I grab the string of lights hanging in the center of the doorway and walk them to the side opposite Leo, tossing them over the frame and latching them into the hooks that line the door.
“Thanks, Auggie,” he says.
Macie turns, hands on her hips as she examines our work. “Perfect.” She claps. “It gets pretty dark in here after the sun sets. We want to keep the lighting low and calm. These will definitely help with ambiance.”
“I don’t need to make a speech or anything, do I?” I ask.
“Nope.” Her blond curls bounce as she shakes her head. “Not unless you want to.”
“I don’t.”
She laughs. “It’ll be pretty low-key. Local collectors and buyers, plus the artists and their families, will be in attendance. Everyone is free to silently bid on pieces they’re interested in. Next week, I’ll contact winners and coordinate delivery. A quarter of the proceeds go to the artist, a quarter to Muse, and the other half is split between the Hayes Foundation and a variety of other conservation charities. There will be an open bar and hors d'oeuvres. Feel free to mingle and talk with buyers about your story and the Foundation. They’ll probably be willing to bid higher if you do.”
I chuff awkwardly, rubbing the back of my neck. “Honestly, I’d rather not do that, either.”
Macie shrugs. “That’s fine. I can do it. I’m great at talking to people, and there’s nothing I love more than getting a man to open his wallet.”
“Are all the buyers men?” I wonder.
“No. But most of them are married to one, and if there’s one thing I love even more, it’s getting a man to spend exorbitant amounts of cash on his spouse.”
“Damn right,” her husband chimes as he saddles up beside her.
“Please,” she scoffs. “You love spending money on me.”
“Yep.” Dom nods, kissing her temple. “Turns me on.”
I chuckle as they both step away, Dom’s hands all over his wife while she laughs into his shoulder. I finish helping Leo with the lights, briefly greeting Everett and Dahlia as they arrive. I spend the next hour silently bidding on a number of Carter’s photographs up for auction that I think would look good in the shop.
He’s a landscape photographer who’s worked all over the world but specializes in the
West Coast and Hawaii. I learned after speaking with him briefly at Darby and Leo’s wedding last spring that while he and his girlfriend, Penelope, are primarily based here in Los Angeles, they split much of their time between their hometown in Oregon and where his mother lives on Oahu, so most of his work is shot between those three regions. Lucky for him, considering they’re three of the most beautiful places on the planet.
Several of his pieces are of Pacific Shores in particular, though. One shot of the boardwalk catches my eye, another of a grassy knoll overlooking the coastal cliffs, the image washing me in a sense of déjà vu because it looks suspiciously similar to the cliffside Elena and I spent so much of our youth lying on while we studied the stars…and each other.
I assumed Elena wasn’t going to attend when she didn’t leave her room once this morning before I took off. It was cemented when Dahlia and Everett arrived without her. She would’ve had to get a ride from one of her brothers, or from me, considering she doesn’t have a car of her own.
Even so, as the night goes on, I keep watching every person who walks through the door, wondering if—possibly hoping—it could be her.
I force my eyes away again as another pair of strangers enter the gallery, dragging my attention back to Darby and Leo. Soft conversation hums all around me, but I can’t focus on any of it. I’m standing next to a table, elbow propped with a fresh glass of whiskey in my hand. Darby sits on a chair beside me, legs thrown onto Leo’s lap, her heels abandoned on the floor as he rubs her swollen feet.
“I told you that you didn’t need to help with setting up, Honeysuckle. Look at your poor feet, baby.”
I glance down. Her eyes are closed, head tossed back as she holds her growing belly, golden hair falling around her shoulders. She’s wearing a black cocktail dress that hugs all of her pregnancy curves, though it looks fairly uncomfortable. I know Leo had insisted she wear flat shoes and not spend so much time on her feet. She didn’t listen to either recommendation.
“It’s fine.” She sighs. “That’s why I have you.”
The front door whooshes open as city noise and outside air pour in, but I refuse to look this time. I keep my eyes fixed on my friend as she takes another sip of her water, but when I hear someone gasp, “Damn” nearby, my head snaps up.
I don’t know exactly who said it, but Macie is standing closest, so it must’ve been her. Darby and Leo’s heads snap the same way mine does as my personal hurricane of nightmares blows into the building.
Just like she promised, I’m choking on my fucking tongue.
Elena saunters into the room looking like the personification of a painting you’d find hung up in this gallery. Fuck that, actually. The Louvre. Two straps of plum-colored fabric, just wide enough to cover her ample breasts, rest on Elena’sshoulders, creating a deep V before they meet at her navel, the crescent moon and dripping stars I tattooed beneath her sternum when she was twenty-two on full display. A thin, silver chain wraps around her waist, and the dress flows down below it like liquid satin, pooling at her feet. A massive slit rides up one side, almost to her hip. Each step she takes into the gallery has the fabric swishing, revealing the entirety of her left leg, and the serpent around her thigh. My eyes get caught there, and the damn thing seems to wink at me each time the dress slides aside and reveals it, like it’s fucking taunting me.
Her skin is smooth and glowing, seeming to sparkle in the soft gallery lighting. Dark curls tumble down her shoulders, swaying over her breasts with each movement she makes, and I’m suddenly desperate to have the strands between my fingers—wrapped around my fist.
It’s almost as if she’s fucking backlit, the art on display, the creation to be admired in this room. Everything else goes blurry, outside my periphery and nonexistent. There is only her.
