“You think so?” She finally stops spinning the ring in favor of pressing both hands flat against her thighs, her smile quavering and tremulous. “I’ve been at it for ages. It was actually due last week, but I just…I had to get an extension on the deadline. Which is never a great look.”
“I’m sure they understand. Sometimes life happens.”
Ophelia doesn’t look so convinced. “I’m not so sure about that. I want to make a good first impression. But I couldn’t turn in something that I wasn’t proud of. You know?”
Of course I know. Just as I know exactly why Ophelia missed that deadline. She wants this so bad it’s devouring her from the inside. And so she wants it to be perfect.
As long as she doesn’t turn in the work, she never has to find out if her art is good enough.
Analysis paralysis—or at least that’s what Shannon called it. When you spend so much time worrying whether something is good enough that you never actually finish it in the first place.
I wonder if Wyatt ever experiences that.
Thinking about Wyatt sparks heat in the pit of my stomach all over again.Maybe we’ll run into each other.And it’s so hard to resist the urge to pull out my phone and text him and ask whattime he’s going…just so I can make sure I’m still around when he gets there.
The gallery is one of the fancy ones, the kind where people are mostly buying the art to launder their money and avoid paying taxes. I’d say I hate it on principle, but let’s be real—I’d club a baby seal to have my work displayed in a place like this. (Principles do not, in fact, pay bills.)
Ophelia, seeing the look on my face, rolls her eyes. “It’s obnoxious, I know. But apparently Carolina is really good, so I’m trying not to prejudge.”
“I believe it. Getting into a place like this is a big deal.”
There’s an actual, real-life art bouncer at the door. He’s not checking names on a list or anything—even schmancy places like this are still open to the public—but heisleering at everyone as if to say,Touch anything with your pleb hands, and I’ll cut them off.
“What, something in my teeth?” I mutter to Ophelia as we sidle past him, which earns me a snicker (Ophelia) and a glare (art bouncer).
The ex-girlfriend’s girlfriend’s exhibition is a strange one. Mostly paintings, spaced evenly along the ecru walls and perfectly lit. But there are some mixed-media pieces as well, like the green canvas that serves as a vertical platter bearing a collection of ivory bones:half rabbit,says the caption,half hawk.Or the one that features red paint on red paint, slithering in globs and clots down the canvas. A careless scrap of fabric dangles from one corner, trapped by a wad of near-black acrylic.
“I’m gonna go say hi to Patty and Carolina,” Ophelia says, and I nod, too fixated on the gore painting to do much else.
I peer closer, my hands locked behind my back to help me resist the almost-overwhelming urge to touch, to see if the paint is still wet. It looks visceral, like the product of a fresh kill.
“I had a nightmare that looked like this once,” says a familiar voice, and I jerk my head up to meet Wyatt’s gaze.
I should say something clever and insightful about the piece, but of course my troll brain has other ideas. “You’re actually here!” A split second later, embarrassment catches up with me. “Sorry. I mean…Hi. Of course you’re here. And same.”
At least he smiles, even if I suspect he’s just indulging me. “Sometimes I exist in places besides campus and gay clubs. Do you know the artist?”
“Only in degrees of Kevin Bacon. She’s my roommate’s ex-girlfriend’s new girlfriend.”
“I feel like I need to be better at math to process what you just said.”
“Or at least be really good at those riddles where you have to figure out how many daughters a man has based off their eye colors.”
“Hate those.”
We examine the painting again. It’s honestly hard to look away, like trying to ignore someone bleeding to death right in front of you.
“What do you think it means?” Wyatt says.
I tilt toward the canvas. “I don’t know. It’s giving menstrual blood. Are those actual humanhairs?”
Wyatt moves closer; his shoulder grazes mine, just for a moment, as he leans in. “Maybe it’s a still life of someone having their head smashed open with a brick.”
I snort, then quickly press my hand over my mouth and glance around to see if anyone noticed. Big names come to these. Big names like, well, Wyatt Cole…although he certainly isn’t judging me. He catches my gaze and winks, and my heart does this little flutter that is both expected and completely, damningly inappropriate.
It’s getting really hard to stay mad at him.
“Mr. Cole?” someone says, and we both turn to find a slim woman in a pencil skirt and hipster glasses. She smiles andgestures behind her at a knot of people near the bone piece, all of them watching Wyatt with ill-disguised hope written across their faces. “Sorry to interrupt, but I would love to introduce you to a few people, if you don’t mind…?”
