Majority of the staff of For the Record is attending the art show. Emmit, a new staff writer Mr. Monohan recently hired, is covering the event, so he got a jumpstart on the rest of us. We all met at Last Call beforehand for drinks. I stuck to water, though. I want to be fully alert and ready for anything tonight. After Whitney didn’t invite me in last night, I’m not sure what to think about whatever this is between us. I don’t think I can call her my girlfriend anymore since we went two weeks without speaking to each other. She’s keeping me away, and while I can’t blame her for not fully trusting me, I’m about to explode. Seeing her last night and not being able to touch her was more difficult than I could have imagined. She was right not to invite me inside, though. I would have ruined everything when I caved and couldn’t keep myself from touching her.

“Hey, are you with us?” David asks, clapping me on the back of my suit. We all dressed up since Emily informed us these shows are meant to be black-tie affairs.

“Yeah. Nervous. I want everything to go well for Whitney.”

“Any idea what she’s charging for these paintings?” Emily asks. “I brought my checkbook, but let’s face it; we all work for the same paper and none of us is loaded.”

“She really didn’t give me too many details,” I say.

Aria walks up alongside me and loops her arm through mine. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s not keep that girl of yours waiting.”

Aria’s always been the one to push limits while remaining the voice of reason. She’s like a walking contradiction, and it’s really impressive. Even though we don’t interact much at the office, she still includes me when we’re all together outside of work. She’s a team player, which I guess is why she’s so good at being our boss.

“You look like you’re going to lose your dinner,” she whispers to me.

Nate’s on her other side, where he always is. It’s rare to see them apart. He offers me an encouraging smile.

“I didn’t exactly eat dinner, so I think you’re safe to walk next to me,” I tell Aria.

She laughs. “Well, the good news is that these things are always catered.”

Whitney doesn’t have the money to have the event catered. My stomach flips. If tonight is a failure, she’s going to blame me for pushing her to go through with it. She’ll never take me back after that.

“Aria, I don’t think Whitney hired a caterer.”

“She didn’t,” Aria says. “I did. Sort of.”

“What?”

She nods. “I called Whitney last week and told her there’s a new caterer in the same building where her art school will be. I told her to cut a deal with them. Some artwork to help advertise in exchange for catering this event and giving out their cards to everyone who attends.”

That’s brilliant. And unlike me, Aria let Whitney handle the details instead of taking care of it herself without consulting Whitney.

“You’re going to have to give me some pointers on how to help people out without taking over.”

She squeezes my arm. “Your heart’s in the right place, Alex. You just have to trust people to be able to take care of themselves. Whitney’s been doing that for years. Give her a little credit.”

I nod as we walk into the old office. Soft music is playing in the background, and Elana is acting as the hostess.

“Good evening,” she says. “Welcome to the very first viewing of Miss Whitney Stillwater’s artwork. Please have a look around. Every piece you’ll see is available for purchase. There are waiters from Le Petite Appetit circulating around the room with champagne and hors d’oeuvres.” She looks at me when she finishes with her spiel. I start to walk by her, but Elana grabs my arm. “I’d lose the blonde before you meet up with Whitney. I might have told her about the woman cozying up to you at the street fair, and I don’t think she’d handle seeing you here with another woman.”

“She’s my boss, and she’s practically engaged to the guy with her.” I gesture to Nate. “And I was not cozying up to anyone at the street fair.”

“I know you weren’t. I told Whitney you weren’t very receptive to that woman, but tonight is her big night. She needs you by her side whether she’s willing to admit it or not.”

“That’s exactly where I want to be, but I don’t want to push her.”

Elana looks around, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s making sure Whitney isn’t lurking anywhere. “Take a good look at the paintings she’s done since you two stopped talking. I think you’ll come to find that you were never off her mind.” She turns abruptly and greets a few more people who just arrived.

I’m happy to see other people besides the For the Record crew, but I’m dying to know what Elana meant by that comment.

“Oh wow,” Cheryl says off to my right where we used to hang the white board with our schedule on it. She turns to me and then points her champagne at the painting in front of her. “Did you know she painted you?”

I expect to see the picture of my face, the one with her reflection in my eyes, but this painting is very different. It’s a crowd of people in front of a coffee shop. The very same coffee shop that’s next to Amor Amici downtown. “Did she paint pictures of the stores in hopes of the owners buying them?” I ask Cheryl. “That’s a brilliant plan.”

“Dude,” Cheryl says, “tell me you see it.” She points to a man wearing a purple Polo shirt, and I do a double take.

I don’t own a purple Polo, so she didn’t paint this from a picture she took or even something she saw. But it’s so clearly my face.

“I’d say he’s a little more ripped than you are, but the face is a dead ringer,” Cheryl says.

She’s right about the body. The guy looks like he lives in a gym. Whitney can’t possibly think I look like that. So does that mean she didn’t intend to paint my face? Did it happen by mistake?

“You’re going to be famous after this,” David says, clapping his hand down on my shoulder.

“It’s one painting, and it’s not even my body,” I say.

His eyes go to the painting in front of us. “Oh, wow. Another one?”

“Another one? What are you talking about?” I turn around, looking across the room. From a distance, I can’t make out anything strange about the other paintings.

