AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He smoothed his thumb over my bottom lip. “I didn’t kiss you for the cameras. I forgot that was a possibility in that moment. Oh, but before I forget, I did talk to your publisher today. He is emailing you five ideas for you to write a book about. Or collaborate on one. However you want to do it. They’d love to have you back.”
I nodded. That made sense. I supposed. That was what I had done to make a living in the past, and maybe I could make that work again. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. That’s the deal, right. You help me, I help you.”
I put out my hand. “Put her there, partner.”
He took my outstretched offering, but he brought it to his mouth and kissed it. “We’ll take my motorcycle to dinner.”
“Then you can’t drink. That’s no fun for you.”
“Looking at you across the table is plenty fun, gorgeous.”
I rolled my eyes at him. That was a line if I ever heard one. “Whatever you want.”
He stroked my hair off my face. “Layla, in all seriousness, you haven’t done anything to deserve that kind of hate from your brother. I like that his texts are what bother you and not that scumbag Kit. But you don’t deserve his either. If I had a fiancée and she ran from the altar, I would chase her. I would at least find out why and try to fix what had terrified her. He ran off with your brother and left you to fend for yourself. Not that I should be talking. I’m never getting married, so I won’t have that problem.”
“I’m going to adopt your philosophy in life. I’m going to decide that I’m simply not getting married and be done with the whole thing.”
He snorted, which was a funny noise coming from him. “You are entirely the type of person to fall in love and get married forever. You are made for that.”
“Don’t presume to know me just because we’ve spent a few days together now.”
“Ah, I see.” Zeke ran his finger over my knuckles. “You have a side to you I have yet to see, is that it? I’m reading you wrong.”
Truth was he probably wasn’t. “No, you’re right. I pretty much am what I am.”
“There’s not a thing wrong with that. I like who you are. You should like you, too.” He rose from the bed. “I’m going to go back to work.”
I leaned up on my elbows to regard him before he left. “Maybe when this is over, you could introduce me to men.” I didn’t know why I was needling him. “The kind that I should meet and marry. Maybe you could make me a list.”
The look he shot me could burn me to ash if he had laser eyes. “See you later, Layla.”
He would. We were going to have dinner, and I’d try to solve the enigma he was while I still had the ability to do so. Surely my father should be making his error soon. And it looked like I had a career if my publisher wanted me back.
All of our issues had been handled. No more problems.
If only life worked like that. The truth was it was as though I was sort of on sabbatical from reality, hanging out with Zeke before I went back to my real life in New York. I rose from the bed and looked at the desk on the other side of the room. He really had it decorated like a hotel. There was even a small blank packet of paper and a pencil inside of it.
I picked it up, the need to draw coming over me more strongly than it had in a long time. Most of the time, I ignored the need to do any kind of artwork. My father didn’t approve of it. He didn’t want us to be our mother, and considering things, I thought he was probably right. I was the most like her. My sisters were sensible. They knew how to navigate their lives without these kinds of problems.
The Banksy of Paris had caught my attention earlier. I started to sketch my mom’s face. I couldn’t remember her, but there was one picture of her that traveled with us everywhere when we moved. It was always placed in our bedroom, as if that would offer us some kind of comfort. Maybe it did for my sisters. We never discussed it amongst ourselves. For me, it creeped me out. My dead mother staring at me, forever twenty-two, smiling at something someone said to her off the camera. Her eyes were bright, her smile huge. The epitome of womanhood to me for so many years.
What if I didn’t want to smile?
I rubbed my eyes. I was overthinking this. I should stop this nonsense and check my email to see what they suggested I should write for them. I could look at Instagram and see what was happening to my image. But I didn’t. I sketched her. Like she looked in that picture but different. No one would really understand what I was doing. I changed her eyes. They were triangles, not real.
Smirking, I kept going. Look at me being ridiculous like I could make abstract art. So stupid, my father would say to me. Why are you wasting your time? You’re not an artist, Layla. You’re a joke. What are the chances you could be any kind of success like she was in her short years? They’d only ever see you as a secondary choice to her and not a very good one.
You know what, Dad? Go fuck yourself from my thoughts. You don’t get to take up any more space in my head without paying rent for your time there. We can pay off my wedding with the money you owe me for existing in my subconscious.
I was going to draw, and there wasn’t a thing my dad— there or not—could do about it anymore.
I’d gone through three quarters of my paper when a knock sounded again. “Come in.” I didn’t look up.
“Layla?”
Zeke’s voice flooded the room, and it forced my attention off my paper. “Oh, sorry. I…I lost track of time.”
