I Love My Secret (Nicole's Erotic Romance) by Sabrina Lacey Read Free Book Online Page A

as much as this dude has smiled in three minutes.
    I wiggle my shoulders and laugh, “Well, anyway,
you’ve got me nervous.”
    Danny laughs and follows me over to where I’ve got
my work propped up against each other. He waits a comfortable distance away while
I pull out my canvases one at a time and lay them against the wall, spaced
inches from each other. My heart is beating so hard. I’m blinking too much, but
with my back to him like this, he can’t see. When I’m finished, only half the
wall’s floor space is filled and I become very aware that I haven’t done
enough. Michael would have filled up both walls, and here I am with only seven.
I have to work to swallow the golf ball that’s forming in my throat from
anxiety. We’re both facing them, and I can’t see him because he’s standing back.
    I turn and walk to where Michael left a pack of
smokes on a table. I take one out and light it, inhale and stare at nothing,
waiting. There is only silence for what seems like a million years. Does he
hate my work? Oh God. I have no talent. I know it. It’s something my inner
demons have tried to convince me of for years. That’s the reason so many
paintings have been tossed away or painted over. Why didn’t I listen to the
fuckers? This is torture. It’s not too late. I can go wait tables and go back
to school. Study psychology. Or something having to do with people…
    Then, “Wow.”
    I blink and suck in room-air; I can’t turn around
yet.
    “Nicole,” he says.
    I take a long drag off the cigarette, hating how
it tastes but clinging to it anyway.
    “Nicole?” he says, with more volume.
    Shields up! Man the gates! All men on deck! I turn
around thinking I look cool as snow, having no idea that my shields have
abandoned me.
    “Mmm?”
    He walks to me and there’s something in his eyes I
can’t understand because the demons have me in their clutches with their snickers
of unworthiness, self-hatred, and aloneness.
    “Your work is incredible.”
    I don’t understand. “Sorry?”
    “It’s really great. I feel something when I look
at it. I can’t always say that – and I always want to. It’s what art is
all about, right?” He smiles again. I nod. He walks back to my paintings and
looks again. “I think this one on the left – the first one – this
one is my favorite.”
    My eyes dart around to nowhere in particular as I
shove my half-smoked cigarette into a near-empty wine bottle of Syrah.
    “You like which one best?” I ask, coming to stand
beside him.
    “This one on the left. She’s beautiful, but sad.
You can see a lifetime of worries in those eyes. She looks like you, but… I’m
sorry. Is this supposed to be you? I’m not good at these things.”
    “It’s my mother,” I answer. “You see worry?”
    “Yeah, don’t you?” He asks, looking to me for my
answer.
    I inspect her face, from this new perspective, and
shake my head slightly. “I didn’t until you pointed it out. She held all that
in.” He looks back to her and is silent for awhile as we both stare at the
painting from our own worlds.
    “Well…” he says quietly. “You let it out.”
    Pain bursts inside me, filled with longing and
loss for the mother who is no longer here. Grief yanks a gasp from my lungs. A
tear jumps to the corner of my eye, sliding down before I even realize it’s
there. He looks and me and I wipe the tear away quickly… but I know he saw.
    His voice is kind as he asks, “She passed, didn’t
she?”
    My only answer is a brief nod. I don’t meet his
eyes. No more tears come out. I won’t let them. He takes the cue that I don’t
want to talk about it – but he has no idea how grateful I am at what he
pointed out.
    We walk, looking at my other pieces. He’s talking,
but I can’t hear him because I’m thinking about her. The missing her surprises and
attacks me at the oddest of times: when I’m doing the dishes, when I’m waiting
for the train, when I see an old woman, the thing she