Page 50 of Wicked Design
Clover turned to his living room window.
He didn’t watch her melting in the suffocating heat.
Blocks from her place, she pulled out her smartphone and wrote a text, telling him he didn’t have to pay her electric bill. She didn’t mind sweating to death.
Clover couldn’t send it. If nothing else, she valued honesty in a relationship and didn’t want to play games or be flip.
She composed another message, thanking him for dinner, and erased that one, too, since she hadn’t touched the burrito he’d bought her.
Back at her place, she considered letting him know she’d reached home safely. That one she sent and waited an hour for his response. It never came. She fell into a troubled sleep and repeatedly jerked awake, thinking her phone had rung, buzzed, or pinged, whatever setting she’d put it on.
Come morning, she broke down and called.
His voicemail greeting answered. “Leave a message or don’t. Up to you.”
She smiled at his gruff, don’t-bother-me tone, delighted to hear him and hoped she’d sound mellow and approving of everything he was, even when he acted like a dick. “Hi, it’s me. Ah, I wanted to thank you for the beer last night and for showing me your stuff. Your art, that is.” She forced a laugh and paced. “Anyway, your paintings are great, like I said. I’d never BS you about them. I hope you know that. I’m glad you liked my cuffs. Your idea for bronze, like skin—hey, like yours, right?—that was a cool suggestion. I’m going to—”
The voicemail cut her off.
She didn’t have the courage to phone again but did wait fruitlessly for him to get back to her.
By midafternoon she couldn’t stand his silence or the suspense any longer and ran to the parlor. Tor inked a woman’s calf in the front window and gave Clover a broad grin. His groupies, all babes, lifted their smartphones and snapped his picture.
Jasmina wasn’t at the front counter. Customers took up every inch on the sofas. Those who hadn’t grabbed a seat paced and talked into their smartphones. An older couple perused Van Gogh’s oils and Tor’s sketches.
Unwilling to wait for a formal escort to the back, Clover hurried down the hall to Van Gogh’s station. Empty. She rushed past it to what must have been the break room. The mural he’d mentioned floored her. His pictures hadn’t done the painting justice.
“Can I help you?”
A twentysomething guy she’d never seen sat at the table, his lunch nearly eaten.
She offered a wan smile. “Do you know where V is?”
“V?”
“Van Gogh.”
“Beats me. I haven’t seen him today.”
Clover raced to Lauren’s office and rapped lightly on the jamb, not wanting to wake Molly. The little girl slept in Lauren’s arms.
Lauren glanced up, smiled in surprise, then sobered quickly. “What’s wrong?”
“V isn’t in his station.” Clover lowered her voice even more. “Where is he?”
“V?”
She had to stop using that nickname around here. “Van Gogh.”
“Oh. He’s on his way. He had stuff to do and said he’d be late and asked us to give his appointment to someone else or reschedule it.”
For him to ditch a customer for other matters didn’t sound right. If nothing else, he was serious about his art, even when it was tattooing someone. Something must be majorly wrong to have kept him away, and it started last night when she’d been at his place. “What stuff?”
“He didn’t say. I didn’t ask. Are you okay?” Lauren squinted. “You don’t look it. Did you two argue?”
“I wish.”
“Come in and tell me what happened. Close the door.”
