Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“That would be incredible,” Faith says. “And Chris said you need four pieces to make that happen?”
“Yes, please,” she says. “But I need to know that you’re a for-sure placement by next week. And I can talk to your agent if you wish.” She laughs and glances at Nick. “Or your attorney.”
Chris joins us at that moment, greeting everyone as he claims his seat, his hand instantly on Sara’s. “Where are we on things?”
“I was just telling her the details on the gallery,” Sara replies.
Chris flags down a waiter, who is immediately by his side. “I know you know what I want.”
The waiter reaches into his apron pocket, removes a beer, and hands it to Chris. “At your service.”
“Thanks, David,” Chris says, eying Sara, who shakes her head but accepts his replying kiss more than a little willingly.
“Beer, anyone?” Chris asks as the waiter holds two more up.
“Don’t mind if I do,” I say, accepting it, while Faith and Sara wave off the offer.
“In explanation,” Sara says as the waiter leaves. “Chris hates wine and champagne.”
“You hate wine?” Faith asks. “But your godparents own a winery.”
“And I still ask for a beer when I’m there,” Chris replies.
In other words, he’s his own man, the way Faith wants to be her own woman, and I squeeze her hand, silently telling her there is no reason she is that winery and not her art. She glances at our hands, the tiny gesture telling me that she hears me even before she squeezes back.
From there, the four of us start talking, and I take in this world of art that is Faith’s now, listening to the ins and outs, interested in a way I wouldn’t have been before meeting Faith. It’s not long before we’re eating cake, and Sara and Faith have hit it off so well that their heads are together, and Chris and I are left to our own devices.
“You care about her,” he says, his voice low, the women too absorbed in talk of art to hear us anyway.
“She matters,” I say without hesitation. “Yes.” And admitting that to someone else, saying it and meaning it, tells me just how deep I am in with Faith.
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and I do the same. “Does she know about the club?”
“No,” I say, and while I have pushed this topic aside, with bigger problems to face, I can’t ignore the topic forever. “Now is not the time.”
“It’s never the time,” he says. “And telling Sara was hard on us, but we had to go there to get here. And one small secret becomes bigger over time. The bigger the secret and the longer you keep it, the bigger the problem.”
The bigger the secret.
He has no fucking clue how much bigger my secrets are than that fucking sex club. There’s a hell of a lot that I have to come back from with Faith, and at some point I’ll have to decide if I spill it all, fast and hard, or in pieces.
Chris has just leaned back in his seat when the music changes and an old seventies song, “Sara Smile,” begins to play, a soft, easy, sexy tune. Chris sets his beer on the small table in between us and stands, walking to Sara and taking her hand. “I need to borrow my wife for a moment,” he says, but he’s not looking at us when he speaks. He’s looking at her. And she’s looking not at us but at him.
Chris pulls her to her feet and leads her inside the gallery, the words to the song filling the air:
When I feel cold, you warm me
And when I feel I can’t go on, you come and hold me
It’s you and me forever
Sara, smile
Faith stands up, and I catch her hand. “Where are you going?”
“Bathroom,” she says, but she won’t look at me.
“Faith.”
“I need a minute, Nick.”
She tugs against me, and I release her, but I don’t want to. I watch her walk back into the gallery, and I know this woman in ways I should not yet be able to know her. Chris and Sara have this way of radiating love. You feel it. You almost believe in happily ever after. And then she suddenly feels like we’re nothing but sex and goodbye. I’m on my feet in an instant, pursuing her, following a sign to the bathroom. I spy Faith just before she is about to round a hallway, and the minute she looks around that corner, she flattens on the wall as if burned.
I’m in front of her in a few long strides, my hands on her waist. Her eyes pop open in shock, and I lean around the corner to find Chris kissing Sara, and it’s one hell of a kiss. Intense. Passionate. I refocus on Faith, and I cup her face. “We’re whatever we decide to be, Faith.” And I kiss her, just as passionately as Chris is kissing Sara. I kiss her my way. I kiss her and let her taste my words: We’re whatever we decide to be. And when I tear my lips from hers, I say, “Instead of a hard limit, we have a new hard rule: Possibilities, Faith. We have them. Say it.”