Forever Never

Remi felt energetic as the music thrummed a sparkling silver around her. Her fight with Brick had been invigorating. A purging, she decided, as she swirled a lovely cerulean blue into the tiny puddle of water she’d made for it on the paper. Watercolor wasn’t her medium of choice, but because of that, she’d found a backdoor into her creative brain.

Left-handed through a back door in a medium she wasn’t used to wasn’t exactly pretty, but at least she was putting paint on paper. It counted as progress.

She ignored the online instructor’s suggestion to water down the blue and added it to the paper in all its vibrant glory.

She liked her colors bright, bold. Full of feeling. Which was usually why she didn’t like watercolors. They were too subtle for her liking. But since oil paints were still too traumatizing, she’d circumvented the whole stupid creative block.

Speaking of circumventing, she’d also managed to ignore the infuriating Brick Callan for the better part of a week. No small feat considering she was using the studio space in his house. The door between them was more than just a physical barrier. It was a psychological reminder that she was no longer granting him access to her.

She was stronger, steadier now that she didn’t have the looming promise of his next rejection hanging over her. Forget the friend zone—she’d picked up his 250-pound, hard body and dumped Brick on the “vague acquaintance” list. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

She’d seen him at Doud’s earlier when she was grocery shopping, like a responsible adult, thank you very much. She’d merely raised her chin in an acknowledgment of his existence before turning away and launching into a conversation with Connie Mackleroy about her seven grandsons. The look he’d given her as he walked past was pure smolder. She was surprised that Connie’s Aqua Net hadn’t ignited.

Remi was diabolical enough to thoroughly ignore the man in his own house. She absolutely could have done the watercolor at the cottage. But just because she was forgetting about him didn’t mean he should enjoy the same luxury.

Which was also why she’d ordered the big jerk a new snowmobile. A fancy one with a heated seat and handlebars, balance control, and a crapload of other high tech features that his ancient, now deceased sled had lacked.

He’d think of her every time he rode it. Which would make him feel like crap, and that made her feel pretty damn good.

With a dramatic sweep of sap green that bled and swirled into the purple, she decided that she’d be okay with earning “the one that got away” status. Thinking about him moping around, regretting his callus rejections made her cheerful enough to nudge the volume higher on Macklemore, just in case he had managed to distract himself from the fact that she was under his roof.

Her phone vibrated on the table next to her. The name on the screen had her groaning and turning off the music. “What do you want?”

“Hello to you, too. Are you PMS-ing or something?” Rajesh asked. “Most of my clients love talking to me.”

“I doubt that. What’s up?” she asked, transferring fat drops of water to the center of the amorphous blobs of color on the paper. Video tutorial be damned.

“Got a rando who reached out and asked if your Harvest Moon is for sale.”

She opened her mouth to say “hell no,” then shut it again. Fresh out of art school, surviving on $1 cheeseburgers and cereal straight from the box, and desperately homesick, she’d been feeling particularly low after another gallery curator had said her work in landscapes and still life was “pedestrian” and “boardwalk quality.”

She’d lugged her portfolio back to her tiny apartment, opened a cheap bottle of wine, and painted to the Neil Young tune. It was the song she’d managed to talk Brick into slow dancing to at Kimber’s wedding. Every time she heard it, she was instantly transported back to that dance floor on the lush green lawn of the Grand Hotel. Back into Brick’s strong arms encased in a dress shirt. His broad palms warming the skin on her back. The dizzying rush of champagne on an empty stomach. The sparkle of stars in the night sky high above them.

It was also the night he’d arrested her. But that was another story.

Her Harvest Moon piece was an elementary attempt on a tiny canvas. Her craft had grown by leaps and bounds since that painting. To anyone else, it was practically worthless. Professionally, the amateur attempt to capture music in color was embarrassing. But to her, the painting meant Brick. So she’d kept it close.

“How’d they even know about it?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Something about seeing it in the background of some interview photoshoot you did a hundred years ago. It’s just sitting there on your nightstand catching dust.”

“Stop yard-saling my apartment, dick!”

“If you’d get off your broken-armed ass and start producing real paintings again while the attention is on like this, I wouldn’t have to snoop through your place for Alessandra originals.”

“I really regret giving you a spare key to my place.”

“Hey, if you don’t come back, can I have your apartment? It’s bigger than mine, and the natural light highlights my glorious brown skin.”

“I’m coming back,” she insisted. She had unfinished business to take care of.

“Whatever. Can I sell the painting or what, bro?”

Remi bit back a groan and dug out her resolve. She didn’t need to cling to something she’d kept only because it reminded her of Brick. Not anymore. “Yeah. It’s fine.”

“Awesome. Also, where do you get this fabric softener? I dig it.”

“Are you doing your laundry at my place?”

“My washer broke. I needed somewhere to wash my delicates.”

“I should fire you,” she mused.

