Say it Louder (9 page)

“This is your … creative space?” Patricia makes a slow turn to survey the room.

I stuff down a defensive barb and instead go to the canvases, flipping through the stacks and turning my favorites toward them. While my street art is usually based on disposable cardboard and spray paint, these are intricately layered stencils cut from translucent plastic, applied with acrylics and a bunch of different brushes, sponges and daubers.

My most successful pieces actually start with recycled plastic binder pages, and the paint is applied with a wadded sheet. But they don’t need to know that. What they see is street scenes: vibrantly colored urban buildings, angles exaggerated like Dr. Seuss towers, and textured paint applications that suggest decay.

“It’s so … now,” Matthew offers.

“Totally commercial,” Patricia agrees. “This palette—it’s primary enough to pop, but there’s sophistication too.”

It feels like bugs skittering over my skin, listening to them talk about my art as if it were a thing, a commodity, a substitute for cash or check. I keep flipping canvases around to face them and Dave stands back by the door, arms crossed, his eyes never leaving me.

Patricia starts pointing and counting. “Twenty or thirty. We need at least that many. We’ll divide up the collection by themes, seed a couple from each theme, then swap in more from the themes that sell best.”

Matthew’s frantically taking notes and I realize that none of what Patricia’s saying is for my benefit. He pockets the notepad and pulls out his phone, snapping shots of each canvas.

“We’re going to need titles and dates, an artist’s statement and bio, and I’ll work up a pricing sheet,” Patricia says.

Holy crap this is moving fast.

“Willa’s attorney will email you a redlined contract tomorrow,” Dave says. While I inked my way through two clients earlier, Dave was on the phone in the break room with his lawyer.

“It’s standard,” Patricia says.

“And now that you’ve seen these, you know Willa’s extraordinary.” Dave tilts his chin toward the canvases. “You’ll have your contract by the end of the week if the pricing and revised terms are satisfactory.”

“We can’t wait that long to list the show.”

“Then don’t wait too long to get back on the redlines,” Dave counters.

Patricia sniffs and beckons Matthew with a crooked finger. “We’ll be in touch.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I close the door, lock it, and lean against it.

I sink down to a squat, knowing I could just melt in a puddle right here.

Or, I could freak out. “I can’t believe … I can’t believe you just …”

“I didn’t just anything. You did that, girl. You took their breath away.”

Dave grasps my hand and pulls me up to standing, then drops my arm around his shoulders. “Do you even know how fucking talented you are?”

No. Yes. I don’t know.
“Maybe?”

Dave mutters something under his breath and his chest hardens. He walks me two steps back to the door until my back is flat against it, and his chest is pressed against mine. His dark, coffee-brown eyes search mine. “You don’t know.”

“I know I love painting.”

“You don’t know how good you are.”

“When am I going to figure it out? When I put it out at Patricia’s gallery show and get my ass handed to me by some critic who couldn’t paint a room in his own house?”

“No.” Dave frowns. “You’ll never figure it out if you listen to the critics.”

“Then who’s going to tell me? Because until Violet and Stella came along, I didn’t think anyone but some Twitter followers gave enough of a shit about my art that it even mattered.”

Dave growls and his face is inches from mine. “We both know that’s a lie. Your art has always mattered.”

“To who?”

“To you. It lights up your face, even just turning those canvases around. I can see your fingers itching to paint something right now. Don’t even pretend it doesn’t matter. It’s like breathing for you.”

“But if I put it out there—”

“Then you take whatever comes. Don’t chicken out just because you’re afraid of what
might
happen. Aren’t you excited about the what
could
happen?” Dave’s intensity has me fully off balance. “Maybe you won’t sell much, but maybe you will. Would being comfortable for a change be so fucking uncomfortable for you?”

I draw a sharp breath. “Yes! You live in a bubble. You’ve got friends and resources and credit cards to fix whatever problems come your way. I’ve got nothing and nobody. I can’t bank on some dream to come true, because in my experience, it doesn’t.”

Dave tips his forehead to rest on mine. “You’ve got me.”

Those words are like a vice grip around my throat. “You can’t promise that.”

“I can and I will. Whatever happens, I’ll stand with you.”

I shake my head and push away from his chest. “It’s different for me.”

“How? What’s different? My old man did road construction. My mom was a waitress. I know how thin the line is between making it and getting a final notice from the landlord. Even though you’ve had it harder than I ever did, don’t think I don’t get what it means to struggle, or to dream.”

I cover my face with my hands, breaking with those final words. He’s right, and it’s like a punch to the gut that he
gets
me like this.

There were times when I lived on ramen so I could buy brushes. Times when I’d go hungry so I could paint. I always managed to find food. But nobody sets up a makeshift service van under a rail bridge to hand art supplies to street kids. Nobody.

He’s hitting too close to home, and as I struggle to get away, he presses against me more firmly, pinning me against the door with the weight of his body.

Finally, I drop my hands, and our eyes lock.

“I know what this means to you, Willa. I see it in Jayce and Gavin, and maybe even Tyler. They can’t
not
create. Jayce can’t listen to a song and not want to add harmony line or an unexpected chord. Gavin can’t hear a phrase that interests him and not want to weave it into a song.”

There’s pain in his eyes as he says that, and I realize what he
didn’t
just say. “What about you?”

Dave’s expression slams closed. “We’re not talking about me.” He releases me from the door and I practically fall down to that puddle, but instead I follow him to the couch. He sits, pulls his phone out of his pocket, and starts messing with it.

