The Art of My Life (11 page)

Aly hung up the last of the dresses
she’d tried on and glanced in the mirror at the least sexy outfit
she owned—a broom skirt that reached past her knees and a
high-necked sweater. She frowned at the eerie resemblance to Kallie
in the mirror. As if clothes could disguise who she really
was.

The only two men she’d ever loved knew
the truth about her. She was easy. Cal knew every guy she’d been
with. Her father had somehow seen what she would become—even when
she was a little girl.

Once she’d been climbing around on the
bed where he was reading a medical journal—happy just to be in the
same room with him. He accused her of trying to look under the
towel he had wrapped around his waist. Until that moment she hadn’t
noticed what he wore. But he must have known she’d grow up to be a
girl who looked.

Another time a doctor friend of
Daddy’s had stopped by to see the new pool in their back yard. She
couldn’t have been more than seven—dancing around the Pebble Tec
decking in her pink two-piece with the ruffles on the bottom,
begging the man to watch her dive. Daddy had been furious and
accused her of flirting with his colleague. She’d had to ask Kallie
what the word meant.

Kallie thought it was her fault Dad
exed them out of his life—an argument she had with him when she was
twelve. But Aly knew the truth. She was the tainted one, the one
with a weakness for sex, not virginal Saint Kallie.

She turned her back on the mirror and
read Cal’s text again.

Let me talk to u one more
time about the Escape. Don’t say no. Hear me out. Pick u up 6 p.m.
Thursday. Dinner. Dress up.

Three legal pad pages of business
ideas had popped into her head since Monday morning when she told
Cal she couldn’t help him. She stuffed them into her purse and
reached for the check on the counter. This was the perfect
solution. Cal would get the help he needed with his business, and
she only had to hang onto her heart through one dinner—not work
with him on a long-term basis.

Cal’s knock sounded on her front
door—two raps, pause, two raps. She’d never known him to use a
doorbell, and his knock was always the same. Her stomach fluttered
as she threw open the door.

Cal—or someone who had to be Cal—stood
on the stoop, his shoulder-length hair chopped into close-cropped
curls worthy of a GQ model.

Her hands flew to his head. “Cal! Your
hair.” She ran her hands through the springy, dark blonde locks,
and they circled her fingers. “It’s so… curly.”

“
Like it?” Desire to
please swam in the brown pools of his eyes, inches from
hers.

She yanked her hands away and stepped
back, her gaze fastened on his crisp blue plaid button-down shirt.
“I’m… I’m shocked, that’s all. Give me time to get used to it. I’ve
never seen you with short hair. You look like a
stranger.”

“
And you look” —his eyes
skimmed over her— “beautiful. Don’t get me wrong, I liked your
T-shirt and cut-off years, but the swishy skirt phase is my
favorite. Soft.” His eyes darted to her sweater and
away.

He made her forget she’d been
irreparably marred in a way people couldn’t see. He made her
believe she was beautiful if only for this space in
time.

He cleared his throat. “I thought we’d
go to The Garlic.”

They moved down the cement walk, and
he opened the Jeep door for her. “Who are you going out with these
days? I want to know what I’m—” He cut himself off.

She slid onto the seat. “No one. I’m
not going out with anyone.”

“
You’re kidding. You’re
always going out with somebody.”

“
I’ve been single since
G—” She almost said Gar, the guy she’d dated before she realized
she loved Cal. “A long time.”

Cal gave her a lopsided grin. “At
least I don’t have to worry about somebody decking me for kissing
you the other day.” He shut the car door.

Way to get the most awkward topic
out on the table, Cal.
The kiss that forced her to turn him
down. The kiss that would crack her heart in her chest like a
Christmas walnut every time she saw Cal with Evie. The kiss that
made her fall in love with Cal all over again.

“
I had some ideas for your
business—”

“
We’ll talk about it at
dinner.”

She stole a glimpse of his short hair,
feeling again like she sat beside a stranger.

Cal parked at the restaurant and
turned toward her in the last light of the sunset. “Al, I know I
hurt you that day on the beach.” He dropped his chin.

The memory hung in the stuffy air
between them—Cal ironed to Evie, his hands groping her body,
searing her to him till steam seemed to waft from their bodies into
the spitting rain. Aly shut off the memory.

He lifted his gaze to hers. “You’ve
never been able to hide your feelings. Your face is so
expressive.”

“
You’re the only one who
thinks so.”

“
I’m sorry. If I could do
that day over, I would.”

“
It’s okay.” Her voice
sounded loud in the quiet of the car. The only thing Cal could do
to make it better was to have never slept with Evie in the first
place. But she, of all people, had no room to talk.

Cal’s eyes pled with her in the dim
light. “Say you forgive me. Please.” His hand grasped
hers.

Her throat closed up with unshed
tears. “I-I forgive you.”

A hand slipped behind her neck and
pressed her cheek against his smooth jaw. “Thank you,” whispered
across her skin.

Cal got out of the car.

Should she wait for him to open her
door? Everything about tonight, so far, felt like a date. But it
wasn’t. And they’d piled into and out of cars dozens of times
before, and Cal had never opened her door.

She reached for the door handle, but
Cal was already opening it.

He caught her fingers in his as they
walked toward the restaurant.

For two minutes she’d pretend they
were together.

But at the door, in a cloud of
oregano, basil, and garlic, she snatched her hand back. Once
somebody saw them holding hands, she wouldn’t be the only one who
called their dinner a date. In minutes, the news would text around
the city. She still wasn’t sure how things stood between Evie and
Cal—much less between her and Cal.

After they ordered, Cal folded his
arms on the table and leaned toward her. He looked like he belonged
here in the artsy bricked courtyard framed by palms, ferns, and
eucalyptus trees spiraled with tiny white lights—the close cropped
hair, the ironed, well-cut slacks. “How’s your job?”

