Sculpting Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 2) (16 page)

"See?" I said, showing the screen to de St. James. "Exactly the same website - I'm just going to it on my phone so that I don't need to move the picture I just took over to my computer." I attached the just-snapped picture to a status update, commented about how the latest piece was looking great, and then hit the 'post' button.

"And now what?" de St. James asked after a minute.

I smiled at him, hoping that I was making progress. "And now, if we go look at any of the accounts set up for you..."

On the computer, I quickly pulled up the man's Facebook page, and then his Twitter, and then his Instagram account. Sure enough, the picture I'd just captured was now present on each of these accounts, along with the caption.

"See?" I said, as he peered down at the screen. "Easy as that! One button, and it goes up everywhere automatically."

"And this helps me?" he asked, still looking at the accounts that I'd created for him.

"Sure," I replied. "If someone is a fan of your work, they can check in on these sites and see updates from you. If you finish a new statue and you want to get feedback from other people, or maybe you want to advertise it to find a buyer who will really appreciate it, you can share a picture here. It's an easy way to communicate with fans of your art, showing off what you're doing."

I waited, but de St. James didn't say anything for a long minute, just clicking around on my computer. Finally, he turned away, fumbling in another pile of junk on top of a table on the far side of the room. I waited, slightly paranoid that he might pick up a hammer and attempt to destroy my laptop - but when he turned back around, he instead held a rather dirty but otherwise functional cell phone.

"Can you put that program thingy on my phone, too, and show me how to use it?" he asked. To my amazement, there wasn't a trace of anger in his voice. Instead, he sounded almost... what was the right word?

Respectful? No, that couldn't be right - but sure enough, the word fit perfectly.

"Of course," I assured him, taking the phone. The screen felt a bit grimy, and I wiped it on a nearby scrap of cloth, but the phone turned on immediately and seemed responsive. I quickly installed the social media manager app, set it up with his accounts, and gave de St. James a quick walk through on how to use it.

"And now, I just need to talk to you about one more thing," I said, as he accepted the phone back from me and immediately began curiously poking at the different buttons and options.

"Okay," he said, not looking up from his newly updated gadget.

"See, it's about this third item on your to-do list." I reached into my purse and pulled out the crumpled piece of yellow paper that he'd given me, unfolding it and turning it over until I located the entry. "All that you wrote down on here was 'EX', and I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean."

Immediately, I saw de St. James stiffen. Even though he studiously didn't look up from the phone, still poking at the screen, his lips tightened under his beard into a thin line. I'd apparently hit a nerve, even though I needed to ask the question.

"I need you to talk to my ex," de St. James said, still not meeting my eyes.

Okay, that was progress of a sort, I told myself. At least I now knew that he didn't want me to go off and find him a giant model of the twenty-third letter of the alphabet. "Okay, what do you need me to talk to your ex about?"

"Just-" de St. James started, but he cut his words off halfway through the sentence. "Just do it - you'll figure out what's wrong soon enough."

I frowned at him, feeling a little bit of annoyance myself. This was far too mysterious; what was I supposed to really do? But de St. James had already turned away and was over on the other side of the room, fumbling through some loose and disorganized papers in a corner of the workshop.

I closed my laptop, turning back to him just in time to catch a sheet of paper that he thrust out towards me. "What's this?" I asked, frowning down at the sheet.

"It's the address. Go over there and sort it out." And with that, de St. James turned away, clearly not intending on giving me any more information.

I opened my mouth, trying to figure out what to say, but I couldn't come up with any words. Fine. Apparently my first two tasks were satisfactorily completed. How much harder could it be to accomplish this last task, even if de St. James wasn't willing to tell me what exactly was wrong with his ex?

For all I knew, I probably just had to pick up some box of de St. James' things that he left at her house, I told myself. I'd just go in, quickly try and explain that I wasn't there to deliver messages, just to collect whatever might have been left behind, and try to be out before the yelling started.

Easy. Simple. I could pull this off.

I headed off in my truck to the address on the piece of paper that de St. James had given me, pausing only to slather my hands, and any other exposed skin, with antibacterial goo after stepping out of his house and into the fresh air. I wondered if de St. James' ex-lover had made it far enough to see the deplorable state of the man's house.

Heck, maybe that was what broke them up.

As I neared the address, the apartment buildings lining both sides of the street outside my truck's windows grew nicer, and my opinion of this ex-lover, whoever she might be, slowly rose. If she lived somewhere like here, in this clearly trendy and up-and-coming neighborhood, she at least had good taste.

I found a spot to park at the right block, headed over to the apartment building, and located the bell for the apartment matching the address I'd been given. "Gunn, R." read a small label affixed next to the apartment's buzzer.

I pushed the buzzer, waited, and then pushed it a second time for good measure.

"Yes? Who is it?" came a voice from the intercom. A male voice.

I frowned, quickly readjusting. To be fair, I didn't know how much time had passed since de St. James broke up with this woman. Maybe she'd already moved on to another man - or, I went on, perhaps this was a brother, or a visiting friend.

"I'm here..." I paused, trying to come up with a reasonable lie. No bolts of inspiration came lancing out of the sky to strike me, so I just went with the truth. "I'm here on behalf of Dean Benjamin de St. James."

Nothing came back from the speaker. I waited, holding my breath and wondering if I should have gone instead with the pizza delivery approach.

But then, just as I was about to turn away, I heard the buzz of the door unlocking. I wasn't sure what might have changed the tenant's mind, but I wasn't about to pass on this opportunity.

I grabbed the door, tugged it open, and headed up the stairs to the apartment belonging to "Gunn, R", wondering what I'd encounter next.