I swipe it from his grasp. “Why shouldn’t we talk about you?” His lack of response sends prickles of anger down my spine. He’s OK with taking apart
my
deep dark fears, but not his own?

I toss the phone on a chair but it bounces off and hits the floor with a loud thunk. I cringe at the noise but he still won’t look at me.

“Tell me why that’s not you. Why doesn’t creating thrum in your veins the way it does for your bandmates?”

Dave shakes his head, his expression sullen. I’m still standing over him as he sits on my couch, and I feel like I’m interrogating him. I try another way.

“Do I have to drag it out of you?” I drop to my knees, press my palms on the couch on either side of his legs, and tilt my head so my face is just below his. “Do I have to
bribe
you?”

My soft innuendo cracks his expression for the tiniest grin on record.

“Do I have to offer certain incentives?” Now my tone is playful, teasing. I flick my tongue out and wet my lower lip. I wrap my hands around the outside of his thighs.

Silence. Our lips are inches apart but I don’t want to stop his confession with a kiss. I ask again. “Tell me.”

Beneath Dave’s dark lashes, I see a flicker. Anxiety? Worry? I lean in and touch my lips to the corner of his mouth. I let my lips linger there, then draw them to the side, brushing against his mouth and his firmly sealed lips.

My tongue darts out and wets his lips.

“Tell me, Dave.”

His hands move fast, plunging deep in my hair and he pulls my mouth to his in a voracious kiss. His lips part mine and his tongue plunges inside me, sweeping through my mouth with the taste of him, hot and raw and everywhere at once.

I’ve done more than crack his resolve. I’ve smashed a dam and now his intensity comes for me in torrents. He pulls me against him, chest to chest, mouth to mouth, our breaths mingling, the taste of him hot and alive.

Somehow I flipped a switch, flipped him from guarded to needful. Flipped everything I thought and planned about keeping my distance and looking out for number one, maintaining arm’s length because you never know.

With people, you just never know who to trust.

But with Dave? I know everything in that kiss about what he feels and wants and needs right now. And as much as he’s setting parts of me on fire, he’s also crossing a wide red line I draw around myself to keep me safe.

That red line says STOP. HALT. DO NOT ENTER. WRONG WAY.

“Stop.” I’m panting but I force the words from my lips. Instantly, they’re cold as he withdraws. He leans far back into the couch as if I’ve just burned him.

Dave tucks his chin to his chest and rakes his fingers through dark hair. “Sorry. I’m—fuck. I knew I was going to fuck this up.”

“Hold on there, buddy. You didn’t fuck anything up.”

“You said stop.”

“Yeah? And you went all cold and robot-y on me when I asked you a simple question.” I’m panting with want but anger rises like a shield to guard my heart.

“You didn’t want me to … kiss you like that.”

I bark a laugh. “Like hell.”

“Huh?” Now Dave looks confused.

“I said, ‘Like hell.’ As in, you bet your ass I wanted you to kiss me like that, and I wanted to kiss you like that, and I’ve been wanting it too damn much when I should be paying attention to other things.”

“You did?”
 

“I did and I do and now you’re spoiling the moment.” I get up off my knees and sit beside him on the couch. “But what really messed us up was when I asked you that question. And I’m not going to let a scorching-hot kiss replace a real answer from you.”

He looks at me, and I know he remembers my question. But I’m still going to ask again. Apparently, I’m a sucker for punishment. “Why isn’t creating your thing?”

“Because I’m not good at it!” he explodes. “Because I’m not the world’s greatest drummer. Any idiot with a few years’ training can tell. I don’t have the flash and pop of top drummers. I’m pretty sure our last recording producer wanted to sub in a studio musician instead of me. I’m dragging the band down, and they know it.”

He hangs his head. I really have no idea what to say, so I just rest my hand on his shoulder.

“My ex-girlfriend was the last straw. Now she’s a threat to every member of the band and some of their girlfriends. At least when I managed the band, I was contributing something nobody else can do. But now they don’t need me; they’ve got a professional. And now that Kristina’s bent on screwing up all of our lives, they don’t even want me around.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.” I move my fingers from shoulder to spine, testing the wound-tight muscle that radiates tension and pain.

“Really? Then why the hell am I tracking you down and begging to stay on your break-room cot rather than going to one of their houses?”

I chew my lip. “That question did occur to me.”

“Because I’m the bastard. I’m the one who’s been pushing them, and bitching at them, and trying to manage all of us into our next successful album launch because Chief’s doing fuck-all about it. He’s a PR guy, not a manager. We need a coach, someone who’s going to push us to perform, not a fucking press-conference organizer. That’s about all he’s good for. That, and fucking my girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” I choke out, thrown back into reality. That little slip tells me he’s nowhere near done with dealing with her.

“Ex.”

But in one word, the damage is done. As much as I’d like to trust his pretty promises, I can’t let him get closer to me until he puts her completely in the past. “Dave, I don’t want to sound like a colossal bitch, but you’ve got some serious shit to work out. Why don’t you go home and deal with it?”

He shakes his head like I’ve just suggested a root canal. “Not an option.”

I cross my arms, walls back firmly in place. It kills me to say it. “Face the music, dude. You made me deal with that nasty woman Patricia, you go deal with nasty Kristina. Maybe in the next life they can go be roaches together.”

“Or rats. That’d work for me.”

“Too good for them. But you’re getting the spirit of it.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN