Ugh. The last thing in the world she felt like doing was having a girls’ night out: the point of which was to drink copious amounts of alcohol to make you forget about your lousy man and to give you the courage to dance with, possibly kiss, some random guy. She was pregnant and the thought of kissing anyone else but Tyce made her want to throw up. What she most wanted to do was to go over to Tyce’s warehouse to beg him, again, to reconsider her offer, to plead with him to love her.
Stupid heart, wanting what it couldn’t have. So, not having an excuse to stay in—being pregnant and miserable wasn’t a good enough excuse for the women in her life—she was out and about and wearing this silly dress with her bigger-than-normal boobs on display. It was a baby doll dress in a multicolored print and it effectively hid her blossoming baby bump.
“Take me home,” Sage begged as they piled out of a taxi in front of the gallery where she and Tyce met again several months ago. She frowned at Piper. “Why are we here? They don’t have an exhibition scheduled. And why are all the lights off?”
“It’s an exhibition by a Norwegian installation artist, something to do with bioluminescence,” Piper replied, tucking her hand into Sage’s arm. “It’s got to be dark to see the effect of the art.”
“Don’t want to go,” Sage said, digging her heels in and looking at the cab. “I’m tired and my ankles are swollen and I have a backache.”
Okay, she was whining but she couldn’t do art, any type of art, right now. Was she asking too much to be allowed to nurse her weeping, bleeding heart in peace? Her mind was too full of Tyce as it was; memories of what they did and said to each other replayed on the megascreen of her mind, and coming back to this place, the place where they met, was simply too much for her.
She missed him so much she felt like she was walking around with a fraction of her heart.
“You’re not far along enough to be complaining about a backache and swollen ankles,” Cady told her, placing a hand in the middle of her back and pushing her toward the door.
“And you’re not carrying twin boys so I have no sympathy for you,” Piper added.
Tate rubbed Piper’s big bump and smiled. “Fifteen minutes, Sage, and then we will take you wherever you want to go.”
Sage perked up at that suggestion. “Home?”
“If that’s what you want,” Tate replied as they walked up the flight of stairs to the front door. Tate pulled the door open and ushered her into the dark gallery. Sage rolled her eyes at the complete darkness. Honestly some of these exhibitions were just ridiculous and in trying to do something weird and wonderful they forgot to be practical. How was she supposed to see the art if she couldn’t see two inches in front of her face? Anyone could trip, she could bump into people...
Speaking of, why didn’t she hear any chatter, why was the gallery so very silent?
Light flooded into the room and Sage blinked, her eyes needing a moment to refocus. Well, that was going to ruin the impact of the bioluminescence.
Sage immediately, instinctively, looked right to the spot where she first met Tyce and frowned at the massive blue abstract oil hanging on the wall. It held the outline of what looked like a woman’s back and bottom and to the right of where her head should be; she could clearly see a fist-size hole in the canvas.
Sage gasped, recognizing the painting as being the one Tyce pushed her against when he made love to her that night in his studio. Barely breathing, she slowly looked around the gallery and when she saw what was on the walls, the room started to spin.
All his portraits were hanging on the walls, a good portion of which were of her. There were some of his mom, some of Lachlyn, many of random New Yorkers—from street people to buskers and servers—and they were all fantastic. Only the big blue abstract painting and the portraits of her, and of Lachlyn and his mom, had not-for-sale stickers on them.
Sage held her face, in awe of his talent. It was a small exhibition, roughly and quickly tossed together but it was that much more powerful for it. This wasn’t slick and smooth, it was rough and tender and...open. This was Tyce allowing the world to look inside.