Chapter Nineteen

*

The apartment in question, where a Gunn inhabited and a man currently resided, was located on the third floor. I found myself panting slightly as I used the railing to pull myself up to the third floor landing, and redoubled my promise to myself to, at some point in the near-distant future, find a time to go with Portia to her exercise classes.

After taking a minute to catch my breath, I knocked on the door to apartment 3A and stepped back. A few seconds later, I heard the scrape of the chain sliding back on the inside, and the door opened.

Sure enough, a man looked out at me. He looked to be about in his early forties, fit and trim, wearing a blazer over a collared shirt and a pair of slacks, an outfit that wouldn't look out of place emerging from a church service. His eyes looked serious behind a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses, and he frowned out at me.

"So, Dean sent you over here? Why?" the man asked, not moving aside to let me in.

It took a moment before I connected the name "Dean" with the grumpy artist who, until now, I'd considered pretty much solely by his last name. "Uh, I don't know?" I offered weakly, wondering if this person would just slam the door in my face.

He looked like he was considering it, the way his eyes flatly examined me. Finally, however, he sighed and stepped back, pulling the door the rest of the way open.

"You look blank enough to clearly not know what's going on," he sighed as he stepped aside. "You'd better come in, maybe have a cup of tea. This will take a while."

I really wasn't much of a fan of tea, but I would gladly choke down a few sips if it helped me check off this third task, whatever it might turn out to be. "Thank you," I said, and I stepped into the apartment.

The inside of the apartment, at first glance, made me feel like I'd just arrived at an open house. The place looked like a model showroom, even down to a large glass jar filled to the brim with lemons, perched in the middle of the dining table! In the living room area on the left side of the open floor plan, two couches had perfectly folded throw rugs tossed over their backsides, with symmetrical ornamental pillows plumped and placed on either end of the sitting area. A spotless white marble fireplace held a collection of very small ceramic pots and jars on its mantel, along with, curiously, a single picture frame that had been turned face down.

"Just have a seat anywhere, it's a mess," the man told me as he bustled past, heading into the kitchen. I watched as he withdrew a bright, robin's egg blue finished metal teapot from a cabinet and filled it with water. Apparently, he wasn't kidding about the tea.

I perched myself on a corner of one of the sofas, feeling a bit like I'd ruin the picture-perfect apartment if I let myself settle back and dislodge any of the decorative pillows. "So, I'm Becca Grace, by the way," I called out into the kitchen. "I don't think I caught your name."

"Well, I'm Richard, of course," the man replied, returning back over to sit down across from me. "Richard Gunn. This is my apartment."

Richard Gunn, as in Gunn, R.? This was de St. James' - no, Dean's - ex?

"Dean is gay?" I burst out in surprise, stating the realization out loud before I could stop myself.

Richard, however, just tossed back his head and laughed. "The fact that you didn't know that, honey, gives me a bit of hope for him," he replied, waving a hand at me. "Yes, Dean is gay. And the two of us were quite happy together, at least for a while." His expression turned wistful, and his gaze flickered towards the fireplace.

"Wow," I said, still trying to wrap my head around this. Even now that Richard had confirmed it, I just couldn't see Dean as homosexual. Heck, I didn't want to think about him in any sort of a sexual way; his wild beard and hair, along with the general filthiness of his apartment, made the very possibility of him doing anything sexual seem purely revolting.

I looked back over at Richard, who was still gazing off into space as if lost in his recollections. "So..." I tried to think of a way to tastefully ask if de St. James had always been such a slob. "Was this breakup recent?"

Richard sighed. "Not so much. I'd say that it's been about six months since we finally separated, but we both knew that we had problems even before then."

Six months. Was that why de St. James fell out of favor in the artistic community? Could de St. James' house have gotten that bad in just that short of a period of time? "And before you two separated, how long had you been together?"

He leaned back as he counted it out. "Oh, at least a few years. I'd say that we were somewhere past the two year mark, probably getting closer to three, when it all finally came crashing down. There was a fight, lots of drama, I moved out and ended up here, and I haven't quite moved on since!" He laughed, although I didn't hear much humor in his tone.

So they'd lived together. Looking around at Richard's apartment, I guessed that he had been the one who handled all the cleaning, tidying, and organizing. Apparently, without him, de St. James just descended further and further into uncleanliness.

Now, on to the real challenge. "Well, I'm actually only over here because de St. James - er, Dean - assigned me a task of coming by for something," I said, attempting to be direct. I could hear the tea kettle on the stove starting to whistle, and I really didn't want to have to choke down a cup of whatever green tea concoction Richard drank to stay so thin. Probably because, after tasting that tea, he didn't want to put anything else in his mouth for the rest of the day. "But unfortunately, he didn't tell me what exactly I'm supposed to do."

"Well, isn't that something?" Richard frowned at me, tilting his head slightly to one side like he wasn't sure what to make of me. "And how did you get roped into that?"

"I'm the manager for an art gallery downtown," I explained. "Ever heard of the Halesford Gallery?"

For a moment, Richard started to shake his head, but then paused. "Oh, yes! The little one off on that side street, just a couple of blocks from where all the warehouses start! Oh, it's a cute little place," he exclaimed.

"Thank you," I replied. "Anyway, my boss - Preston Halesford, he's my uncle - called me up and told me that Dean Benjamin de St. James was this artist who was getting lots of national publicity, and it would be great to sign him on at the gallery as a contributor. So I went to go see him, and he demanded that I complete three tasks before he'd agree."

"Oh, that sounds just like the man," Richard sighed, resting his chin on one hand. "Always has to make things difficult. And here's the artwork, those silly statues, popping up and causing trouble once again!"