One Hot December

  “Flash isn’t here, is she?” he asked without further preamble.

  “No, why would she be? She went to the party.”

  “She did come and then she left. She won’t answer my phone calls or return my messages. Long story.”

  “You weren’t mean to her, were you? Or your family?”

  “No, I swear. It’s just a misunderstanding. A bad one, but still, it’ll be fine as soon as she talks to me.”

  “You know she has her pride.”

  “Yeah, I know, I know. Too much pride. I better go. I have to find her. Any idea where she’d be? Any idea at all?”

  “Try 7212 Northeast Prescott.”

  “That is a really specific answer,” Ian said.

  “It’s her workshop,” she said. “If she’s not there, then I have no idea where she is. But she’s there.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “It’s where she went after she was kicked out of your last party.”

  “We’re going to get this party thing right eventually.”

  “You better. I don’t have a lot of years left and I better see a wedding before I go.”

  “I promise,” Ian said. “You can be my best man. Best woman.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  He kissed her cheek and headed back into Portland. On the way to Prescott, Ian called upon his mother’s faith and his father’s and prayed Flash was there. If she wasn’t at the workshop, he had no idea where she could be. She had other friends she could have run to and stayed with and it could be days or weeks before he saw her again. He tried to tamp down the apocalyptic thinking. It was just a misunderstanding. It was just a mistake. He wasn’t going to be like his father in twenty years still kicking himself for losing the woman he loved.

  He pulled into the driveway of a weedy little green house with a hand-painted sign in the front window that read Studios for Rent. When he stepped out of the car he heard the unmistakable sparking sound of a MIG welding torch.

  Ian knew he had to be careful if he didn’t want to take a torch burn to his face. He didn’t knock on the side door but simply slipped quietly inside and moved a safe distance from Flash’s worktable. She’d changed out of her dress and into canvas work pants and a white tank top. The dress hung on a hook behind the door. She’d wrapped it in plastic to keep it safe.

  While he waited for her to acknowledge his presence, he glanced around the shop. He saw the mold she’d used to create the ivy leaves for the sculpture of his mother. She amazed him with what she could do with her mind and her muscle and her imagination.

  Flash finally killed her arc and sat her welding gun down on the table. She raised the visor of her helmet and turned around to face him.

  “What?” she asked. That was all. One word. What?

  “What are you working on?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Sounded like something.”

  “Practicing a new technique I saw online. I’m playing with scraps. It’s fun when you don’t have to worry about screwing up.”

  “You’re the only woman I know who would call practicing MIG welding techniques on scrap metal ‘fun.’ No, let me correct that. You’re the only person I know of any gender who would say that.”

  “Not my fault you don’t know as many cool people as I do.”

  Ian took a step toward her. She didn’t say anything to stop him so he took another.

  “Are you going to ask why I’m here?”

  “No,” she said. “But I’m guessing you’re going to tell me.”

  “I am. But first, did you like your Christmas present I gave you?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I told you if you bought one of my sculptures, I would never talk to you again, and you did it, anyway, because that’s what people like you do—whatever you want because you can and everyone else’s feelings be damned.”

  Ian pointed at the dress hanging on the hook behind the door. “That’s your Christmas gift. I bought the dress from Mrs. Scheinberg for you.”

  “You what?”

  “I bought you that dress. She even gave me a discount as long as I promised to go to shul with her. That’s your Christmas gift from me. Not the sculpture. My father bought your sculpture. I had no idea he’d bought it and no idea he’d stored it in my old room when I sent you up there. I was as shocked to see it as you were.”

  “Your dad bought it?”

  “You were right. He wasn’t thrilled we were dating. He’s a politician. Image is everything to them, and you made him a little nervous. I admit all of that. But my father is a good guy ninety-nine percent of the time, and when I told him he should go check out your work at the gallery, he did. He saw the sculpture and fell in love with it. He bought it to keep in the family.”

  Flash crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the worktable.

  “You told him to go look at my art.”

  “I was showing you off,” Ian said. “I wanted him to see how talented you are. And he saw. He said he had to leave the room for a few minutes when he noticed you’d engraved my name on the heart.”

  “I did that because I know your name was engraved on your mother’s heart.”

