I Love My Secret (Nicole's Erotic Romance) (4 page)

Brunch is a must-do in Manhattan. Lines form
around the block for some of the best places, and it’s worth the wait. Partly
because of the delicious food, mostly because of the company. It’s a great way
to spend time with your friends, that doesn’t include booze. (Unless you get
the mimosa, which – I won’t lie – sometimes we get.)

This is the time when we dish about how our
Saturday night went….

“My sex life is dry as a bone,” Amber announces.

 
…Or
how our Saturday night didn’t go.

Both Jess and I look at her, all sympathy and
silence. Then Jess wrinkles her nose and asks, “What about that guy, Diego?”

She takes a sip of her coffee and shrugs.
“Emphasis on ‘go’. Diego a go go.”

I smile and touch her back, then sit forward and
breathe on my own mug, to get the yummy liquid to cool the fuck down. I don’t
know how these girls are already drinking theirs. I must have a sensitive
tongue. Oh, well I guess lattes aren’t as hot as black coffee with cinnamon in
it.

Amber says, “You know what? I don’t think I’m
ready to meet anyone serious yet. I mean, if he walked right up to me and said,
‘Hi, I’m your future husband. Can I talk to you a second?’ I’d probably say
‘hell no! Do you know how busy I am? I don’t have time to be cuddling on a
couch and watching
The Godfather
over
and over.”

I snort, and lean forward on my elbows. “Why do
all men love
The Godfather
so much?”

“It’s a good movie,” Jess admits, and then adds,
“but really… I agree. Why are they so obsessed with it?”

Amber chimes in, “That and
Big Lebowski
!” We all nod and agree and Amber mumbles, “All men
adore The Dude. But really, cut your hair and get your head out of your ass.”

Jess says, “Very few men can rock the long hair.”

I blow on my coffee, thinking of Michael. “Only
some can, but when they can… it’s so hot.”

Amber leans back. “True. When Brad Pitt has his
hair long, I want to rip his clothes off.”

Jess crinkles her nose. “Not me. He looks like a
stoner with it like that. Or a surfer. And surfers aren’t very proactive in
their work lives.”

I ball-up a napkin and throw it at her face. “How
many surfers do you know, Jess?” I ask, amused.

Jess un-balls the napkin, lays it on her lap, and
says, “How’re things at the studio?” like she’s reading my mind. I’m speechless
for a second because I think she must be asking
 
about Michael again... but then I
remember I’m a painter. She’s just asking about my work. Add
becoming paranoid
to my long list of
flaws.

Amber looks over and takes another sip of her
latte, waiting.

 
“Great. Really great. I’ve being working
a lot. Every morning this week, actually.” I don’t add,
because Michael is there at night.

Amber yells out, so excited. “Jess! Let’s go there
after this today and check out her stuff!”

Jess literally jumps in her seat, and my stomach?
It does a cartwheel into nausea-land. I’m scared to have them come over. I
don’t want them to see what I’ve been working on… not yet. What if they hate my
style? What if I catch disappointment on their faces?

“Oh my God! I love that idea. Love it. Yes. As
soon as we’re done.”

 
“Um…
ladies. Aren’t you forgetting something?”

They’re looking at the menus again, all fake
innocence and deliberate avoidance.

I run my finger around the rim of my mug, thinking
how I can get out of this. I could tell them I’m scared, but they see me as
confident and sure of myself in all aspects. I don’t want to fall down in their
esteem. I don’t want to be flawed. “I’m not going there today. My partner is
going to be there. It’s his time today.” Now that is a damn lie, but they don’t
know that.

Amber’s face falls. “Oh no. Awww. Bummer.”

Jess suggests, “Well, then we’d finally get a
chance to meet him. You’ve been hiding this guy like he’s some secret you’re
keeping from us.” She leans forward like a mystery is afoot and whispers, “He’s
not a three-hundred-year-old hunchback magician who’s captured your heart and
keeps it a jar… is he?”

