Painted On My Heart

He needed to regroup before the opening and do better. He didn’t like the concern on Gage’s face. Schooling his features, he smiled and lifted a hand again. “Goodnight.”

He never looked back as he pulled out of the resort complex.

~?~

With as little sleep as he’d had the last few days, Arik should be passed out in bed—in the bed he loved—but he wasn’t. Instead, he’d broken open a five-year-old bottle of Francois Leclerc Gevrey-Chambertin burgundy and had drunk three-quarters by himself. He was antsy as hell. He’d been thrown off kilter and couldn’t figure out why. The resort was coming along nicely. All the little problems guaranteed to present themselves in every opening were happening now, but that didn’t bother him. He lived for the fast-paced drive of getting everything ready for a new opening, and he thrived on the adrenaline coursing through the building at this point in the game.

Yeah, they were a little over budget, but again, when had that not been the case? On every level, his life was pretty good right now, but something nagged at him, and had been for the past couple of days. He couldn’t put his finger on any one thing in particular. Except, there was an unsettling in his soul, a wanting beneath his skin that he couldn’t seem to get past. And dammit to hell, all he could focus on was a set of beautiful blue eyes that haunted his every thought. Actually, if he were being honest with himself, the image of those blue eyes clinging to the back of his mind caused his unrest. They were damn hard to get past.

His regular balls-to-the-wall, figure-it-out-as-you-go personality hesitated, unsure whether he should go for or stay away from seeking out those blue eyes. He’d never been in a similar battle of internal will before—not that he could remember anyway. Confounding.

Draining the glass, he looked at the time. Two forty-five in the morning. Seemed like a good time to text Gage. He picked up his cell phone on the counter and typed quickly.

“You awake?”

He waited three full minutes, sipping from his glass of wine while staring down at the screen. He got nothing back so he typed again.

“You awake?”

Minutes passed in silence. Huh, okay. He quickly tried again.

“Wake your ass up and talk to me.”

Nothing came back. Well, this was becoming frustrating. He leaned against the kitchen counter, poured another glass, and decided his best course of action was to text Trent. Pulling his name from his contact list, Arik typed quickly.

“You awake?”

Still no reply. Hell, what was wrong with these men? They were childless tonight and reasonably young. They should be hittin’ it all night long. On that thought, Arik cocked a brow and grinned. Maybe they were going at it, and he kept interrupting.

Even better. He took another quick drink and set the glass on the counter before sending a text to both Trent and his cousin. That should give a double chirp. Even more annoying. Right when he started to push send, his phone rang. Trent’s name displayed on the screen and he answered.

“Yes, sir?” Arik leaned back and got comfortable, crossing one ankle over the other, happy with the groan his words earned him.

“I hate when you call me that,” Trent replied, his voice soft with sleep and an equally sleepy Gage could be heard in the background.

“What’s going on?”

“Where’s that cousin of mine?” Arik asked.

He got nothing but silence in return, then he heard the two talking. Arik waited, listening to the confused discussion, catching only bits and pieces of Trent speaking to Gage before he came back to the conversation and finally responded.

“He’s here. Do you need him?”

“Yes, please,” he answered in as nice a voice as possible.

“It’s two forty-five,” Gage’s sleep-roughened voice protested only seconds later.

“Good morning, princess,” he teased, using the nickname he hadn’t used in years. Not since their brief time in prep school when he was the senior to Gage’s freshman. “Listen, I need to know who the guy was in the studio tonight.”

“You’re waking me up in the middle of the night to ask about a guy?” Gage answered incredulously. Arik’s foot bounced as he reached over to pour a refresher on his wine.

“Half of that sentence has already been qualified when you established the time. So who is he?” Arik asked again, taking a big swallow as Gage fell silent.

“I honestly don’t know. There were a lot of people in and out of there today. Which one?”

“About eight thirty tonight. I also saw him when he dropped off the art today, dark hair, longer on top, neatly trimmed beard, hot as hell. You were talking to him,” Arik explained.

“Kellus?” Gage’s voice bordered on confusion and frustration.

Arik stood there a minute, staring off into the kitchen. “I think it’s his delivery guy.”