  “I’m sure it was,” Ian said.

  “And I know that because it’s engraved on mine.”

  “Flash...” Ian couldn’t speak anymore.

  “It hurt more than anything ever hurt when I thought you’d betrayed my trust,” she said. “I felt that hurt all the way to my heart. It’s terrifying to love someone as much as I love you. I was looking for any excuse to get away from how much I love you. You gave me one.”

  “Cutting your losses again?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah. I guess I need to stop doing that.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  She dug her hands in her pockets. She looked small and young, hurt.

  “My mom was a hotel housekeeper when she met my father,” Flash said. “She’d started cleaning motels and worked her way up to a five-star hotel in Seattle. He was the sort of guy who stayed in five-star hotels.”

  “Rich?”

  She nodded. “And he was the sort of man who used women because he thought the whole world was a banquet, and he was the guest of honor. I’m sure you know the type.”

  “Very well, unfortunately.”

  “Mom got in touch with him when she found out she was pregnant. He refused to have anything to do with her or me. He sent her a check for ten thousand dollars and wrote ‘Final Payment’ on the memo line.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Seriously. When I was nine I asked Mom about who my father was and why he never visited or called or anything. Mom doesn’t like to lie or sugarcoat stuff. She said, ‘Your father doesn’t think we’re good enough for him.’ I feel like it’s coded in my DNA now, this distrust of men with money or power and especially both. And that’s shitty, right? Taking all that old pain that has nothing to do with you out on you?”

  “You and my dad have a lot in common. You’re both punishing yourselves over things you didn’t have any control over. He didn’t cause the car accident that killed my mother. You didn’t cause your father to reject you before you were even born. And yet, decades later, you’re both still beating yourselves up over it. Dad won’t get remarried and you keep running from me.”

  She rubbed her bare arms and shrugged. “I don’t want to be like this,” she said.

  “I know. But I love you, anyway. And I’m not going to stop loving you. I’m going to love you long enough and hard enough that you eventually figure out that I’m not one of the bad guys. I understand it might take a while but you’re worth waiting for.”

  “Are you mad at me?” she asked.

  “For what? Doing exactly what you told me you’d do?”

  “I jumped to conclusions. I should have talked to you instead of running.”

  “I should have talked to you before I broke up with y
ou. So I can’t really blame you for doing the same damn thing I did. I’m just glad you didn’t weld truck nuts to my bumper again.”

  “How do you know I didn’t?” she asked.

  “Oh, my God, did you?” He winced. Flash laughed and it was the sweetest sound he’d heard all night.

  “No,” she said. “Only because I don’t have any on me. But the thought did occur to me.”

  “If you ever weld truck nuts to my car again...”

  “What?” she asked, lifting her chin defiantly.

  Ian walked over to her table and took her into his arms.

  “I’ll fuck you,” he said. “And you’ll like it.”

  “That’s not much of a threat.”

  “I’ll take any excuse to fuck you,” he said.

  “I’m here. You’re here. Is that enough of an excuse for you?”

  “More than enough.” He reached for her but she held up her hand to stop him.

  “What?”

  “Do the thing,” she said.

  “The thing? Oh, yeah, the thing.”

  Ian ripped his bow tie off and threw it on the floor.

  “Okay,” she said breathlessly. “Now you can fuck me.”

  12

  THE TABLES WERE covered with equipment and the floor was littered with metal shards and grease. They had no other choice but to fuck against the one clean patch of wall. Ian pushed her back to the wall and pulled her pants and underwear down to her ankles. He groaned when he entered her, and so did she. She groaned in ecstasy but also in relief that even though she’d left him, he’d come for her. And she knew as he lifted her leg and wrapped it around his back he would always come for her. Ian took her mouth with a hard deep kiss and Flash wound her arms around his neck. He fucked her with quick rough thrusts to drive the point home that she was his, all his, and always would be his as long as she wanted.

  “More, Ian,” she said, and he lifted her off her feet and buried his cock deep inside her. She arched her back to take it all and he pumped his hips to give it all. They were a writhing mass of mouths and tongues and arms and legs and sweaty hair and grasping hands. Ian bruised her back with his thrusts and she didn’t care. She loved it. She wanted it. The harder he gave it to her, the harder she wanted it. They could be tender with each other later tonight, in Ian’s bed, which would soon be their bed. Right now she just wanted him so deep inside her she would feel him all the way into her blood, her bones, her DNA.