Amber grins at the image and looks at me with
eyebrows so high that if they got any higher, they’d be in the space shuttle. I
lean in and whisper back, looking from one to the other. “Yes, that’s exactly
what he is. And if I bring you there,
you’ll
try to steal my heart back. But then the curse would be solidified forever! And
my heart would be lost for all eternity.”

Jessica thinks about this. “Oooo, that’d be bad.”

I lean back and say, “It’d be very bad,” in my
normal voice. Truth is, though? I don’t like how close she got about the heart
held hostage part. “He’s very serious about his work and he doesn’t like to be
interrupted. That’s all.”

Amber gets it. “I hate it when people show up at
my office unannounced.”

Jessica agrees, “Yeah. I guess I think of what I
do as work… and what you do as play. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. He’s not that
interesting. He’s just a guy who’s giving me a break on rent for studio space.”

Amber picks up on this and points out something I
hadn’t thought of before: “Then he must really believe in your work.”

This warms my heart unexpectedly. Does he? I
hadn’t thought of the possibility. I bite my lip, thinking about it, and pick
up my mug. I offer to them, “Another time though. Let’s plan ahead, and I’ll
make sure he’s not there.”

Amber smiles and drops it. Jess still looks like
she wants to go, but has no argument to make. The subject is dropped… or so I
had hoped. Jess’s frown vanishes and she says, “You should have a show soon!
Then everyone can see your greatness!”

My stomach rolls over again and I take a deep
breath and crinkle up my nose, make a tssss sound like a ball deflated slowly,
shaking my head. “I don’t think I’m ready yet, Jess.”

Amber inspects my face, her intelligent blue eyes
inspecting me. “You’re going to be great Nicole. You don’t have to be scared.”

“I’m not scared!” I look from one to the other,
but they see right through me. And here I thought I was hiding it.

“Is he really there today?” Jess asks, and Amber
looks at me to inspect again.

“Yes! Yes! He’s really there! I’m not lying so you
don’t see my stuff before I’m ready. God, you guys – stop!” I grin, but
they’re not sold. I’ll stick to my guns though and…

“Nicole!” a male voice interrupts. I look up to
see who just saved me, but it takes me a second to recognize Danny, Grant’s
friend.

“Danny! Oh, hi!” I put down my coffee and stand to
give him a hug. I stay standing next to him, practically looking him in the eye
since he’s not much taller than I am. Nice body, though.

“I was just leaving,” he tells me apologetically,
and I turn to follow his eyes to a pretty brunette who’s looking at me as she’s
walking to the front door. She’s obviously wondering who the hell I am and why
hasn’t Danny stayed locked at her side like a good boy?

“Oh, that’s too bad. I’d ask you to join us.”
Would I? Maybe…

“I didn’t see you sitting here, or I would have
come over earlier,” he says, with that same warm smile I so appreciated when
Grant was being a bully.

“We just got here. Oh, these are my girlfriends,
Amber and Jessica.” They wave from where they sit at the table.

“Hi,” he says to them, “Danny. Nice to meet you.
The food is amazing here, isn’t it?”

Jess nods and Amber says, “We’ve only been here
once, but we loved it,” and nods, too – all smiles and elven cuteness.

Danny turns back to me. “Well, it was great
running into you. I was sorry you had to leave so early that night. Oh! Did you
sell the painting?”

“What painting?” I ask, searching my memory. Oh,
shit. “Oh – the painting. I didn’t. The buyer didn’t show. He was coming
over from Williamsburg and the trains were off that night and he got frustrated.”
This is the problem with lying. It breeds more lies. Blech.

“Well, next time. It was really good to see you.”
He gives me a warm hug again, which I hold and look at the brunette through the
window as I do it, just because I don’t like the look she’s giving me. He says
goodbye to the girls and leaves us there to talk about him.