“Look closer,” David says, moving me down the line to the next painting.

This one is a fisherman. The image shows the fish he caught front and center, so that’s where my eye naturally goes. But then I look at the fisherman. He’s wearing a bucket hat with lures dangling from it, but beneath the hat are the same dark eyes, angular nose, and full lips I see every morning when I look in the mirror.

“It’s not over yet,” David says, pushing me past the closed door to the break room and on to the next painting.

This one I’ve seen before. It’s the one of my face with her reflection in my eyes. Now that it’s finished, her image in my eyes is more noticeable. The bottom right-hand corner has the title, but it’s not the one she told me back at her place. Instead, it reads “Through Your Eyes.”

“Exactly how close did you two get while she was painting those murals at night?” David asks me. “This is insanely...”

“Intimate?” Cheryl offers.

David nods and drinks his champagne. I really wish I had some right now, but the servers seem to be moving in the opposite direction than I am. I turn the corner and reach the back wall, and that’s when I see Whitney. The look on her face is pure terror.

“Give me a second, you guys,” I tell the others before walking over to her.

“You came,” she says.

“I promised I would.” The tension between us is greater than ever.

“I see you’ve uncovered the theme of tonight’s event.” She forces a laugh as she fidgets with the ring on her pinky finger. “It wasn’t intentional, and I didn’t even know I was painting you until Elana pointed it out last night after you left. I—”

I reach forward and take her face in my hands. I stare into her eyes for three seconds, long enough for her to tell me to release her, but she doesn’t, so I capture her lips with mine. I’m not about to kiss her the way I want to in the middle of her art show, so I break away much sooner than I’d like.

She looks confused when she says, “Why aren’t you running away?”

“For the past two weeks, I thought you didn’t want to be with me anymore. And I didn’t blame you for that. I screwed up, and I thought I ruined everything. So when I saw myself in all these paintings...” I lean forward and kiss her lightly again. “Whitney, I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am right now.”

“The reporter is at a loss for words again?” she teases. “You’re making me think I’m a bad influence on you.”

“You could never be anything but good for me,” I say, taking her hand in mine. “And if you’ll let me, I’d like to do the same for you from now on.”

She smiles. “No more talking for me or pushing me when I’m not ready?”

I shake my head. “You lead. I’ll follow.”

This time she kisses me. “Okay, but right now, I need to mingle with the crowd on my own, so do you think you can hold off on the following until this exhibit is over?”

“Whatever you want.” I thought I was going to have to wait much longer for her. A few hours is nothing, especially when I plan to stay here and watch her talk to her fans. “Go,” I tell her, releasing her hand, which I just realized I was holding.

She smiles before walking away.

“I guess you were nervous for nothing,” David says, walking up behind me.

“Why am I not surprised you were watching that?”

He laughs and motions to our coworkers, who are all holding their drinks in the air to toast me. “We all saw it.”

“Wonderful.” I roll my eyes, but David wraps his arm around my shoulders and walks me back to the group. “Come on. You don’t want to openly stalk your girlfriend. Let her do her thing, and you can hang out with us and tell us what paintings to buy.”

If everyone bought one, that would really help, but if I orchestrated it, I’d be back in the doghouse with Whitney. “I’m not going to force anyone to buy anything. If you see something you like, it’s up to you whether you want to purchase it.”

David raises his glass to me.

I notice Nate and Aria eyeing up a painting of a vase with a single daisy, and perched on the daisy is a dragonfly so green it looks teal.

“I love this,” Aria says, clutching her dragonfly necklace she always wears.

“Then it’s yours.” Nate kisses the tip of her nose, and they walk over to Elana, who greets them happily and takes their payment. Elana then puts a “Sold” tag on the painting.

That’s one sale. I circulate around the room. Whitney is smiling and talking to some kids, whom I can only assume are her former students. The boy points to a painting of a kid playing a guitar. The kid’s face is covered by his shaggy hair, and I’m grateful for that because my face would have looked awful on that scrawny teenage body. I doubt this student would have been interested in that painting at all. Whitney says something to him, and then they both walk over to Elana. Elana shakes her head, says something else, which makes Whitney frown, and Elana crosses her arms, obviously not relenting. Whitney finally nods, and the boy pays, Elana throwing in money as well. She then walks over and puts a “Sold” sign on that painting, too.

“So far so good,” David says, meeting up with me again.

“Yeah, but so far it’s only people she knows.” If more people don’t show up, she’s going to be crushed. She’ll never have faith in her ability to do this if total strangers don’t purchase her work.

Another hour passes, and the crowd thins. Whitney looks pale, but I resist the urge to go comfort her. She said she wanted to do this on her own. I have to let her.

Another twenty minutes pass before more people arrive. I breathe a sigh of relief when Whitney smiles at them. One couple walks around and then gives me a strange look. I smile and raise my drink to them, sure they’re questioning why I’m appearing in so many of the paintings. They wind up leaving after about ten minutes, having only consumed some wine and cheese. Whitney couldn’t look more defeated, and I can’t even go over and comfort her. I don’t think things could get any worse.

And then Oliver Strauss walks in.