Page 77 of Double or Nothing

“So am I.”

Another silence. He checks his phone, waiting for the alert of the cab arrival. He runs his fingers through his hair when it pings through, checking all over again that he has his keys and his phone, like he hasn’t done it twenty times already.

“You going to say goodbye to Alice?” I ask him.

“I already have. But she was in the flow.”

“Ah, I see. So she barely acknowledged you?”

His eyes are piercing.

“She’s busy. Like I’m going to be.”

“Cool. Hope you get a standing ovation for your mock-up later. You’ll deserve one.” I smirk, but his bristles are rubbing off on me. I feel a squirm in my guts I’m not used to.

He walks towards the door. His pause is awkward as hell when he reaches the doorway.

Another silence.

I’d give him a jokey mwah, if the mood wasn’t as icy as the Arctic.

I wonder what it must be like to be in his shoes. Such a workaholic, enslaved by the conditions around me. Other people’s expectations. Other people’s rules, and restrictions, and power wielding bullshit.

Absolute bloody shit. That’s what it would be.

He sighs.

“Is this a see you around kind of situation?”

“Dunno. Maybe.”

There’s a slight flash of panic through his panic. I see it for just a fleeting moment.

“Ok, great,” he says. “See you around, Jack. Maybe.”

If I had more than thirty seconds left with the man running for the status quo, I’d tell him what I really thought. That he should cut the crap with the overhanging terror and tell Soul Girl upstairs how he really feels about her. Get down on one knee in the paint smears and seal the deal while the fires are still burning.

But I don’t.

He doesn’t look at me before he leaves, and I don’t get the chance to give him an actual goodbye before he’s out of here.

See you around. Maybe.

His words give me a damn pang. One of those shit lurches of emotion that make me feel sick.

Fuck this bullshit. I call a cab myself and get the hell out of Alice’s pad without another word.

Wouldn’t want to interrupt the heavenly flow of Soul Girl upstairs, after all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ALICE

The world always disappears when the paint brush starts speaking to me. It doesn’t fade into the background, or dull into the distance. It disappears into the void of absolute, total silence.

There is no laughter from Jack echoing through the room as I zone in on the accentuations of our trio of canvases. No prickle of Bryce’s stare burning at my fingers as I work. No sensible thoughts, no worries of the road lying ahead, no niggling panic at Daddy’s expectations.

There is only colour. Movement. My breath. The canvas.