As soon as he’s out of earshot, I sit back down
and we all lower our heads and bring them in together to talk in a hushed
conspiratorial tone.

Jess first. “He’s cute!”

Amber next. “And he’s obviously into you.”

Me last. “You think so? He is cute, isn’t he?”

Them together. “Soooooo Cute. So cute.” Their
heads are both bobbing yes, like I should go grab him right now. I reach up and
push them together with mine for a head-hug.

“I love you, guys.”

When we separate, Jess asks me, “There wasn’t any
buyer for a painting was there?”

“No, I used that as an excuse to escape Grant on
our last – and I do mean last – date.” I pick up the menu, even
though I already know what I’m getting. Why do I do that? I set it back down as
Amber looks at me.

“I saw you do that once. Use an imaginary buyer
who wanted to see a painting, to get out of a place. You better not do that
with us.”

I glance from one to the other of my very best
friends in the whole world. “Me? I’d never.”

Just as the server comes up to finally take our
order and get our stomachs to stop growling, Jess balls up her napkin again and
throws it at my face,
but I catch it.
My dad wasn’t an accountant, after all.

At His…Our… Studio

Weeks Later

I haven’t seen Michael in over a month. I’ve been
good… or he’s not been there when I’ve dropped by. It’s been too long, so
tonight something overcame me and I find myself standing outside the studio
door with the key in my hand. I let myself in and call up to him, “Michael?” No
answer. Walking up, I take a look around. I can see from the shine on the
confetti-like paint droplets below the easel, that they’re still wet.

He was just here.

I must have just missed him. Again, I won’t be able
to see his face, hear his voice,
smell
him.
Even worse – like fate is teasing
me
–
one of the cream-colored
candles still glows with a low flame, the wax surrounding it disintegrated down
to an inch.

“Michael?” Instantly I hope against hope that he
didn’t hear the longing. I heard it. But he’s not here, and only silence
bounces back. I should have called, told him I was coming. Maybe we could have worked
beside each other, talked… anything. A month is too long. I feel like I could
claw my eyes out.

I pick up a blank canvas and prop it against a
wall. I lied to myself when I thought I was coming here to work, that it would
be better if he weren’t here so I could focus. It’s never better when he’s not
here.

Lose him
, Jason whispers in my memory. “Shut up, Jason.”

I step over to get a look at what he was working
on and the second I see it, my breath catches from shock. He’s painted a woman
with her hair wild, her skin vibrant and dark, and an aura surrounding her. The
painting is mostly is in reds, gold, and burnt sienna. Tiny sparkles of sweat
form in the hidden parts of me as I inspect the lines because the more I look,
the more I am dumbfounded. Is this chaos of frenzied strokes,
me
? One time I saw him and my hair was a
shock of tight curls, natural, big and wild. He’d said he liked it that way,
that it suited me more than straightening it.
“Don’t try to be like everyone else. You’re different. Be that.”
I
listened, and more and more I wore it wild. I’m wearing it that way tonight
even. Probably because I wanted to make him happy, more than anything else.

This painting - the raw passion of it – it’s
like he’s been missing me as much as I’ve missed him. Maybe my break from him
hurt him as much as it hurt me? I reach out and touch the canvas, feel a drop
of wet paint cool the tip of my finger. I close my eyes and imagine him here,
propelled forward by inspiration, unable to stop until he finished this
portrait of…

“Nicole.”

I yank my finger back and my eyes shoot open to
see him standing at the top of the stairs. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I see that.” He strolls to me, the leather jacket
he’s wearing over jeans and black t-shirt, is the only thing clear of smudges
and specks. He takes it off and lays it on the couch, the muscles of his back
pulling his t-shirt tight for an instant. He turns and walks to me. “What do
you think?”

The spicy scent of him wafts to me, making my body
react. I hold his eyes. “It’s beautiful.”

His eyes narrow. He comes to stand beside me, to
see what I see. “You think so?” he asks, looking at it with me. It feels more
like a test than a question.