Work of Art (43 page)

Epilogue

Harper

For the next few months, I lived and breathed Ryan Carson, and the air was so sweet when I actually got a taste of it, but Ryan and I soon learned that we kept very different schedules. After spending our first weekend together, we finally emerged when I needed to physically go back to work. I’d planned to take time off over Labor Day weekend anyway, and it just so happened to coincide with our reunion, but come Tuesday, I had to go back to the shop. Plus I was still working on my photo series on love for my show in November that was rapidly approaching.

Ryan was teaching, so he spent his days at the junior college working on lesson plans for his two classes, holding office hours and learning as much as he could about the material. He had classes from ten to eleven on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he didn’t go in until later in the day, so I always claimed him for my own in the mornings
, because I was at the shop until late most nights.

But he was always in my bed waiting for me when I got home
, which I freaking loved. When his lease ended in September, he’d actually moved in with Brandon into a three bedroom apartment two floors below mine which was ridiculously convenient. I was a little shocked that either of them would want a roommate after living on their own for so many years, but it wasn’t like Ryan spent much time at his place. He practically lived at mine.

Truthfully, I think we both wanted to move in together, but after his two failed relationships and my overall skittishness about
relationships in general, we’d avoided the subject. But things were good, and we were happy, so talks of next steps
could
be avoided. We were honestly having a great time just getting to know each other again, and before long it felt like he’d always been a fixture in my life.

Especially when he’d
re-inserted himself into it so nicely, never once complaining about the time I spent on my art or at the shop. But I knew I owed him some time, and we were actually planning to take a mini-vacation the day after my photography show opened.

The night
before my show, Ryan sauntered into the shop with a bag from the deli across the street. Somehow he knew I hadn’t taken a break to eat, and as usual, he knew exactly what I was craving. I’d just finished piercing a girl’s nose and was cleaning up when he plopped himself down in my chair and pulled me onto his lap.

“Hey,” I said, right before his lips lowered over mine and captured them for a few long seconds.

Ryan had promised me that he wouldn’t get tired of kissing me, and he had yet to show any signs that that promise wasn’t true. He kissed me every chance he got, and I loved it.

“
Whoo-hoo, boss,” Paulie cheered from where he was finishing up a tattoo of a cluster of daisies on a girl’s ankle.

“Those two need a room,”
Krysta commented without looking up from where she was giving a guy spider bites. She’d done the first one, and his eyes were already watering. It rarely failed that facial piercings enlisted tears from most recipients.

“Can I steal Harper away?” Ryan asked, finally letting me come up for air.

“No,” I said quickly, having assessed the waiting room just a few minutes earlier. It was a Friday night, and we were slammed.

“Yes,”
Paulie and Krysta said in unison.

“We’re fine,” Clark, one of my other artists, who usually didn’t say much, chimed in.

“You guys, I can’t leave,” I insisted. There were six people waiting in the waiting room.

“Harper, it’s ten o’clock. You’ve been here since opening. Go home with your man,”
Krysta insisted. “We’ve seriously got this.”

I sighed, and my resolve to stay and help faded even further when Ryan gave me puppy dog eyes.

“Oh, come on,” I said, pushing off of his lap.

“Boss, you’ve got your show tomorrow night. Go home and get some rest,”
Paulie insisted.

“Fine,” I grumbled, realizing how exhausted I really was.

I’d been working too much, and I probably needed to hire another artist, but I didn’t want to shut myself out completely. I loved tattooing.

“Thanks guys,” Ryan said, as he lifted himself from the chair and reached for my hand.

I’d had him in that chair once before a few weeks after we started dating when he finally let me give him a tattoo on his shoulder. I’d modified my Tyler tattoo for him by taking out the rosary and making it more masculine with a tribal design around the dates. That way our tattoos were similar, but they were also unique. He kept hinting that he might want me to do another one for him, but I was hesitating. I liked him clean cut.

“I have to finish cleaning up,” I insisted, and I felt a push from behind. I turned around to see
Krysta grinning at me.

“I’ll take care of it. I’m almost done here.”

“You sure?”

“Go!” she said again, and Ryan yanked my hand to pull me forward. “Good luck with your show!”

“Thank you!” I called over my shoulder as Ryan drug me outside.

As soon as the door to the shop closed behind me, he yanked me forward, and I fell against his chest. He looked down at me and smiled before he lowered his lips to mine, kissing me gently.

“I’ve missed you,” he said tenderly when he pulled back, and I looked up at him and smiled as my whole body started to relax.

I’d been working around the clock to finish everything for my show, so we hadn’t seen each other a lot over the past week. But I was done, and apparently the shop was covered, so maybe I could spent a night just being with Ryan and enjoying the fact that he was mine.

“I missed you too. Sorry things have been so crazy lately. I promise I’ll be more available from now on.”

He smiled and brushed a stray lock of hair off my cheek. Then he kissed the space where his fingers had grazed.

“I’m proud of you,” he said softly. “And you’re so talented. If that means you have to pull yourself away from me from time to time, I get it, and I support it.”

“I love you,” I said then, so grateful for his understanding that I was practically gushing.

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you love me enough to show me your pieces before tomorrow night?”

My mouth dropped open, and I smacked his chest. “Not that much.”

His mouth dropped open to mimic mine in mock offense. I’d been keeping the photographs for my show a secret, not sure how Ryan would react, and I sort of wanted the element of surprise.