She shrugged. “It’s a job.”

“
How are you coming with
your dream to own a business by the time you’re
twenty-five?”

“
I’m building up my
savings, honing an idea.”

“
I have an idea.” He
winked.

Aly mentally deflected the wink. She
forgave him, but she’d be crazy to trust him with her heart again.
She ducked her head and fished the list of ideas out of her purse.
“Here.”

Cal skimmed the papers. “Advertising
in Florida Monthly, repairing the bow, buying Facebook marketing,
branching out, school field trips, parties, weekend trips,
snorkeling.” Excitement mounted in his voice as the fire crackled
in the outdoor fireplace. “Good stuff.”

Wait till he got to the idea about
recruiting Jackson to scatter ashes and perform weddings
shipboard.

“
But your ideas aren’t
enough to save the business. I need you to run it.”

She wanted him to read all her
suggestions before he made a statement like that, but this wasn’t a
structured business meeting. She could flex. “You need
capital.”

“
Yes, but—”

The waitress set down their
meals.

Aly grinned. “You’re not the only one
in New Smyrna Beach who can plate. This looks amazing.” She bit
into her Chilean Sea Bass Francese. “Almost as pretty as your
grouper.”

Cal ignored his food, all his
intensity focused on her. “Maybe we could take out a bigger loan
against the boat. I’ve still got over fifty thousand in
collateral.”

Aly fished the check out of her purse
and handed it to him. Everything was going according to plan. She’d
given Cal all her ideas and now the money to carry them out. She
could crawl back into her cocoon at the bank.

Cal stared at the check, his eyes
widening. “This is a check for sixty-two thousand dollars, from you
to me. Are you crazy?” His mouth hung open as he stared at her in
shock. A smile dawned across his face. “You’re buying in. Partners.
After you turned me down on Monday—”

She shook her head. “No. One friend to
another, I’m giving you my ideas and Dad’s back child
support.”

He glanced at the check. “I’m not
taking your charity, Al.”

“
It’s blood money, Cal. I
never intended to keep it. The summer I interned at the camp and
didn’t get a salary, my mom sued my father for back child support
to help get me through the rest of college. Didn’t you wonder how
Jesse and Kallie got the down payment for their house? Kallie put
her share into the house.”

Cal stared at her chin, her words
seeming to run off him like ocean water from a
surfboard.

“
It’s up to you. I could
go ahead and give it to the Mennello Museum of American Art in
Orlando like I planned.” All she knew was that she wasn’t keeping
it another day. Somewhere deep down she believed giving away
Daddy’s money would absolve her.

“
You like
museums?”

“
Duh.”

“
Why did I never know
this?”

“
You got me interested in
high school.”

Cal scrubbed his knuckles through his
oddly short hair.

The propane heater hummed overhead,
draping them in a blanket of warmth.

Cal stared toward the brightly colored
pottery propped against the window panes of the restaurant. Quiet
fell between them as thick as the conversation they’d shared all
evening.

Cal’s moods had always pivoted like
wind changes. But the shifts made sense when she chased them down.
“What’s wrong?”

He pushed rice around on his plate.
His eyes returned to hers. “I feel like a piece of shit. First my
grandmother gives me the boat because I’ve been too busy blowing
off my life to get an education. Then, I fail to launch the
business on my folks’ dime. Now, you’re shoving a check at
me.”

Her heart hurt. She hadn’t anticipated
this response. She set her fork down, still skewered through a bite
of fish. “That’s not how I meant it. I wouldn’t throw money at
somebody I didn’t believe would succeed—blood money or not. I’m a
businesswoman, bottom line.”

He tossed the legal pad pages and the
check onto the table between them as though her words had no
effect. “I’m asking you to quit a job you hate and come on board
fifty-fifty—half owner of the business and the boat.”

He held out her dream, and she wanted
to take it. And she wanted to protect her heart.

“
With your business savvy
and my sailing skill, we could make the charter fly.” The intensity
of Cal’s gaze burned into her.

He must have read her reluctance. He
shook his head and slumped back in his seat. “It was just a crazy
idea.”

She stared at him, her stomach
lurching. This was the one thing she couldn’t do. But the look of
utter worthlessness on Cal’s face wrenched her. He hadn’t found his
niche in life. That didn’t mean he was valueless.

She pushed her plate aside. “You’re a
genius artist. A hard worker. Intelligent. You feel things deeply.
And I l—you were my best friend—closer than Electra.” Oh God, she’d
almost blurted out that she loved him. Last time she’d done that,
Cal slept with Evie. And she didn’t love him. Couldn’t.

She wanted to shake him and tell him
he was valuable, but only one thing she could say would restore his
belief in himself. The words burned on her tongue and she swallowed
them. “What about a silent partner—you take the money, I’ll stay at
the bank.”

Cal hung his head. “Forget it. We both
know that if you believed in m—that the business could succeed, you
wouldn’t need the bank.” He motioned for the waitress to bring the
check. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” His eyes met hers. “It
sounded like a good idea in my head, but now that I hear it out
loud.” He gave a slight shake of his head. “I’m sorry I put you on
the spot like this.”

The confident Cal she loved ebbed
away, leaving the hunch-shouldered shell she usually only saw after
he had a run-in with Starr. Her heart throbbed with the need to
give him the chance at success he needed.

She shut out the picture of Evie, of
the past two years of picking up the pieces of her heart and trying
to stitch them back together. She sucked in a breath deep enough to
fill her lungs with air and courage. “I—I believe in you.” She
plucked her check off the stack of papers. “I’ll buy in.” She
handed the check back to him.