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Chapter 34

Sloan

♪Yes I’m Changing | Tame Impala

Iwoke up alone with Tucker in Jason’s bed. My boyfriend’s side of the mattress was cold.

My house was empty and on the market. I’d quit my job and liquidated my life. And I was exhausted. We both were. Which was why it was weird he wasn’t sleeping when he had the chance.

We were living in Jason’s trailer until we left on tour in two days. In the last week my entire life had been reduced to a single large suitcase and a carry-on. My car was gone. The insurance company declared it totaled because apparently four tires, some windows, and a coat of paint would cost more than the whole vehicle. Got fifteen hundred for it and I felt like a bandit.

I wandered out to the bathroom wrapped in a blanket. Jason wasn’t in the trailer. I peeked out the blinds and saw him by the pool house talking to Ernie.

I slid down onto the sofa with Tucker to wait for him to come back in and turned on the TV. I was sitting there, flipping through channels, when an email came through to my phone with a ping.

Every time my phone chimed I jumped a little, even though I’d changed my number and deleted my social media accounts. The Lola onslaught had been horrible. I was so glad it seemed to be over.

I clicked on the little envelope icon. My heart leapt.

It had been over two years since I got a message to this account. It was the one I used back when I painted hyperrealistic art, the one on the business cards the art galleries handed out—or used to, back when I did that sort of thing.

It was so random, for a split second I worried it was more trolling, but I recognized the name. It was a gallery curator in Laguna Beach. A well-known one.

I pored over the email.

She had a client who’d seen Girl in Poppies and wanted a painting of his daughter. He wanted it by Christmas and he was willing to pay $4,000 for it.

A commission.

I let out a puff of air.

This was the kind of order I used to pray for. My paintings usually sold, but they hung in galleries for months before they did. Not only to have someone love my work enough to commission it, but to have the painting sold before it even existed? God, it was my dream!

And then the reality pummeled me.

I was leaving on tour. And there was no way I could paint where I was going.

The disappointment hit me right in the heart.

I was ready to get serious about my art again. But I’d been bogged down with Etsy and astronaut cats so I hadn’t been able to actually attempt it. And now that I’d shucked all those responsibilities and had this incredible opportunity dangling in front of me, I couldn’t take it.

I put my phone away and went back to watching TV, depressed. I guess I should be happy that I’d gotten to the point where I wanted to pursue things that I used to be passionate about. Even if I couldn’t do them.

Jason clomped into the trailer twenty minutes later and looked surprised to see me up. He put his hand on the back of the sofa to lean down and kiss me. “Good morning. Coffee?” He smiled, but he looked weary.

“Yeah. Hey, did you see this?” I said, nodding at the TV. I was watching E! News.

“What is it?” He went to the kitchen and opened the cabinet and pulled out the bag of grounds.

“Lola’s suing her manager. I guess he embezzled all this money from her.”

He spooned coffee into the press. “She was probably too wasted to notice,” he mumbled. He put water in the microwave. “Speaking of Lola, Ernie thinks the photos of me and her were staged by my label.”

I scrunched my forehead. “Really? Why?”

“Publicity.” He leaned on the counter with his arms crossed while he waited for the microwave. “He thinks they might put her on my tour even if my shows are sold out.”

I shrugged. “Okay. Well, she doesn’t scare me. Just so you know.”