Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74467 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 372(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74467 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 372(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
“The city in the fall, and London in six months. I’m going to have a piece in each show. Not sure what piece, but something. Would you want to come with me?”
“There isn’t any other place I’d rather be.”
Her fingers tangled in the back of his hair as she pulled him toward her lips. Before they touched, she looked into his eyes. “I think I’m in love with you.”
Kiel smiled and let out a little laugh. “I know I’m in love with you so if you can get to the part where you do love me, that’d be awesome.”
“You love me?”
His expression turned serious. “I love you, Eloise Harris.”
She let those words sink in. They were different from when her aunt said them to her or even on the rare occasion her parents would. Eloise absorbed them, welcomed them. And then it hit her, like a shot to her heart. She didn’t need to think or even process what it meant to be in love because she already knew.
“I love you, Kiel Collier.”
He beamed and threw his head back, laughing. “Damn, my name is sexy when you say it.”
“You should see the rest of you,” she muttered as they continued dancing.
twenty
It’d been two weeks since the summer showcase and Eloise still rode the high from that night. Everywhere she and Kiel went, someone had something lovely to say about her artwork. What cracked Kiel up were the older ladies who blushed when they ran into him. He was somewhat of a celebrity now in Seaport and he really liked playing it up when Eloise was with him.
The Collier’s still lived in their rental until the closing on their new house completed. Kiel had been back to Albany once with his sisters, to get their cars and pack more of their belongings. Once they had the keys to the new house, they’d take another weeklong trip and get everything ready for the movers. Kiel thought the process was slow, but his father said everything moved along as planned.
Kiel spent most of his mornings with his parents and by dinner time, he was with Eloise. Although he often “ran” into his girlfriend when he was out. Yes, they had made it official—whatever that meant these days. He made sure he was out a lot, which was a lot easier now that the onslaught of tourists had gone home, because he hated not seeing her during the day, which was going to be an issue when they finally figured out their future.
They had offers—probably from some they’d never even thought about. As it turned out, colleges wanted Eloise. She would look good to other prospective students. Every school that wanted her offered her full rides. Galleries wanted her. They enticed her with buzz words like central placement, VIP showings, and private viewings.
The same went for Kiel. When he had initially applied to grad school, he never thought about what kind of financial assistance he could get. He expected he’d end up taking out loans and would live off noodles and week-old pizza. But with his grades and letters of recommendations, schools offered him money, but only after he began rescinding his applications. Some more than others. He never thought about having options until now.
He carried take-out from Pearl’s into the apartment, set it on the counter and then shouted upstairs that he had dinner.
“I’ll be right down.”
Kiel plated their fish and chips, took the lid off the tartar sauce, and set everything on the table. Eloise came down, wearing her normal get-up of overalls, tank top, no socks or shoes, and her hair piled on top of her head. She came over and kissed him.
“This looks good.” She sat down opposite of him and then got up to go wash her hands in the kitchen sink. “How was your day?”
“It was good. I printed out all the offers and went over them with my dad.”
“Yeah? Did you decide?”
Eloise and Kiel had spent hours upon hours, going over his grad school options. He wanted to stay close to her, but she wanted him to choose the best school for him. Her reasoning was that if they were going to pay for him to go to school, to get the best education, he shouldn’t pass it up.
“Possibly,” he said with a sigh.
“You don’t sound so sure.” She sat back down.
“I’ll be honest,” he said to her before putting a fry dipped in tartar sauce into his mouth. “I don’t want to leave you, and since you haven’t decided on what you want to do, I think we should decide together.”
He had a few offers in the general vicinity of the schools that wanted Eloise to attend.
She took a bite of her fish and chewed. “Margaux offered me a job today.”
Kiel looked up sharply. “She did?”
“She wants to do some traveling and figured if I’m around, I can run the gallery.”