Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance(122)

Anneka looked affronted. She glanced at Declan and Jackson for guidance and then shook her head slightly.

“So Amsterdam is actually named for the dam on the Amstel…” she began telling Kevin as Mike brought out a creme brulee with berries for dessert.

Everything began to get swimmy and dreamy as the wine stuffed my head with cotton wool. I cracked into the brulee with my spoon, imagining vividly licking the dollops of sweet custard from the divot between Jackson’s pecs. Or Declan’s. Whatever.

I glanced sidelong at Kevin, seated at the far end of the table. When did I ever want to eat anything off of him? He leaned his head politely toward Anneka as she prattled on about the waterways of her homeland, but he didn’t look particularly enthralled.

Why did you even invite him? I asked myself.

He seemed small and silly compared to Declan and Jackson whose presences settled over the table like a minty, money-and-confidence-scented fog. In his logo polo, Kevin looked ridiculous and petty. I wished I had just ignored his text. Now I didn’t even want to chat with him; I just wanted him erased from my history.

Or maybe I’m the petty one, I mused. Exactly what kind of point was I trying to make?

I’m sorry, Kevin, I thought, knowing I’d never tell him to his face.

Finally Bridget raised her wineglass and sat forward, pouring off another inch into her glass with a sigh. She fixed me in her tipsy gaze.

“All right,” she muttered, “let’s see the goods.”

I nodded and bit back an excited smile.

“If you’ll excuse us?” I said, pushing back from the table.

Bridget eyed the half bottle of remaining wine and then shrugged, scooping it up as she wobbled down the hall to the studio. I followed a few feet behind, hoping she would take a second alone before I had to explain myself.

When I got there, she was standing right where I wanted her, right in front of the lemon branch. I saw her raise her wineglass halfway to her mouth, then raise the bottle instead and swig from it directly.

“You should slow down,” I called from the doorway. “You have definitely had enough wine.”

I strolled up behind her and took the glass from her hand, finding a non-lipsticky part of the rim and quaffing half of it.

“What… the hell… is this…” she finally whispered, shaking her head.

“Oh,” I said. “Well…” I stood back and looked at them again. I tried to see it through her eyes, the eyes of the gallery owner who had to actually sell it.

“OK, maybe it’s too much,” I started. Maybe it was. It had felt so right at the time though.

“They’re… I don’t know what to say,” she sighed. “They’re awesome. They’re amazing.” She turned to me, nodding. “Bitch, they’re fucking amazing.”

Relief flooded me and I wanted to giggle.

“Really?” I asked, plainly begging for affirmation like a puppy.

“Oh my god, yes. They’re genius. They’re… totally unlike you.”

“Hey!”

She shrugged. “Well you know what I mean.”

“No I don’t,” I pouted.

“It’s just.... well I’ve always wondered if you came pre-assembled with that stick up your ass, or if you had to have it installed special.”

“Hilarious, Bridge,” I drawled sarcastically.

“But this,” she continued. “This is good. This really good.” Her head went sideways as she peered each of them over, one by one.

My heart leapt. She hadn’t done the sideways-head-peer on one of my pieces in years.

“OK, talk it through for me,” she asked.

I sighed. Where to begin? She knew I hated having to explain myself. The work should speak without me. If it didn’t, I knew the piece had failed. But this time, I felt like I just needed to give it a proper vocabulary.

“All right, well… These are the lemons I promised you, obviously. But then I wanted to show them sort of pushed and pulled, like something unattainable, or something in a dream. So here,” I waved my hand in front of the drippy, thick layers of paint upon paint, “they’re obscured. But here... they’re revealed.”

She nodded. “Uh huh, yes. Go on.”

I stared at the next piece, trying to give it words. “It’s just.... Like, here, I didn’t want to just document the literal thing, I wanted another layer on top of that… Like a laid-out emotional layer. The way things in dreams aren’t just things. They have like a whole fairy tale around them... How much you want them, how tender they are, how delicate. I wanted to show how I felt, while also showing what it is. To make lemons and oranges more than just… you know. Lemons. Oranges.”