Shaking his head, Javi marveled at how accepting she was of his intrusion on her privileged world. He’d met her parents weeks ago at a dinner Chris and Dee hosted for Kate to celebrate the completion of her degree. The Mitchells were understandably wary of the man twelve years older than their daughter, who she’d jumped into a relationship with after breaking up with her boyfriend of four years. Javi’s brusque demeanor, scores of tattoos, and background in East L.A. probably didn’t help, either.
“Roll over to the side… there.” He shook his head and let her move his arms to a different angle.
“How much long—”
“Shhhh.”
Javi had to give Dee and Chris a lot of credit for making him sound nicer than he actually was. Shannon Mitchell, being the good Irish mother that she was, was somewhat comforted by the fact Javi had been raised a staunch Catholic and still saw his mother regularly. Derrick Mitchell seemed more impressed by Javi’s background working at his father’s auto body shop than by the sculptures he had seen downtown with his name on them.
“Almost… oh, wait, let me try this filter.”
“Kate, I am not a prop.”
“Well, you kind of are.” She placated him with a kiss on his rough cheek. “Only my prop, though.”
Despite the months they’d been together, Kate’s father still watched him with clear suspicion. Considering the thoughts Javi entertained about the man’s daughter almost constantly, he couldn’t really blame him.
Javi knew that Kate’s parents had nothing to worry about. Though his surly demeanor hadn’t altered, he was absolutely crazy about their daughter. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d been happier, even though he still couldn’t figure out why she wanted to be with him. He sure as hell wasn’t going to argue with her about it, even though she was cute when she was pissed off. For Kate’s sake, Javi hoped her parents would eventually see how much he admired and respected her, but he wasn’t going to worry about it. Kate seemed content, and since she was the only one Javi gave a shit about, that was all he really needed.
“Just letting you know, I think the douchebag will be at the barbecue with his mom and dad,” she said as she continued snapping pictures.
Javi immediately rolled over, despite her protests, and pulled her on top of him.
“Hey!”
“Oh really?” he asked with an evil grin, his eyes lighting up. “The douchebag?”
“He’s not even worth your time.”
He set her camera carefully to the side, making sure not to smudge the lens. He turned back to her and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “I know, but it’s the principle. I’ll make sure to wear something that shows off my ink. He’ll probably think I’m in a gang… yo.”
She rolled her eyes and pinched his shoulder. “Whatever you want to do. Honestly, when he sees you, he’ll probably pee his pants no matter what you wear.”
“That’s always nice to hear.”
“You know…”
He frowned. “What?”
Kate reached up, and her fingers traced along his jaw, which was covered with three days’ worth of stubble.
“I don’t even think about him anymore. I was more embarrassed than hurt by him cheating on me.”
Javi shrugged. “His loss, my gain. All that shit.”
Her mouth curled into a smile, and she leaned down to kiss him before she laid her head over his heart.
“My gain,” she whispered.
Javi felt his throat catch for a second, and he ran rough hands down the length of her back. “Our gain.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Crestline, California
September 2010
Sam stared at the black and white pictures littering her refrigerator. Most had come in the first six months after she moved back to California, though Reed would still send her one occasionally. They weren’t accompanied by a note, but she always knew who had taken them. He never took landscapes or cityscapes for work, but he’d taken pictures of most of her favorite places in the city to send to her in California.
Looking now, Sam realized that there was a small piece of Reed in each of the frames.
One had the toe of his black boot sticking into a picture of her favorite bench in Prospect Park. One caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass door of her morning coffee shop in Williamsburg. But the one she stared at now had arrived in the mail six months after she had left and right before Reed’s messages got angry.
It was a picture of their bed in the apartment; the white sheets were rumpled in the morning sun, and his long arm stretched across the empty space where she had once slept. His hand was clutching the sheets. For the first time, Sam felt like she truly grasped what he’d been trying to tell her, though she was too distraught to understand at the time.
Sam reached up and pulled the picture off the fridge, touching the hand in the picture and wishing she had the real one to hold. If what Kate said was true, they had wasted years. And if what Kate said was true, Sam was determined to find her way back.
She heard the doorbell ring, and set her glass of water and the picture down to go answer it. She was expecting a delivery of oil paints to arrive that day and was glad UPS was early.
When she opened the door, she choked and stumbled back, stunned by the familiar face standing on the other side of the screen.
It was Reed.
Her eyes drank him in as she clutched the door. His dark hair was short, though it still curled at the tips. His mouth was set in a serious line, and his hands rested nervously in the pockets of his jeans as his foot tapped on the porch.
“Hi,” he whispered.
She gaped, unable to speak, and a barrage of memories overwhelmed her at the sound of his voice.
He was the cocky boy smirking at her from a couch. “You’re looking at me like you’re imagining me naked, so I thought you might be, well… imagining me naked.”
The desperate man waking from a fevered dream. “Am I dreaming?”
A tender lover with his hand on her shoulder. “I love you.”
