A Necessary End: A Novel by Holly Brown

Author:Holly Brown [Brown, Holly]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw, azw3, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-07-06T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 28

Gabe

That stuff is amazing,” I say as I walk in the room. “I can’t even smell it.”

Leah pauses, holding her paintbrush high in the air, but she doesn’t turn. “The consistency isn’t great, but I can work with it.”

“Spoken like a true artiste.”

I’m still looking at her back, but I can see by the way she stiffens that my comment was not well received. Seems like I can’t say anything to a woman today without her bristling. Of course, my behavior at the veghead restaurant was pretty extreme, even before I polished off a $150 bottle of vino. Come to think of it, the wine only improved me, but by then, Adrienne was about done. She was staring fixedly at the view—by which I mean, the kid.

I sit down on the floor near where Leah is working, carefully balancing the glass of bourbon on my knee. “It’s going to be beautiful,” I tell her. “That’s really a special thing you’re doing for him.”

“Thanks. Can you even tell what it is yet?” She sounds slightly challenging.

I squint at the wall. There are swirls of green and lavender, painted with great care, but no, I can’t exactly see it yet. Adrienne and I already approved the sketch, which is a slight variation on the tattoo Leah plans to have someday. It’s going to be an enchanted forest. I take a guess: “That’s the peacock tree.”

She turns, her face as soft and open as I’ve ever seen it. “Really? You can see it already?” I nod, because when a woman is looking at you like that, what else can you do? It’s the most alabaster of lies.

She tilts her head, paintbrush extended, as she studies the wall.

“You look pretty when you work,” I say. She makes no response. “I know the paints were expensive. I can reimburse you.”

I see her stiffen again. “If I wanted you to pay, I would have asked you for the money. This is a gift.”

“Thank you.”

“A gift for Michael.” The subtext: not for you, or for Adrienne. It stings. I mean, I knew she wasn’t going to be handing out presents to Adrienne any time soon, but I thought she and I were friends. She was the one who said it first, that day we went to Lands End. She said a lot of things that day.

I take a long sip of the bourbon. Calm down, I tell myself. Only an asshole would use any of that against her.

“Well,” I say, “thank you on behalf of the kid.”

“You need to stop that.” She’s dabbing a bit of darker green around the edge of one of her swirls. “His name is Michael. You suggested it, now get used to it.”

In the past, when she’s admonished me, it’s been flirty. Not this time.

“Or give him a nickname,” she continues. “But ‘the kid’ just sounds . . . I don’t know, it sounds shitty. It sounds like he’s just an annoyance to you.” She spins and regards me. “Is that all he is?”

I find I can’t meet her eyes.

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