“Oh. That sounds insufferable, actually.” Licking my lips as I set my wine glass down, I inhaled in preparation as Bruiser grunted lowly in agreement. “I’m sorry about your cousin. I remember when my boyfriend in high school broke up with me. It sucked. Do you guys know each other well? Does he have dual citizenship, too?”
“Nah, we haven’t seen much of each other since I moved here, but he’s eleven years younger than me. We had an okay relationship. From what he told me, I think he’ll be fine—enough about him. I talked about that little shit all day. What about you, Nicole? We’re here to celebrate your gig!” Flames licked up my neck at the pride twinkling in Bruiser’s eyes, and he reached across the table to grab my hand. Tangling his fingers around mine, they were hard and hot, and I bit my inner cheek as electricity rippled up my arm. “Tell me about that. That’s amazing, baby.”
“Yeah, it’s great. I was kinda shocked he contacted me, but he said something about a painting I did for a friend of his, and he’d admired it for a while. I don’t know who it was, though. I’ve never done anything this big, so I’m really nervous. What he wants is basically a panoramic style of his family. That’s a lot of pressure.” A smile crept onto my face, excitement and nerves coiling in my gut, and pointed interest masked Bruiser’s handsome features. “It’s gonna be worth it. I know it’s bad, but I Googled the guy, and he’s pretty prominent. I’m hoping that he’ll bring in higher commissions.”
“So, you have eight months to deliver it. How do you start something so big?” He sounded genuinely interested in my art, and I grabbed my wine glass with my free hand to take a sip. “I can barely draw a stick figure right, so . . .”
We shared a laugh before the waitress appeared out of the corner of my eye with our appetizer, and Bruiser released my hand to sit back. This restaurant was a real steak-and-chicken place, not a single scrap of seafood anywhere on the menu. Our sampler platter had little tasters of pasta, steak cubes, vegetables, and my mouth watered when the waitress set it down in front of us.
“Um, yeah, so basically, what I’m gonna do for this project is base the entire canvas out.”
“Base the canvas out?” I didn’t have a clue what it meant.
Nicole released an adorable laugh. “We’re going to lay down the background colors first. Relax, I’ll show you. In paintings like this one, multiple bases need to be on the canvas so I can really get into detail with the sky, background, etc.”
I nodded in understanding, and Nicole cleared her throat to finish what she was saying a moment ago. “The client wants a more ethereal kinda thing going on, like pink clouds or something. His wife’s gonna be on the left side, and his younger daughter’s gonna be in the middle chasing butterflies. Really, it’s not a difficult concept. It’s just the size of it that’s gonna be the challenging part.” I picked up my fork as I spoke, and Bruiser’s brows rose across the small table. The ring on my finger flashed in the low light adding to the intimate atmosphere, and I flexed my fingers. “When I spoke to him on the video call, he was so enthusiastic. It was fascinating meeting someone that gushed so openly about his wife and daughters.”
“I take it your father’s more on the quiet side?” Nodding, I held out my hand to gaze at the diamond ring, and a smile tilted my lips. “You love that fuckin’ ring, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I nodded, and my smile grew massively. “It reminds me of my grandmother, and I cherish this thing so freaking much. I’m just still pissed at everything that went down at my sister’s wedding. Somehow, for some reason, I still feel a tinge of guilt, like what Tom did was somehow my fault,”
“It wasn’t your fault, and it isn’t now. Stop holdin’ onto the past and let that shit go, baby. None of it matters anymore.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I mean, I just can’t shake what happened out of my head. I said ‘no’. I think he thought if he did it in public, he’d pressure me to say yes.”
“You probably would’ve, though.” Replying quickly, Bruiser caught my gaze as I sunk in my chair a bit and frowned, covering my eyes with my fingers. “The only reason you didn’t was because you gave your family a heads up it could’ve happened. Hell, you warned them in a sense. Fuck, if you didn’t have that fight at the gas station, and you didn’t tell your sister about it, you woulda said yeah and had one less reason to leave him. Because you agreed. You know, Nicole, you gotta learn to tell people to fuck off more.”
“I know that. Trust me. My sister tells me all the time to stop being so considerate.” I scrunched up my nose in disgust, but Bruiser cast me a comforting smile as he nudged my leg with his booted foot under the table.
“You’re sweet.” Blushing fiercely, a little giggle escaped me, and Bruiser smiled with tenderness blazing from his eyes. “Your sister doesn’t know what she’s talkin’ about. Being a considerate, sweet person just means you gotta surround yourself with people that don’t mind being the bad guy.”
“I take it you’re gonna be the bad guy for me?” He smirked sexily at my probe, and my abdomen tightened as the atmosphere grew ten times thicker. “I’d like that.”
“I bet you will. By the way, you look beautiful in that