“Besides, everything’s already at the gallery, so I can’t show you.”

He gave me a cocky grin. “I know for a fact that you have your whole show scanned into your computer. You could show me – if you really loved me.”

I sighed. “You might not like it.”

He let his arms drop to my waist and pulled me closer. “Then don’t you think I should see it in private instead of with the masses tomorrow night.”

My eyes went wide. “I never thought of that! Oh shit! What if you hate it?”

He rolled his eyes. “I won’t hate it. I’ve never hated anything you’ve ever done.”

I took a deep breath. “You might hate this.”

He shook his head. “I won’t. Will you show me?”

I let my breath out and realized it was shaky.

“Okay, fine, but can I eat first? I’m starving.”

“Anything for you, babe,” he said, kissing me once before handing me the bag from the deli.

Then he took my hand and we walked into our building together. He didn’t even bother stopping on his floor since we both knew he’d spend the night at my place. He even used the key I’d given him to let us in, and I wondered how much longer we’d keep up the charade that we didn’t live together.

I grabbed my laptop from the coffee table, shoved in the jump drive that had the pictures for my show saved on it, took a deep breath and brought up the pictures that I knew Ryan wouldn’t have an emotional connection to. They were the first part of the show that focused on love from the outside looking in.
It was of couples in various stages of love and what the world saw when they looked at them. I’d taken pictures of couples and what they were doing when they thought no one was looking. It had turned out to be a really sweet series.

Then I’d decided to go one step further and put myself out on a limb. That was what I was most nervous for Ryan to see. It
was about the journey love took. It was much more raw and personal, and I wasn’t sure if Ryan would love it like I hoped or be mad at me for showcasing something so personal.

As he scrolled through the pictures, I picked up the sub he’d gotten me and started eating.

“Babe, these are great,” he said, pausing every so often to admire my work.

When he finished the first set and moved onto the second, my heart rate stared to increase. And I found myself second-guessing why I’d ever thought this was a good idea. And when he came to the last few shots before the finale, my stomach was churning so bad I had to set my sandwich down.

He clicked forward, and it was almost as if it was in slow motion. I watched his finger depress the mouse button, watched the screen change and the black and white photo appear, and then I moved my eyes from the computer screen to his face. He looked confused at first, and then recognition started to dawn on his face.

The first shot was of him at our high school graduation. He was wearing his cap and gown along with aviator sungla
sses and blowing me a kiss as I hid behind my camera. The next picture was a crude self-portrait of us that we’d taken just weeks before we’d broken up. We were grinning and holding up brochures for Yale. And then there was one of me that I’d taken when I was seven months pregnant and had stood in front of the mirror. The pictures then followed the story of when Tyler was born, the three years of his life, and even the last few weeks, including one of his headstone. I watched Ryan’s face the whole time as he clicked slowly through the pictures, his face expressionless.

Then it was as if the years zoomed by, because they had, and the next shot was of Ryan asleep on my couch the first time he’d spent the night. Pictures of Tyler that he’d been looking through and the open box I kept them in were haphazardly displayed on the coffee table next to him, and on his chest was the picture of Tyler and me the day he’d been born. I’m not sure if he realized he’d fallen asleep with it in his hand, but I’d removed it before he’d woken up anyway.

Ryan looked up at me in surprise. “You took pictures of me that first night?”

I nodded, trying not to feel embarrassed. “Yeah, you looked really beautiful with your shirt off on my couch, and I couldn’t help myself.”

He just nodded once, and I couldn’t tell if he was mad. He wasn’t telling me anything and neither was his expression.

The next few pictures were ones I’d taken in the past few months. There were a few from Ryan’s rehearsal dinner and the night he’d finally let loose with Brandon and me, one of Ryan kneeling in front of Tyler’s headstone, one of him looking at the pictures of Tyler and me on my mantle, and finally, one of us I’d taken when we’d been cuddling on the couch that rounded out the journey of more than eleven years.

“Are you upset?” I asked, as he stared at the picture on the screen.

He shook his head. Then he looked over at me. “It’s our story.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it is. I really wanted to capture everything that tore us apart and brought us together, because regardless of the good and bad, the story has a happy ending.”

“You’ve never used pictures of Tyler in a show before,” he said. “Why now?”

I shrugged.
“Because of you.”

“Me?”

I nodded. “Yeah. My life changed when Tyler was born, but it honestly changed the moment I met you. And for a long time, I wasn’t happy because I’d lost the two people I loved most. Now I have one of them back, and for the first time in years, I’m happy. And I didn’t realize that before. Even though I had my friends and my shop and my art, I was missing so much. I can’t get Tyler back, but in a strange way, he brought us back together. He gave me you again, and this is my way of showing you, and frankly the general population, that even through all I’ve been through and all I’ve lost, I have something so rare and so special.”

“What’s that?” he asked, not fully getting where I going with my diatribe.

I smiled. “I have your love, and that’s the most incredible thing in the world.”

Tears surprised me when they pricked the backs of my eyes, and Ryan pulled me into his arms. “You’ve always had my love,” he murmured against my temple before he kissed it.

I nodded, as the tears spilled down my cheeks. “I know. I’m just really grateful for it.”

We sat in silence for a few minu
tes, his arms holding me tight, the last picture in the series still glowing from the computer screen.

Ryan took a deep breath. “I think the show is going to be amazing
, Harper. I can’t wait to see these pictures blown up on the wall. I think it might be your best show yet.”