Near & Far (6 page)

That magnetism jolted back to life in a staggering way. I couldn’t
not
go to her. I’d gone two steps in the hundred left to go when my journey came to an abrupt end.

A man who made the guy guarding the front door seem like a kitten stepped in front of me. “This room’s for V.I.P.s only.”

I might not pour milk over my steak for breakfast in the morning, but I wasn’t a weakling. When Big Boy rammed his chest into mine to stop me, I kid you not, I bounced back a good five feet. Okay, so manhandling hay bales, feed bags, and hundred-pound calves doesn’t hold a candle to benching small SUVs. Noted.

The dude might have been Goliath’s offspring, but Rowen was a mere dozen yards away. I wasn’t going down with one warning. I advanced again, trying to step around him. That time, he grabbed my shoulders and shoved me back.

“V.I.P.s” he said slowly, half looking like he was hoping I’d try to charge past him again. “Not V.U.I.P.s.”

I lifted an eyebrow. It seemed a lot of people didn’t speak the same language as me around there.

“Very
un
-important people,” King Kong clarified.

I let that insult roll off my back. I’d never cared about what strangers thought about me. Glancing over his shoulder, I caught another glimpse of Rowen. “My girlfriend’s in there. She’s the one whose art’s on display.”

Kong cracked his neck to one side, then the other. “Son”—I don’t know where he got off calling me
son.
He couldn’t have been more than a couple of years older than me—“even if that was your wife in there, your wife of twenty years who you’d just found out had been fucking your best friend in your own bed and you wanted to run in there and chew her a new one, you are not getting past me.”

I inhaled. I exhaled. Something fired to life inside of me, something I generally did a good job of repressing. That act-first-think-second instinct. I took another full breath, set my hands on my hips, and tried to keep my voice level. “Would you please just go tell her”—I pointed at Rowen with my eyes—“that Jesse is outside? I’m sure she’ll figure out a way to get me off of the V.U.I.P. list.”

The bouncer twisted to look at Rowen. His look stayed locked on her long enough that my hands started to curl into fists of their own accord. “That’s your girlfriend?” His eyes ran over Rowen in a way every guy could decipher. He was imagining her, right there, without her clothes on.

“Yes,” I managed through a clenched jaw. That fire inside of me grew, spreading to every nerve.

He made an mm-mm-MMM sound, and that’s when I felt it; that fire had just exploded past the point of my restraint. “Now that’s a woman who’s fucked her fair share of men. I wouldn’t mind getting in that line.”

I saw red. I felt red. I was a ball of emotion. I was a ball of . . .
rage
. One part of my mind still worked just enough to know I wasn’t the type to swing first and ask questions later, but it was quickly and easily overpowered by the fury. “Wrong thing to say, big guy.” My arm reached back automatically. “
Way
wrong thing to say.”

It would have been a solid hit. The guy was still running his eyes all over Rowen like they were his hands—he didn’t have a clue he was about to have a meeting with the business end of my fist—but someone ducked out from behind the curtains and stepped between us so casually I doubted he knew fists were about to start swinging.

“How’s it going out here . . . ?” The new guy looked between the two of us, giving us both such condescending looks, he did little to unclench my fists. “I didn’t catch you boys in the middle of anything, did I?”

Since it sounded like more of a rhetorical question, I ignored it. “Could you go get Rowen Sterling for me, please?”

The new guy inspected me closer. From his expression, it didn’t look like he approved. “She’s kind of in the middle of an art show right now. Not really the best time.”

The guy had barely said three sentences to me, and everything about him grated on me. I generally wasn’t the kind of person who found other people “grating.” “I’m her boyfriend. Could you please just let her know I’m here?” I slid my phone out of my back pocket again to check it. Still no reception. Either we were so deep below the surface the cell towers didn’t reach that far, or jamming devices had been installed in the club. I hadn’t seen a single person with a phone to their ear or typing out a text.

“So. You’re the boyfriend with a girl name.”

I slid my phone back into my pocket and forced myself to bite back the fire begging to be released. After a moment, I felt mostly certain the words about to come out of my mouth wouldn’t be ones I’d regret. “Yep. That’s me. Jesse. Rowen’s boyfriend. The boyfriend with a girl’s name.” Each word extinguished a bit more of the fire. Each “self-deprecating” word brought me back to the person I knew. Unlike the quivering rage machine I’d morphed into moments ago. Talk about bringing the Hulk out of the cowboy.

A smile broke out on the guy’s face. I guessed he was pleased I’d agreed with the gender distinction of my name or that I didn’t take myself too seriously. “Hey, I meant no offense. Or no
real
offense. I like getting under Rowen’s skin, and mentioning her boyfriend with a girlfriend name really, really gets under her skin.” He shrugged and gave a quick check over his shoulder. “I forgot she wasn’t here glued to my hip the way we have been all day.”

“You’re Jax,” I said.

“The one and only.” He shook my hand when I extended it. I didn’t make it a point to notice a man’s handshake, but Dad had always told me that a man’s handshake was an extension of himself. A two-second elevator speech without using words. He said the key was to make your handshake firm enough that the other person knew you were strong, but not so firm that it was a dead giveaway you were only
pretending
to be strong.

Jax’s handshake was so damn firm, I felt like I was shaking a piece of wood.

He didn’t hide his smile at the completion of our handshake. I did. His dad obviously hadn’t taught him the finer points of the handshake. “Forget about the ‘glued at the hip’ comment. Don’t worry about it. We weren’t glued together at
both
hips.” Jax chuckled and slapped my arm. He had a bad handshake
and
a bad sense of humor.

