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I texted him. Where are you? I’m in your lobby.

Typing bubbles appeared immediately. Kyle, so sorry. Last minute stuff popping up all over the place. I’m walking out. Be there in fifteen.

That didn’t seem realistic given traffic this time of day. I checked the time again. Traffic between here and the gallery wouldn’t be too bad. I could let this go for a little bit.

Fine.

I scanned the shelves and even made notes on a couple books I wanted to read. One was about a romance between a prince from England and the son of the president of the United States. I loved a good romance. Who doesn’t like a little happy? The other one was far darker about murders in a Missouri college town and two cops who had to figure out who done it.

Five minutes had passed, and I texted again. I wanted to make sure he’d actually walked out. How’s traffic? Are you gonna make it?

I sat on one of the comfy couches and scrolled Instagram. I clicked the heart on several pictures of the team already at the gallery. David must be there because some of them were on the official team feed. Adriana planned to donate some of the evening’s proceeds to the team foundation, so no surprise that David was on hand to document the event.

A text message dropped down from the top of the screen. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I’ll meet you there. People keep pulling me aside. It’s been that kind of day.

I should’ve just gone when he wasn’t here when I arrived.

Do what you need to do. I’ll see you later.

Slightly passive-aggressive and nebulous on my part. Frankly, I didn’t expect to see him tonight. I pocketed the phone and headed for the door.

“Not waiting for Mr. Murray? Do you have a message?”

I looked back at the guy who’d been nothing but polite and eager to help and swallowed my bubbling anger. “No, thanks. I’ve been texting with him so it’s all good.”

“Great. Have a good night.”

“You too.”

As soon as my phone connected to the car, a torrent of text messages arrived.

The robotic voice read, “I’ll be there. I promise. As soon as I get out of here, I’ll be there. I know this is important.”

I imagined him talking quickly into his phone to get out the messages he thought I wanted to hear. If I wasn’t an employee with critical information, I’d always be far down the list of his priorities. I don’t know how he could justify that. My parents kept close track of the commitments they made to me and Bobby, to each other, to friends and colleagues. It wasn’t that they weren’t flexible, but there was a way to handle things going wrong.

Austin didn’t seem to have those rules. Whoever or whatever had his attention in the moment ruled, no matter what else he’d promised to do.

Was it worth trying to build something with Austin when a big part of his personality was something I had such a hard time tolerating? Did I want to change myself?

More texts came in.

I ignored them.

I could dictate a reply, but I didn’t have anything to say. We’d see if he showed up or not.

I wanted to be proven wrong.

As I’d hoped, traffic was manageable to the gallery. The place was packed. Thankfully, someone had the foresight to arrange valet parking so I didn’t have to circle endlessly looking for a spot. I pulled up behind a car that was being tagged and hopped out, leaving the keys behind. One of the people from the stand came up quickly and gave me a claim ticket.

Inside, a lot of people were clustered in the front room. Beyond the large open area, people wandered through the smaller areas.

I waved at a group from the team as I shucked off my overcoat and handed it off to coat check. As soon as my hands were free, a waiter offered a wine and hot cider. Another perfect touch because the warm drink was exactly what I needed.

Adriana had created some amazing works. There were also some on display at Kennedy’s house, but these were extraordinary. She’d created large-scale images of scenes from Detroit that mixed past and present. It fascinated me how she took something everyone knew and transformed it. From the downtown skyline to individual houses to some of the rundown areas of the city.

While talking with my teammates, I ended up looking beyond them to the art.

Talking to Crenshaw, I saw it.