“I might fire you if you don’t start producing again. How long does it take bones to heal anyway? And can you at least send me some pics of you pretending to work wherever the hell you are? This whole social media silence isn’t looking good.”

“Whatever. Don’t leave your underwear hanging all over my place,” she said before disconnecting.

Looking down at the watery mess she’d made on paper, she decided she wasn’t in the mood to paint anymore. Instead of a soft, full heart floating on puffy clouds, hers was a sharp, mottled one, split down the middle with colors bleeding under it as if the contents were swirling down a drain. After a quick clean-up, she let herself out the French doors into the bracing chill of the backyard before skirting the house to leave through the gate.

Squinting against the sun that bounced off the world of white, she stuffed her hands in her coat pockets and produced two brand-new, insulated gloves in hot pink that she definitely hadn’t put there. Brick. She didn’t know how or when, but the protective gesture had his annoying name all over them. On principal, she refused to put them on in case he was watching from a window. So it was with ice-cold fingers that she picked up the package leaning against the cottage gate.

She hurried inside to the coffeemaker. While it burbled to life, she used a steak knife to cut through the tape. Hoping for some of the art supplies she’d ordered, Remi’s eyes narrowed when she lifted the lid to reveal a newspaper clipping sitting on top of some kind of shredded material.

Ballard sells most recent piece for 6 figures.

She glared at the paper. She hadn’t done a damn thing. She hadn’t made any calls, sent any emails. She hadn’t tunneled into the hospital basement to break into Camille’s room. She’d followed his fucking rules, but the bastard still wasn’t happy. He wasn’t in control of the entire narrative. Alessandra Ballard’s reputation wasn’t his to crush.

She stomped over to the door and jammed her hands into her new stupid gloves. If he’d been dumb enough to leave fingerprints, she’d use it against him.

Carefully, she lifted the clipping and set it aside to study the packing material. It was ragged scraps of sunny yellows and oranges with streaks of turquoise.

“You motherfucker,” she hissed.

“Open it!”

“I used to love surprise presents,” Camille had said, running elegant fingers under the tissue paper.

“This one isn’t an I’m sorry,” Remi had assured her. “This is a thank you for being my friend. And a promise for a brighter future.”

“It’s beautiful.” Camille’s soft gasp of surprise, the way she stroked her fingertips over the textures and colors Remi had committed to canvas made her feel like she’d done something right.

“It’s ‘Shake It Out’ from Florence and the Machine,” Remi had explained. “It’s about moving on.”

White-hot rage boiled in her veins as she stared down into desecrated remains of what once stood for a hopeful future.

With shaking hands that wanted to hurl the entire box into the lake, she parted the scraps and ribbons of canvas to dig to the bottom. It wouldn’t be complete without a threat. He wouldn’t just send her her own shredded painting. He was far too theatrical and full of himself to miss the opportunity. And there it was, scrawled in black on thick linen paper.

It’s a shame what accidents can befall pretty things.

Remi seethed from the inside out. Her entire body shook with some poisonous mixture of fear and fury. Tears filled her eyes, blurring everything.

She wanted to douse it with lighter fluid, set it on fire, then go to Chicago and do it again.

But that wasn’t how wars were won. Monsters beaten. Shadows vanquished. No, she needed a plan. And for that, she’d need to calm the hell down. She wouldn’t be terrified into submission and silence. He’d fucked with the wrong woman.

Her phone buzzed on the counter, startling her. She ignored the new text messages and, as bile rose in her throat, she opened her camera app and snapped pictures of the box and its contents. When she was done, she carefully bagged the note, clipping, and the remains of her lovely little painting in food storage bags. It all went into what she’d dubbed the Blackmail Cabinet next to the refrigerator.

She was shaken. But he’d missed the mark with this. The unnecessary ruin, the insinuation that a woman was nothing more than a “pretty thing,” was something Remi would make him regret.

Somehow.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Damn it. She needed to think. She needed a plan. She couldn’t just sit here and wait for the end.

Blowing out a breath, she swiped her hand over her face.

She needed a distraction. Something to occupy her time while ideas simmered in the back of her head. Something to calm her down and steal her focus away from the nausea swirling in her belly. That’s how she approached a new painting. She worked around it, until it took shape in her head.

Her phone buzzed again, and she snatched it off the counter.

It was a group text led shockingly enough by Brick.

Brick: Spoke to the chief. She’s asking for a progress report on our initiative.

Kimber: And by progress report, I suppose she wants more than, “We talked about it and did nothing”?

Brick: That’s my take. Are you two available to meet tomorrow night? We could grab dinner.

Brick was inviting the sisters Ford to dinner to talk. It was the least Brick-like thing he’d done in recent memory. She was getting to him. Not that it mattered, of course.

Kimber: Fine with me. How about the grille at 7?

Brick: That works.

Brick: Remi?

Instead of responding, Remi made a call.

“Hey, Dad. Do you think you can sneak me into the school? I’ve got a special project I need help with.”