“I wasn’t.”

“You wasn’t what?” Jax asked after waiting for me to elaborate.

“Worried. I wasn’t worried when you made that comment.”

“Oh?” Jax studied me again. I don’t know what he was studying me for, but he didn’t look like he was arriving at any answers. “Why not? You don’t know anything about me. Maybe I’m the kind of guy who lives for going after other guys’ girls.” He was still smiling, like he was just messing with me, but something about Jax’s eyes led me to believe he wasn’t joking.

“You’re right. I don’t know you. I don’t know what kind of guy you are.” I stepped closer, making it obvious that I had Jax by a good three inches and thirty pounds. “But I don’t need to know. Because I know what kind of girl Rowen is.”

Jax waved off the giant who looked like he was ready to play hacky-sack with my head. “Rowen told me you were deep.”

“That’s great. Would you mind going and telling Rowen her
deep
boyfriend is fifty feet away?” I peeked inside of the room. She was still by the same painting, talking to a new couple. I smiled.

Jax followed my gaze. “Sure, once I can pull her away for a moment, I’ll let her know you’re out here.” His gaze lingered on Rowen too, but I didn’t see the same flash in his eyes that I’d seen in the bouncer’s. There was something else, something that almost made me as uncomfortable. “I’d let you in myself, but”—Jax hitched his thumb at the bouncer as he backed into the V.I.P. room—“rules are rules.”

I flashed Jax a wave as he disappeared behind the curtains, and I waited for him to pull Rowen off to the side and tell her I was out there.

I was still waiting an hour later.

WHERE WAS HE?

Those words consumed my mind as I smiled at strangers singing my pieces’ praises. That night, career wise, pretty much defined epic, but I couldn’t fully enjoy it without Jesse. The highs of life were always doubled when he was beside me experiencing them at the same time.

Alex had been texted the invite, so as long as Jesse was with her, he’d be able to get in. From there, all he’d have to do was ask around, and he’d be pointed in the right direction. If Jesse was at the Underground, he wasn’t just leaning into a bar counter or sprawled out on one of the posh chairs waiting for me to come to him.

Jesse always came and found me. I’d grown so used to it, I’d almost started taking it for granted. I might not have been lost anymore, but I still liked Jesse Walker finding me. Even if it was only in a room of people.

“What was your inspiration for this one? It’s exquisite.” The woman of the couple I’d been tuning out for . . . how long? interrupted my thoughts.

I don’t know why I glanced over my shoulder at the painting they were staring at—I knew exactly what was back there—but I still did. “Um . . . well, I guess you could say . . .
me
.” I studied the painting for another moment then smiled. Displaying a picture like that, one that felt like such a window to my soul, made me feel like I was the naked person standing in the middle of a room of people staring and pointing. I didn’t do transparent, I didn’t
like
transparent, but I’d learned a lot about it from Jesse. I still wasn’t big on it, but for him, I worked at it.

“How much is it going for?” the woman asked, lifting her expensive clutch like she was ready to fork out the dough right then and there.

“You’d have to check with Jax on that.” I pointed at Jax, schmoozing it up with some richie-riches, decked out in his standard Jax attire. The guy dressed like he was an honorary member of the Rat Pack. He lifted his champagne glass when he noticed me. “He said there are several interested buyers, so he’s taking bids. Or something like that.”

Truthfully, it was beyond me. When I’d painted that picture, I’d never intended it for anyone else’s eyes but mine and Jesse’s. The painting was more therapy, a healing journal entry, than a piece to be displayed and sold off to the highest bidder. When Jax and I were searching the art rooms in a crazed state earlier, praying we’d unveil some extra pieces I could display, he’d found it stuffed into the back of my storage area in the oil studio. He said it was brilliant and would have none of my pleas that it not be on display.

Jax always seemed to get his way. Or maybe I just never did. Whatever it was, the painting I’d wanted to stay hidden was the highlight of the night.

The woman grabbed her husband’s arm and nearly bolted in Jax’s direction.

I loved art. I loved studying it, pondering it, and creating it. I didn’t, however, enjoy selling it. Or rubbing elbows with a bunch of people who’d spent more on their shoes than some families lived off of all year. It was part of the deal, though. Wealthy people didn’t want to buy just a canvas; they wanted a story to go with it. They wanted to meet, shake the hand, and share the story with the artist behind the canvas. They wanted a story to tell the rest of their country club friends when they came over and coveted the canvas hanging on their wall.

Once Mr. and Mrs. Eager had scrambled over to Jax, I grabbed my phone and checked it. I didn’t know what I was expecting—there never had been or probably never would be any reception in that place—but that didn’t stop me from checking it for the four dozenth time in the past few hours.

No signal. Big surprise.

I blew out a frustrated breath and tried not to let my thoughts run away with me. The ones that suggested something had happened to him. That the brakes in Alex’s piece of crap car had gone out and they’d runaway down the streets of Seattle until the car sped into the dark water of the Sound. Or that Alex had taken a wrong turn, confused another old warehouse with the Underground, wandered inside, and been jumped by a gang of street kids.

My mind was a runaway worry train. Loving someone as much as I did Jesse meant the darkness of the world seemed so black I never wanted to walk out the front door. Around every corner was some terror threatening to take away what I held most dear. I knew it probably shouldn’t be that way, but the world had become scarier since I’d let love back into my life. Scary because of the fear of loss. Of losing him. Of waking up to discover the one light shining bright in the dark night had been extinguished.