  “I love you,” she said against his lips, into his kisses. “I love you...” She said it until she came with a sudden sharp spike of pleasure all the way from her stomach to her toes. She said it again when Ian came inside her, filling her and filling her as she clung to his shoulders and wished she never had to let him go.

  Ian took a breath, pressed his forehead to hers.

  “You feel better now?” he asked.

  “Yes. You?”

  “Much better.”

  “I should have been wearing my dress,” she said. “It’s much sexier than my work clothes. And knowing Mrs. Scheinberg, she fully expects me to seduce you while I’m wearing it.”

  “I love the dress,” Ian said. “And I love you in it. But truth is, you’re sexier to me in your work clothes than anything else. Except naked.”

  “You really do love me, don’t you?” she asked.

  “You just figuring that out?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You’ll get used to it. Now get dressed. We have to go back to the party. Dad has a present for you.”

  “Any other orders?” she asked as he let her down to the floor.

  “Yes,” he said. “One more order.”

  “And that is?”

  He took her face in his hands and looked her deep in the eyes.

  “Never, ever weld truck nuts to my car again.”

  Flash sighed in defeat.

  “Yes, boss.”

  “One more order.”

  “What?”

  “Never, ever run away from me again,” he whispered. “Please?”

  “Well,” she said, putting her hands over his. “Since you said ‘please.’”

  Flash pulled herself together as best she could and Ian zipped her back into her dress. They returned to the party and found it still in full swing.

  “Where have you two been?” Angie asked when she and Ian walked back in the front door.

  “Went for a walk,” Flash said. “Got a little overheated in the house.”

  “A walk? For over an hour?” Angie asked.

  “Nice night,” Ian said. “Where’s my father?”

  “Upstairs,” Angie said as she casually wiped red lipstick off Ian’s ear with her cocktail napkin.

  “Um, thank you,” Flash said, blushing.

  “Glad you had a nice ‘walk,’” Angie said with a wink before strolling away to the bar.

  “I really do like your family,” Flash said. “They’re not at all what I expected.”

  “They’re pretty cool,” Ian said as they walked up the stairs in pursuit of his father. “I’ll keep them. I might be getting more family soon.”

  “Somebody pregnant?”

  “No. But thanks to your sculpture of my mother, Dad finally talked to me about my other family, my mom’s family. And he told me he wants me to contact them.”

  “That’s amazing, Ian.”

  “I can’t wrap my mind around it. For years I was afraid to ask him about my mother’s family. I didn’t want to hurt him by bringing all that old pain up again. And then tonight we were looking at your sculpture and he just started talking about her. All thanks to you.”

  “That’s the power of art. It can get through any chinks, any seams, and if there aren’t any, it’ll make them,” she said, smiling up at him. He stopped them on the landing to kiss her but the kiss didn’t get very far.

  “Finally. About damn time you two turned up.” Ian’s father stood at the top of the stairs. A woman with dark brown skin and dark eyes wearing a burgundy-and-gold sari stood next to him.

  “Is this her?” the woman asked, her words tinged with a subtle Indian accent.

  “Ms. Veronica Redding, please meet Ms. Hema Lalwani. She owns a gallery in Seattle.”

  Flash was too nervous to speak. Everyone even remotely familiar with the art scene in the Pacific Northwest knew of Hema Gallery in Seattle. Flash had gone to every exhibit there in the past four years.

  “You’re very gifted, Ms. Redding,” Ms. Lalwani said. “I’ve never seen metal sculpting as intricate as yours on such a large scale. I’d like to feature your work in my gallery next winter.”

  “That’s very nice of you,” Flash said. “But I’m afraid I can’t accept your offer. You’re obviously friends with my boyfriend’s father and I can’t—”

  “You misunderstand,” Ms. Lalwani said. “I have never met Mr. Asher before in my life. I came here because after your piece sold, the owner of the Morrison sent me photographs of your work. I contacted Mr. Asher about the piece as I wished to see it in person. He invited me here to this party. I am not offering you a