Page 26 of None Of Your Business

“You’re not going to do a runner like Piper, are you?”

She laughs. “God, no. I’m running straight toward that man.”

She deserves this. She’s spent so much of her life handling the family’s emergencies like a one-woman crisis team. She deserves someone who shows up for her the way she shows up for everyone else.

“Another commission?” she asks, pointing to the canvas.

“This one’s just for me. Getting whatever was stuck out of my system.”

She nods toward the row of canvases turned toward the brick wall. “Can I see those?”

“No.”

She raises a brow.

“They’re for the show. They’re not ready.”

“I won’t judge.”

“I know you won’t. I still don’t want you to see them.”

When a piece is unfinished, it exists in a state I can’t fully defend. Having someone look at it too early feels like letting them read a half-written sentence. They fill in the gaps with their own ideas, and then I have to carry their interpretation around while I’m trying to finish.

No one sees them until the varnish is dry. Not even Madison.

“Where’s the exhibition again?” she asks.

“A gallery over in Silver Lake.”

“You’re up for it?”

There it is.

Last year. The show I backed out of. The phone calls, the apologies, everyone telling me they understood as I lay in bed, barely able to lift my arms, hating myself for proving them right.

Rowan. Always almost there.

I force the thought down.

“I’m up for it. They reached out a few weeks ago,” I continue, picking up a clean palette knife to keep my hands busy. “They want a full series by autumn, but I need enough new work to fill the space. Which is why this”—I gesture at the canvas—“is such a relief.”

“I’m glad it’s back,” she says quietly.

“Me too.”

She picks up her bag from the crate and straightens her blazer before looking around one last time.

“I need to go, but come to family dinner next week.”

“I’ll try.”

“Rowan.”

“I’ll come.”

She gives me a look that means she heard the difference between those two answers, but she just smiles and lets the metal door swing shut behind her.

The studio goes quiet until my phone buzzes on the workbench.