Page 11 of Chosen By the BRATVA Grump

“It’s your opening. I’m here to support you.”

“What do you mean, support me?” Her hand goes up and down, indicating all of me. “You can’t come in here dressed like that, looking like that.” Her hand is making circles near my face now.

“You told me to bring everyone.”

“I know what I said.” She glances toward the doorway and lowers her voice further. “Half those people signed the letter about the green paint. Mrs. Vasey from the framing shop just asked me if I’m in some kind of trouble, and I had to laugh like it was a joke, and Daisy has been photographing the room all morning for the town paper.”

“I see.” I keep my voice level. “You’re ashamed of me.”

“That is not fair,” she says, and her eyes go bright and furious. “That’s not what this is.”

“Then tell me what it is. Last night you had your hands in my hair while you were panting my name, and this morning you couldn’t look at me.”

She stands in front of me, her mouth opening and closing while she tries to think of the words she needs.

“Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it,” I say. “Anything.”

She takes a breath, and she holds it a second too long, and I watch her decide.

“I’d like you to leave,” she says.

There’s a version of me that stays. He argues in the store room with a woman on the biggest day of her career. But I don’t want to be that man with her.

“All right,” I say.

I pick up a large, empty box, and go back through the gallery. The talking picks up behind me before I reach the door. Out on the street, Japer and Delilah walk past me, both looking at me like I’ve grown an extra head.

“Where are you going?” Delilah asks, eyeing the box.

“I’m not welcome,” I grumble.

Sammie is locking up the cafe as I cross the road. “Looking mighty fine there, Mr Federov. Isn’t that the suit you wore to our wedding?”

Eduard, who is pushing the pram, looks me over. “Sure looks like it,” he says. “Didn’t you bring Mechislav with you?”

“He wasn’t far behind me,” I say, then continue walking to my car.

It’s parked in the small lot I always use when I come down here. I flatten the box and slide it into my trunk. Then I get in the driver’s side but don’t start the engine.

Through the glass I watch her work the room, back with the older couple, then a man in a tweed jacket who I’ve heard Sammie call Bill in the cafe. She welcomes Delilah and Sammie with a hug and kiss on the cheek, then the same for Jasper and Eduard. Mechislav arrives, looks for me, sees I’m still in my car, and frowns. He isn’t as big as I am, but he is pretty close. She doesn’t ask him to leave.

I sit there and take last night apart.

She wanted it. She was the one who put her hand around me. She said my name in a way I’ll be hearing for the rest of my life. Then I said I’d wanted her since the first time I saw her that day in the café. That I’d been lying awake in my apartment thinking about her hands, that every day for weeks she was the only thing in my head, and she went stiff in my arms and couldn’t get her dress on fast enough.

Every word of that was true. I turn it over like I would a manifest, looking for the line that doesn’t match the weight, only I can’t find it. She just doesn’t feel the same way.

I scrub my hands over my face. Just because Eduard and Jasper managed to somehow secure relationships, doesn’t mean we all will. It’s ridiculous to think that because I feel this strongly about someone I barely know, that she would feel the same.

I’m an asshole. Maybe it runs in the family.

A black Jaguar pulls up outside the gallery, and a man gets out and looks over the gallery with his lips curled in what looks to me like disgust.

I know his face. Jannick Johansson bought the warehouse two doors down from our second yard three years ago and has never once put anything in it.

He stands on the sidewalk, straightens his cuffs, and goes inside.

Kimmie