She leans, back and I rest my hand on her face. “I can’t lose you.”
“Then you won’t,” she says. “Because if there is one thing I know about you, Nick Rogers, it’s that you don’t lose anything you really want.”
She’s right. I don’t and I want her. “Move in with me.”
She blanches. “What?”
“Move in with me, Faith. We’ll split our time between Sonoma and San Francisco, but wherever we are, we’re together. We’re home.”
“We’ve only known each other a few weeks, Nick.”
“And I want to know more. I want you to know more. Find out who I am, Faith. Find out that my money won’t change us or me. The dynamic we’ve shared this week here won’t change. You don’t have to answer now. Think about it. Decide when you’re ready, but expect me to ask again. Expect me to—”
“I should say no.”
“Why?”
“Because it seems smart.”
“But what feels right, Faith?”
“You. Us.”
“Then move in with me.”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Faith
I said yes.
This is my thought as I fall asleep in Nick’s arms only hours after actually doing so. And I said yes without hesitation, with Sara’s words in my head:What if tomorrow never comes?
I wake Wednesday morning with a smile and those same words in my head:I said yes. I feel lighter in some way with this choice I realize, as Nick kisses me before he heads down the stairs to run while I head to my studio. It’s as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I’m no longer fighting my connection to Nick. No longer letting that fear, I’d inadvertently let rule me, rule me. And as I step to a fresh canvas, preparing to work on my final show piece, I step back to what I call ‘An Eye for an Eye’. I want to finish it. And I do. I finish what I know to be the most daring piece I’ve ever painted. It’s not my trademark black and white and red. It’s not my trademark landscape.
I love it.
I love Nick.
And when I walk back into the bedroom to shower, I spy the card from my father lying on the nightstand, and I realize now that the reasons I don’t want to open it run deeper than I’ve allowed myself to admit. On some level, even after I left Sonoma to chase my dreams, I still needed his approval. I feared never having it. I really don’t need to open a card that tells me I never had it. But one day, when the winery is running magically again and my art is just as magical, maybe I’ll read it to prove to myself that I never needed his approval.
It’s in that moment, that Nick walks into the bedroom, loose hair dangling around his face, obviously having escaped during his run, his snug t-shirt damp, his body hard. He glances at the card in my hand. “It’s calling to you?”
“No,” I say. “Actually, it’s not calling to me at all. Nothing that drags me back to the past is calling to me.” I shove it under the mattress, and like the past, I leave it behind me.
Nick steps to me, his hands settling on my shoulders. “One day it will feel right.”
In that moment, I think of the shadows I sometimes see in his eyes, the secrets he hasn’t shared, hoping that this new chapter in our relationship will free him to share them with me. I push to my toes and kiss him. “One day,” I say, but I’m not talking about the card.
He knows. He always seems to know. He inches back, his navy blue eyes meeting mine, and for just a moment, I see what he never allows me to see: Vulnerability. And that is progress. That is one step closer to him being as exposed as he’s made me.
By the time I reach the gallery, I’m leaning toward including ‘An Eye for an Eye’ in the L.A. show. Excited about my choice, I chitchat with Sara, and then settle into my new office with a cup of coffee beside me. And then I do it. I pull up the forms for my submissions and type in my selections, but I can’t seem to get myself to push send. Sara appears in my office and claims the seat in front of me, setting a photo on the desk. “What do you think of this painting?”