She slipped through a door marked private and he followed right behind, black and white attired waiters carrying trays of canapes or bearing glasses of sparkling wine going the other way. God, but she looked gorgeous tonight. She was wearing a red silk sleeveless blouse over black silk pants and sandals, the material floating about her slim form as she walked, and she’d tied her hair into a knot at the back of her head that he itched to undo later and let her hair sweep down over her bare shoulders after he’d undressed her. Through another door and they were in the kitchen. More people. He cursed the crowd scene, itching as he was right now to pull her into his arms.
Bugger them. He couldn’t wait until later. She turned to face him and in the same moment he caught her in his arms and pulled her to him, kissing her hard on her open mouth, letting her know he was here for her, before, just as quickly, letting her go.
She blinked her surprise, her eyes bright. “Wow.” Then she gave him a quick once-over. “I’ve never seen you in uniform before.”
“And?”
She looked him up and down again. “I like it,” she said, with a smile, “maybe I should draw you with more clothes on next time.” She sucked in a quick breath then, as if suddenly remembering why she was here and what was at stake.
He put a hand to her shoulder. He could see the tension around her eyes, she had so much riding on this exhibition, and, while he ached to pull her into his arms and kiss her again and kiss her nerves away, there was a constant stream of foot traffic going in and out behind them. “Are you nervous?”
“A little. It’s the biggest solo show I’ve done.” She looked up at him and took a deep breath. “Actually, I’m really nervous.”
“You shouldn’t be. It looks amazing. It’s going to be a huge success. I’m so proud of you, Ava.”
She smiled up at him and put a hand to his chest and even through his jacket Caleb felt like she was reaching right inside to his heart. “Thank you for being here. Are you still okay for later?”
He sure was. He had dinner already ordered, a bottle of champagne chilling in the fridge at home, along a bunch of red roses to pick up on the way, and a feeling that he wasn’t wrong about this thinking tonight was going to be special.
He lifted her hand, pressing his lips to it. “I’ll be there.”
The door behind them opened again. “Anyone seen our—Oh, there you are, Ava.”
“Evan.”
He looked at the watch at his wrist. “We’re about to get started with the speeches. Ten minutes, does that sound okay?” He looked over at Caleb, his eyes narrowing and Caleb wondered if he remembered him from the kitchen fire, only to be surprised when he said, “You wouldn’t be our life model, would you?”
“Me?” He turned to Ava.
She smiled apologetically. “Evan asked if you’d be here. I told him I was hoping you’d make it.”
“A firefighter, eh,” Evan said, thrusting out his hand, looking delighted. “That makes a lot of sense. You’ve got quite the fan club going on out there right now, Mr...”
“Caleb,” he said, shaking the other man’s hand, not entirely comfortable with the thought of a fan club. “Caleb Knight.”
“Good to meet you, Caleb. Now, Ava, we should be—”
“Oh,” Caleb interrupted, “and Evan?”
“Yes?”
“I’d just like to point out that nobody’s supposed to know that it’s me out there. I’d appreciate it if we could keep it that way.”
The gallery owner made a display of zipping his lips, before he unzipped them to say, “Your secret’s safe with me.” And he promptly zipped them up again.
Caleb did a lap of the rooms trying to look like nothing more than a random firefighter volunteering his time collecting donations, but couldn’t help but notice on “that” wall, that there were only three of Ava’s pictures of him hanging there. The one featuring his naked butt cheeks was missing. Clearly not suitable for a family show, thank god. He found Richo up the back of the room talking to Tina and Matt about the merits or otherwise of the artworks.
“Not my kind of thing,” Richo said, sounding disappointed while he did a three-sixty gesturing towards the artwork. “Pots, fruit and flowers, and then more pots and fruit.” He shook his head and pointed to end wall that had been dedicated to Ava’s nudes. “And as for the beefcake over there, it’d be a bit gay, if I went for that, don’t you reckon?”
“I don’t think you’d get a look in anyway,” Tina said, “not given the interest from that lot.”
Caleb winced at the crowd of women standing in front of pictures of him – admiring Ava’s skilful pencil strokes, he told himself, because he couldn’t afford to let himself think anything else.
“Didn’t you say you came here to meet girls, Richo?” Caleb said. “Nobody thought you were here to buy works of art. What are you doing standing up the back?”
His mate sighed and held out his hands. “Dude, here I am, a firefighter decked out in all my firefighting best, and all the women are over there checking out the beefcake. I mean, they buy our Christmas calendars like crack cocaine. I really thought I’d be in with a chance here.”
“There, there,” Caleb said, patting him on the back, finally starting to relax now that nobody had twigged – in fact, nobody seemed to have the slightest clue – starting to enjoy the evening and feeling prouder than ever of Ava.
“Maybe you should take your shirt off,” suggested Tina to Richo. “Give the beefcake a bit of competition.”
“I will if you will,” Richo said, and Matt, who had up until now been standing alongside Tina and looking equally bored with the exhibition, punched him in
