hangs from the ceiling, three stories up.
I remember all this from childhood, but it feels different now.
What the hell did I get myself into?
The backwoods kid in me is starting to feel self-conscious. Maybe Riley’s instinct to uninvite me was correct.
“What’s wrong?”
I look over at Riley’s lovely face and smile nervously. “You know when you visit a place as a kid, and it feels so big, but then it feels so small when you come back as an adult?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
“I’m having the opposite of that,” I say.
“I’ve hiked every trail within a twenty-mile radius of Songbird Ridge.
I’ve done the swinging bridge at Grandfather Mountain countless times.
I’ve been to the top of Chimney Rock and leaned over the railing and felt not a lick of nausea.
But this place? It’s giving me vertigo.”
Riley’s grip on my arm is a vise as the ushers lead us to the double doors on the far end of the parlor, announcing us to the grand ballroom. Am I on a fucking movie set in England? What is happening?
My forehead starts to sweat, and Riley notices. “You want to leave?”
We lock eyes for a quick moment. Everything settles. I’m never like this, but now I know how she feels all the time in large groups.
She doesn’t need me to flake out right now. And I’m not going to.
I lean in and tell her with complete sincerity, “You’re the most talented, the smartest, the most beautiful woman in the room. No one deserves to be here more than you.”
I watch her take that in with one slow blink and a deep breath. Her brother Pete is headed our way, and she quickly mouths, “Thank you.”
And I’m on the job.
I shake hands with everyone in the room that Pete introduces us to.
I crack jokes with everyone we know, but give lots of breaks in the conversations for Riley to interject.
I keep her supplied with water and food as we work the room.
All the while, she never lets go of my arm.
No one seems to notice how nervous she is.
Most people think we’re in love and simply attached at the hip.
People in tuxedos and gloves swarm around the room carrying trays of tiny bites. There are people I know from town who are wearing their Sunday best and others who look like they walked off the pages of a magazine.
We make our way to our table, and I’m careful to steer her away from one particular table sponsored by Evergreen Tools.
A couple of the executives seated there make eye contact with me, but they already know I don’t want to reveal my involvement with the company.
Riley might not like the secret strategy that I’ve cooked up for tonight.
Riley sets her handbag down at our table, and I scope out the artwork on display. At the far end of the room, outshining all the other artwork, outdoing the ornate table arrangements and chandeliers, is the painting. The very one that Riley just finished last night, or this morning.
Even in this room, it looks big.
It belongs in a museum.
We do a circle around the silent auction, and I bid on several things, despite Riley assuring me I don’t have to.
“Well, that wasn’t bad at all,” she says as I pull her chair out for her when the emcee announces that dinner is about to be served.
“You did great, baby girl.”
She blushes as three other people’s heads swivel right toward us at that pet name.
I take my seat next to her, and she looks slightly mortified.
“Hey, folks. Has anyone seen Wilson Rogers tonight?” I look over and see my friend Foster taking a seat at the table.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “I thought you didn’t like these kinds of shindigs.”
Foster shakes his head. “I don’t. But then again, I thought it might be fun to watch you crash and burn.”
Ari, Riley’s sister, gives Foster a murderous look. “Who wants their friend to crash and burn on a first date?”
“It’s the third date, actually,” I say, because it is, at least the way I count dates. “And no worries, Ari. That’s the way he and I talk to each other. I don’t take his grumpy ass personal.”
Riley pipes up, “He’s been a perfect gentleman and super helpful all evening. But you’re right, Foster. I haven’t seen any of the Rogers anywhere tonight. I hope his daddy’s health hasn’t taken a turn for the worse. How awful.”
“My daddy’s just fine, thanks for asking.”
All the faces around the table turn white.
Slowly, I turn around to find Pete standing next to a burly man in his 40s, peachy-colored hair on its way to turning white, and dead black eyes like a shark.
If I didn’t know how to read people, I’d take his words and the smile on his lips at face value.
But this guy has the vibe of a man with no soul.