Divine in Lingerie (Lingerie 9)

Max didn’t press it. “Stay with me for a while.”

“I want to be alone.” I’d always been alone. I preferred solitude. But now that Vanessa was gone, the isolation was hollow. I missed the sound of her footsteps down the hallway. I missed seeing drops of paint on her clothes. I missed her smell on my sheets. I missed the way she clung to me in the middle of the night even when it wasn’t cold.

Max didn’t press that either. “I’ve got to make sure you stop drinking.”

“I will, Max,” I said coldly. “You don’t need to check on me.”

“You bet your ass I’m going to check on you. If you let it get this bad, it doesn’t give me much confidence that you can change it so easily.”

“I can. I’m not proud of what happened.”

“You shouldn’t be. The guys were worried…they were here a few hours ago.”

I knew Max had been there the entire time without even asking. “I’m sorry.”

Max’s eyes widened slightly, surprised by what I said.

Apologies didn’t come easily from me, if they ever came at all. Even if I were wrong, I would never admit it. But what I’d done was horrific. “I’m sorry for being so stupid. I’m sorry for being so weak. It won’t happen again.” I didn’t look at him when I spoke, unable to meet his gaze. Shame washed over me like a river. It stung at the time, but it also cleansed me.

Max gripped my shoulder and gave me a gentle squeeze. “I’m glad you’re alright, Bones. Wouldn’t know what to do without you…”

Max and the guys were all the family I had left, and I felt like an asshole for taking it for granted. If Vanessa knew what I did, she would shoot me again. But her disappointment would be far worse than a gunshot wound. “So, how long do I have to stay here?”

“A few days.”

I sighed under my breath.

He chuckled. “Don’t expect me to feel bad for you. You put yourself in here.”

“True.”

“But I’ll keep you company, man.”

“You don’t have to do that, Max. I know you’re busy.”

“I am busy,” he said with attitude. “But if we switched places, I know you would never leave my side. And even if that wasn’t true, I’m still not going anywhere. You’re my brother…and this is where I belong.”

Eight

Vanessa

Six weeks had come and gone, and it was the first time I started to feel a little better.

As in, I didn’t feel the urge to cry anymore.

The last conversation I had with my father gave me closure. It gave me acceptance. I knew Bones and I would never be together again, and that finality shut the door on the relationship for good. I did everything I possibly could to keep him, and now that I knew our love would never work, I could move on without wondering if there was something else I could have done.

That didn’t mean I was over him. It didn’t mean I stopped loving him. It just made me realize I had to move forward…without him. My close relationship with my father reminded me what was important in life. When Bones first told me he loved me, I rejected him because I knew it would never work.

That instinct had been right.

I should have listened to my gut.

My father claimed I would love someone else someday, that he would be everything I wanted. I had a hard time believing that, believing there was a man out there I’d want for the rest of my life. The only reason I might ever want anyone was because of the way he connected with my family. But other than that, I didn’t see much hope for a real and passionate relationship.

Bones would always be the one.

I kept busy at my gallery and painted in the apartment upstairs. My paintings were still moody and dark, but as time passed, they lightened in color and became more romantic. They weren’t as good as my original work, but I was making progress.

My artwork was therapeutic. It gave me something to focus my thoughts on, and it gave me a way to express myself. I stopped painting Bones as the weeks passed. He popped up in my paintings sometimes, but his appearance became rarer.

I focused on landscapes, particularly Florence. As I explored the city, I found more places I liked. I would take a picture on my phone of a bakery or a cobbled street with a bicycle leaning up against the wall then I would return to my apartment to paint it with my own style.

Those were the paintings that sold the most.

Throughout the day, I would get a handful of customers, but only a few of them would actually buy anything. As time passed, I seemed to get more interest, especially when the summer hit. Tourists came in looking for original artwork to take home and mount on their wall.