Page 81 of Hooked on Trouble

I nod. “Raven said she left her purse.”

He grins, like he knows something I don’t. “I see why she’s gone to so much trouble.” Gaze on my crotch, he licks his lips.

His blatant perusal would be amusing, but I can’t focus on anything except his words. “What do you mean trouble?”

Instead of answering me, he pulls an envelope from his desk drawer and holds it out. “You’ll see.”

If my tux felt stifling before, it’s downright suffocating now. It’s not Raven’s style to be so cryptic. Cagey, yes. Sarcastic, fuck yeah. But not mysterious. Studying the envelope, I rub the back of my neck, my movements jerky.

When I don’t grab his offering, he says, “She’s put a lot of work into this, and she’s a tad intimidating. If nothing else, take it for me. I don’t want her chewing me out.”

With a tight smile, I grab the envelope and pull out a folded piece of paper. Two words are written on it:

I’m sorry.

She’s said them a number of times since I walked out her door, but they steamroll me tonight, flatten my chest. I’m so fucking sorry, too. But why isn’t she here to say her apology? To listen to mine. To finally get it all out in the open. I look up at the gallery owner, and he lays his hand over his heart. “She said you were a sensitive one.”

I don’t know how my face looks. I only know how I feel: desperate, dazed, lovesick.

He gestures to the room. “This is her show. She wanted you to see it.”

My attention snaps to the walls. They come to life, the space transforming as I take it in. Enlarged photographs hang on the exposed brick, the light dimmer than I’d expect for a gallery. The way a spotlight hits each piece, I can tell it’s on purpose, turning me into a voyeur, like the images captured are private.

I return to the entrance and start at the beginning. The first few are familiar. Too familiar. Betty Leroux is in one. It was the day we were at the slums, and she was ranting about her blanket. Her hands are tossed in the air, indignation on her lined face. The next one thickens my throat. Two sets of feet face each other, my boots and Betty’s ripped sneakers. The contrast is moving, the lighting making it more powerful. They aren’t framed, the images pressed between glass, and after a couple more, I realize small sections have been painted. It wasn’t noticeable at first, but as I return to the start, I see Raven’s hand in the work. The gray blends with the black-and-white tones, but more blues tint the sections as the images progress.

A little girl’s sock. The pillow under a vagrant’s head. The flames in a fire.

Still early for tonight’s wedding, I take my time. I try to see the photos through Raven’s eyes. Although a few scenes are familiar, most aren’t. She’s been busy, snapping frames when not at work. As I study them, a man and a woman walk in and whisper to each other, taking in her show. The words strong and dynamic and talented drift toward me. Pride fills me like helium.

Halfway through, the air hisses out.

The next image doesn’t look like Raven’s. The lines aren’t as sharp, the photo grainy, like the focus is off, but I’d recognize the face staring at me anywhere. Josh. He’s on a ratty mattress, crumbling concrete at his back, bottles and garbage littered around his feet. The can of beans in his hand is painted gray-blue, but it’s his eyes that hit me: Flat. Dead. No laughter or light. Even knowing how solid he is now, it flays me. Scratches at memories I’d rather let lie. The card at the side of the photograph credits Jericho for taking the picture.

For ruining my brother’s life, it should say.

My pulse thunders. Why would she put this here? Why show the world just how far my brother fell? And somehow she’s been in contact with Josh.

Shaken, I move through the space. The other couple is long gone, a group of three arriving. Raven’s small painted areas get brighter as I near the end, and so do the photos. Hope brightens a child’s face as she accepts a gift, the shelter she’s living in blurred but noticeable. The blue parcel in her hand pops against the gray tones. In the next, a First Nations man scrubs graffiti from a wall, his few teeth visible in his beaming smile. The word fallen, scrawled in blue, is about to be scoured away.

The last one winds me. Knocks the air clean out of my chest. I stand for a good five minutes and stare. This is Raven’s apology, the words I never let her say in person.

A portrait of Josh beams at me, his blue eyes—my eyes—painted with so much detail they glow. He’s crowded by masks and creature designs, his college acceptance held in his hand. This is why she needed the other photo: To show someone rise, you have to show them fall. Some of my anger the past months stemmed from the fact that I didn’t think she understood me. But this photo is everything. It’s the work I put into Josh. It’s my drive to be better. It’s my family and me seen through her eyes. It’s beautiful.

A man steps beside me and studies the piece. “They’re raw, but really give you a sense of the city. Makes me want to visit a shelter.”

Makes me want to tear across town and whisk Raven away to a deserted island. “She’s talented,” I say. And too far away from me. This isn’t her needing distance and closure. This is her hooking my heart and reeling me in.

“Did she do good?” the hipster guy calls as I stride for the door.

I pause and turn. “Knocked me straight.”

“That, sweetheart, is a shame.” He blows me a kiss.

Chuckling, I hurry to my car. Hank Williams croons from the stereo, singing about being young and foolish and losing his woman’s trust. Hank sure knew how to write. By the time I get to the Moondog office, I’m buzzing. I ride the elevator to the top, the walls barely containing me and the ten thousand things I need to say to Raven. The light flicks from number to number as I climb, my restless energy rising with it. We still need to talk things out, but us not ending up together is no longer an option. That woman is mine.

When the doors slide open, I step off, expecting the usual loft space I visit. Normally it’s sparse, half the high-ceilinged room filled with sample ski clothing and jackets, the other taken up with desks.

But this isn’t an office; it’s a galaxy.