An agonized partner in a cold hospital room. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”
Reed frowned, fidgeting on the front porch, but Sam was still frozen in shock, holding her arms around her body as if to keep herself from flying apart.
He spoke again. “So obviously, this is a surprise. I, um… I don’t really know what I’m doing here.” He sighed. “No, that’s not true.” He scowled and his hand reached up to grab the back of his neck. “You see, I got a note from a certain grad student we both know.” He paused for a moment, continuing when he saw that she still couldn’t speak. “Want to see it?”
He didn’t wait for her response, but reached into his pocket to pull out a folded piece of notebook paper. He carefully unfolded and spread it open, holding it so Sam could see it through the screen door. There were only five words:
She still has the picture.
Sam’s breath caught in a quiet cry as she read the note, and she felt tears prick the corners of her eyes. Her hands touched the paper through the screen, and she looked up at Reed’s face, familiar, yet still changed by the years they had been apart.
He cleared his throat and stared down at his shoe as it kicked a loose nail on the porch. Her fingers itched to reach through the door and smooth the lines that time and stress had etched around his eyes.
“I guess I just need to know why you still have it, because…” He paused for a moment before continuing in a low voice. “I lost mine. I mean… I destroyed it. See, once upon a time, I didn’t realize what I had. And I lost the right light for a minute. In one very foolish moment, I tore up something that meant everything to me.”
Sam’s mouth formed his name, but she still couldn’t find her voice.
Reed cleared his throat before he continued. “So, I tried to tape it up, but I could only find scraps. And the scraps didn’t make much of a picture.”
Fat tears rolled down her face, a
nd Sam leaned forward to push the screen door open. Reed stepped back and let her walk out. His eyes were red and glassy, and his voice was soft as he watched her.
“I found the painting you started. I kept that. I hung it on the wall in the studio, even though it’s not finished. But I can remember, you know? Fill in the rest when I look at it hard enough.”
Reed lifted a tentative hand to touch her cheek, and his fingers traced the line of her jaw. “And it’s beautiful, Sammy, but I miss the real thing. And when I got this note, I thought maybe I could see it again.” He swallowed audibly before continuing in a hoarse whisper, “Or maybe just—”
“Reed,” she finally choked out. Sam reached for his hand, brushing her tears away before she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his waist. He caught her, holding tightly as she soaked up the feel of him. She felt like she could breathe again.
“I missed you so much,” he whispered.
He held her as her tears stained his shirt. Sam didn’t try to hide them. She just clutched him tighter, letting her tears wash away the years of separation. Finally, Reed picked her up and carried her to the steps of the old porch. He sat down and Sam straddled his lap, still clinging to him. His arms held her as her tears slowed and the tension drained from her body.
He wiped his own eyes on his shoulders, never letting his arms leave her waist. Sam sniffed, exhaling shaky breaths into his chest. Then she allowed herself to bury her face in his neck and breathe in the scent of him. Soap. Sweat. The unique and familiar smell of his skin. Home. Even after all the years apart, Reed still smelled like home.
“I’ve always had that picture,” she said. “Always.”
His callused hands lifted to frame her face as his eyes drank her in. Reed kissed her forehead, and Sam closed her eyes and smiled. Working his way down, he kissed each eyelid, the swells of her cheeks and the tip of her nose. He tilted her head so his lips could place soft kisses along her jawline leading toward her ear.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I never stopped. Please, believe me.”
She reached her hands up to weave her fingers with his own. “I never stopped either. I love you so much.”
Their mouths met, their bodies entwined, and their lips moved against each other as if they had never been apart. She ran her fingers up his neck to stroke his hair, pulling him closer, gasping a little as his mouth left hers to taste her neck.
“I missed you,” he whispered as her eyes closed in pleasure. “So much. Every night. I dream about you every night.”
She pulled him even closer and whispered between hungry kisses, “Some days, I felt like I could hardly breathe.”
Finally pausing to catch his breath, Reed leaned his forehead on hers, caging her in his arms. “We have to go back. My life? It wasn’t… it just wasn’t.”
Sam shook her head and smoothed the lines between his eyes.
“We can’t go back, Reed. Even as much as we both want to.” She continued quickly when she saw his look of panic. “But I think—I think maybe we can move forward.”
Part Eleven: The Mirror
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Pomona, California
November 2010
“He’s not boring.”
“He’s completely boring, Kate.”
“No, he’s not. He just has better manners than you.”
Javi scowled at her. “You like it that I don’t have manners.”
“I don’t like it. I just like you. The fact that you have no manners is kind of unimportant, except when you’re talking to my mother.”
He shrugged. “I’m nice to the people who matter.”
Kate snorted and reached her hand across the seat to smack his thigh. Javi grabbed it and pulled her small hand to rest on his lap. “You know,” Kate started, “if it hadn’t been for Professor Chris, I wouldn’t have ever met you, Javi.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “Fine. I’ll be nice, but you’ve got to stop calling him Professor Chris. It sounds weird. He’s Chris. Boring Chris.”
