"Noted. But that won't stop me," I agreed as she untied the white ribbon. It didn't exactly escape me either that her fingers stroked over it after she carefully laid it on her dresser. Autumn worked hard and made enough money to pay bills and have some leftover, but I was pretty sure she didn't have enough money lying around to buy designer jewelry.
It was superficial, sure, but it was a small little experience I was happy to give to her.
"Oh," her air whooshed out as she pulled open the box, then the little robins-egg-blue satchel to pull out the diamond earrings. "Eli..."
"Well, I mean there are no cool blood splatters on them," Peyton said, moving to stand. "But I guess they're nice," she said, giving me a wink. "I'm assuming you're going to thank him from an upward-facing position, and I don't need that trauma in my life," she declared, walking out toward the living room. "I'll wait in the car."
"Thank you,"Autumn said, voice a little thick after we were alone again.
"Literally the least I could do," I said, reaching for the box so she could turn and put them on. Once she was done, she twined her arms around my neck, and kissed me until she swayed on her feet.
The whole goddamn drive to the gallery involved a pretty severe case of blue balls, even though I had just had her less than an hour before.
"Ooh, fancy," Peyton declared to the server who came to us with champagne as soon as we arrived.
We had about twenty minutes to hang around, talking with the other artist who had a wall that evening, an older woman who did social commentary pieces that had Peyton engaged in lively conversation with her until the doors finally opened, and people came in.
Those people?
My entire family, sans kids, and the Rivers men as well.
My gaze went to Autumn, finding her eyes huge and her lips parted. "Oh my God. I totally forgot. I kind of slipped and said you had a show today. I'm so sorry. I should have--"
"Sweetheart, it's fine," I said, putting an arm around her waist, and pulling her in. "I was just surprised. It's fine."
And it was.
As soon as I saw their faces, my heart did an expanding thing in my chest.
I wanted them there.
I hadn't even known it until I saw them.
There was also a small part of me that was immediately nervous, a sensation that I wasn't all that familiar with. Not because I thought they would think my work was shit - they had always praised it in the past, but because several of the pieces revolved around my darkness, around the hollowness, around their absence.
In fact, the painting their eyes went to immediately was the large one with all their heads ducked and the faceless children.
And every last one of them looked taken aback, then sad.
"I think it will help them understand," Autumn said, reading me. "They can see that you hadn't been able to actually shut them out like you thought you did. They were always there, always haunting you. I think that is good for them to see."
"Oh, my, this is a good turnout," the coordinator said, looking around at my family as they milled around, looking at walls.
As if on cue, the door opened again, and in walked some other familiar faces.
See, you didn't work in the underbelly of Navesink Bank without making some friends - and acquaintances - that existed down there as well.
For me, that meant Breaker, Shooter, Paine, Sawyer, and the Grassi family.
And, somehow, they all knew about the show.
"Eli," Antony Grassi, the patriarch of a dock-owning local mob family said, coming up, taking my hand. "One of my men, Anthony Galleo, told me to keep an eye for your show, that I might want a piece for myself. I can see his taste is as impeccable as usual. Glad to see you are back on your feet," he added, clamping a hand behind my shoulder before moving away.
"Ah, isn't that the guy who owns Famigilia?" Autumn asked as she watched him join his sons in greeting the other artist. Manners, that family always had them in spades.
"Yeah," I agreed, enjoying watching her mind race, something that was clear in her eyes.
"But he said one of his guys... oh," she said, turning to look at him again, then back at me. "Are they like... the mafia?" she whispered in excitement.
"I sense a Sopranos marathon in my future, huh?" I asked, then laughed when she looked guilty as charged.
"This is really something," Hunt said, coming up after all the friends had greeted and congratulated me. Coming from him, someone whose artistic skills had always surpassed mine, even though now, I was comfortable saying we were pretty neck-and-neck, though our canvas was different, it truly meant a lot. "Fee wants to hire you to do a portrait of the girls. I'd be offended," he said, giving me a smirk, "but you're clearly better at portraits than I am."