“Well?” Jenna asked when she turned from hugging Harris, her gaze on the painting hanging on the wall. “What do you think?”
Reluctantly my gaze went to the piece of artwork. I knew immediately who had painted it. Jenna had a certain style no matter what mood she painted in, and this one practically screamed that it was hers. It was a kind of painting that you had to look at for a while to get the true meaning behind it. There were lots of reds, blacks and grays and when you looked closer you could see the crying girl, her pain there in every harsh line of her face. There was what looked like a baby in one corner and a man standing outside the window. Their faces were all in shadow, except for the crying girl but I still couldn’t make out who the girl was.
“It makes me want to cry,” Lucy commented after we had all stood there looking at the painting for a long while in silence. “The girl is in so much pain, but look at the man. He looks desperate. Like he’s trying to get into the room with the girl and the baby, but the room has no doors. He can only see the two people he loves, never touch them.”
Jenna’s eyes widened. “I-I hadn’t looked at it like that, Lucy. I meant to focus attention on the girl, not the baby or even the man. But…” She glanced back at the painting. “…yeah, I can see exactly what you mean.”
“What was your inspiration?” I asked, wondering if I already knew.
Natalie shared everything with her sister. The more I looked at the picture, I saw some of my own characteristics in the man’s features—the long, dark hair and bluish eyes. Natalie could easily be the girl… And the baby… It represented the child that Natalie and I could have had if she hadn’t taken that fucking morning-after pill.
Jenna didn’t look at me as she spoke. “It’s me and my future. The…man…represents the future that I want, but can’t have. The child is the future that is expected of me.”
My brows rose at her interpretation of the painting, but I didn’t say anything, just continued to gaze at the beautiful piece of art.
Finally Harris draped an arm around Jenna’s slim shoulders. “Congratulations, babe.”
Jenna grinned happily at him. “Thanks. And thank you, Linc. Without your help I never would have gotten to have one of my paintings in an actual New York art gallery.”
Linc brushed her thanks off. “It was nothing, Jen. I used to be the trainer for the owner’s wife. She owed me a favor, but she only promised to show your work to her husband. It was up to him if he liked it or not. Your amazing talent got you here, love. Not me.”
“Well, thanks all the same.”
“Okay, enough of giving my sister a big head. Let’s get something to drink,” Natalie spoke for the first time. “It’s getting hot outside and I’m dying for something cool and sweet.”
I stepped back as the others filed past me. Lucy and Harris on either side of Jenna left first and then Rhett wrapped an arm around Natalie’s shoulders as they followed, leaving me standing there gritting my teeth while Linc gave me a grim smile and continued after the others. I stood there, silently wishing a certain Trance member to the bowels of hell. If I was going to have to see them together all day, I was going to need a few beers at the least.
Natalie
I gazed down at the milk crate full of fan mail then over at the three pages of to-do list items that I needed to get through today. My head was going to explode before the day was over, I just knew it.
“Why do you always think you have to do everything on your own?” Jenna asked as she and Harris sat on the couch in my living room watching TV. “All you have to do is ask and you would have two willing lackeys.”
“Because this is my job and you’re here to relax, not do my work for me.” I ran my hands through my hair and sighed, for the tenth time in as many minutes, when my fingers combed through it all too quickly. I was never cutting my hair again.
“Whose mail is that anyway?” Harris asked, taking his eyes off the movie he and my sister had been watching for the last hour.
“It’s the OtherWorld fan mail. Since I basically do everything for them anyway, I get the fan mail that doesn’t go straight to Axton, Liam, Wroth, Z’s, or even your house.” Mostly it was letters from chicks telling all too graphically one of the band members what she wanted to do to him in bed. Some of them were hilarious, others were just disturbing. Then there were the ones addressed to Devlin. I hated those the most because it always filled my head with images of him actually doing those things with some of those chicks. And the ones that were from past conquests? I burned the ones that were for Devlin.
Yeah, I did. I wasn’t proud of myself but I did and I wanted to stab both Devlin and the chick who wrote the letter every fucking time.
There were at least a hundred envelopes in varying sizes now scattered over the carpet in the living room. Shaking my head at how long it was going to take me to sort through them, I sat down and folded my legs under me as I pulled a handful of them toward me. Harris sat down next to me, stuffing a pillow between my back and the couch behind me to make me more comfortable.
I offered him a small smile in thanks before thumbing through the stack of envelopes in my hand. Axton. Axton. Liam. Wroth. Liam. Axton. Zander. Zander. Zander. Zander. Zander. I rolled my eyes as the next five were for Zander. I placed each into their own pile and picked up another stack. The majority were for Zander, with two being for Liam and one being for Devlin.
“Here,” I said, handing the envelope over to Harris. “See what psycho number one has to say.”
Harris’s aquamarine eyes narrowed as he opened the white envelope that smelled faintly of some cheap perfume. Pulling out two sheets of stationery, his eyes skimmed over the writing and then he balled it up. “Do you read all of these?” he demanded.
I shrugged. “Mostly.”
“So you have to read that disgusting filth that those stupid bitches write to my dad?” Again I shrugged and he shook his head. “No. I don’t want you doing that anymore, Nat. This can’t be good for you. If what that chick wrote is just some of the things you have to read about my dad then no wonder you still hate him so much.”
“I’ve been doing this for four years now, Harris. Believe me, if I was going to hate your dad for the things that are in some of those letters, I would have hated him long before he and I ever hooked up the first time.” I grabbed another stack of envelopes.