“Does Boring Chris make Wonderful Dee happy?”
Kate knew Javi had a huge soft spot for the tiny photographer, and she saw his hard expression relax in the intermittent light of the street lamps.
“Yes,” he muttered.
“Okay then. Just be polite.”
“Kate?”
“Mmmhmm?”
“Are Chris and Dee our ‘couple friends’ now?”
She had to hold back her snort when she saw his lip curl. Instead she plastered an innocent look on her face. “I don’t know. Are we a couple?”
His head swung around and his eyebrows drew together in a frown. “What the hell?”
“I don’t know. We’ve been… whatever we are, for four months now, but you’ve never asked me to be your girlfriend.”
He glared at her. “Are you being serious right now?”
She repressed her smile. She was mostly joking. There was no doubt in her mind Javi considered them committed to each other, but she could also confess a small, juvenile part of her wanted to hear Javi call her his girlfriend.
The longer they were together, the more things seemed to fall into place for Kate. Javi was one of the smartest people she had ever met and one of the most talented. He was respectful but challenging in exactly the ways she needed. Being with him filled a hole in her life she didn’t even know she had.
And she also had to admit that she was fascinated by him. She loved tracing the hard planes and angles of his body, transfixed by the shadows they created. She would lay next to him while he slept and stare at the large phoenix adorning his back, trying to imagine what moment had inspired each tattoo that covered his body. Someday, she wanted to know the story behind each one, whether it was happy or sad.
For some reason, at that moment sitting in the car next to him, what Javi had said all those months ago at the art walk finally made sense.
“Oh!” she said with a small laugh.
He looked at her as she drove the old pickup.
“What? You’re joking with me, right?”
She grinned at him. “I don’t need a nice guy.”
“What?”
She needed him. He was rude, gruff, and mostly lacking in manners. He was brilliant and intense. He saw her in a way that Cody had never seen her in all the time they had known each other. He’d seen her from the beginning. And despite the years and circumstances that separated them, she had seen him, too.
“One frame?”
“One frame to capture who you think I am.”
It was the same one Kate would pick today, highlighting his stubborn jaw, his strangely graceful collarbone, and the star-like scars that dotted his thick neck.
Kate glanced at him and realized she had never answered his question and he was now glaring at her. She pulled over to the side of the road and put the truck in park.
Turning to him, she leaned across the cab of his pickup truck and kissed the cheek she hadn’t been able to convince him to shave. She smiled as her lips met rough stubble.
“Javier Lugo,” she asked simply, “will you be my boyfriend?”
She was pretty sure his face was red, despite the darkness of the truck cab, and she snickered a little.
“You’re cute when you blush, old man.”
Grunting, he turned and reached an arm around her waist, dragging her to straddle his lap as his other hand grasped the back of her neck and he pulled her in for a searing kiss. He devoured her mouth and pressed her body into his so she could feel how much he wanted her.
She only pulled him closer, arching against his chest when his hands gripped the small of her back.
They were lost in each other, ignoring the traffic that whizzed by on the busy street. When he finally let her up for air, she panted, but still held him close.
“Don’t,” he said as he continued to bite along her neck and behind her ear, “call your boyfriend an ‘old man.’” He paused and looked at her with a smirk. “It?
??s bad manners.”
She pinched his ear as he laughed and crawled off his lap to the driver’s seat again.
“We’re going to be late.”
He shrugged. “It’s Dee and Chris. They don’t care. They’re our ‘couple friends’ now.”
Kate laughed as she put the car in drive and pulled back onto the road heading toward the Bradley’s house in Claremont. After a minute, she heard Javi’s phone ring. Fishing it out of his pocket, he flipped it open.
“Hey, man, what’s up?”
She guessed from the friendly tone of voice it was probably Reed, who was still staying in the mountains at Sam’s cabin. Kate had been thrilled to hear he had flown out to California after receiving her note, and Susan had called her last month to tell her she thought Sam and Reed were working things out. Judging from Reed’s loud voice on the phone, she imagined there might be a few bumps in their happily ever after.
“Reed, I don’t know what to tell you.” Javi paused. “I’m sure she thought she was doing the right thing. Wouldn’t you try to protect her if you thought—” He scowled as his friend interrupted him.
Kate continued driving, turning onto the small residential street where Chris and Dee lived.
“Oh, no. Turn your damn car around and drive back to that cabin, asshole. If I come home with my girlfriend to find your drunk ass sitting on my porch again, I’m going to kick you back to New York, and you won’t be near as pretty when you get there.”
She grinned when she heard him call her his girlfriend, even if it wasn’t in the most romantic context, but she had to laugh a little, too. They had found Reed sitting on Javi’s porch a couple of weeks ago, drunk and pissed off, when Javi and Kate came back from dinner at his sister’s restaurant. Within the hour, Reed had been talking with Sam on the phone again, and she had driven down the mountain to pick him up, looking more than a little embarrassed.