Bryan

I called up Drew and told him what happened. I enlisted his help to get the gallery cleaned up as best as I could and was settled with how quickly it came together. Drew brought some things from our company warehouse to use, saying we could write it off as a donation. I had him start on filling the hole and taking care of the indentations in the wall while I scraped the paint off the floor. Then, I set to fixing the counter before I threw the ruined paintings in the dumpster behind the gallery.

It made me sick to throw these things away, even though I knew they couldn’t be salvaged.

Drew and I worked through lunchtime, letting the filler to fix the holes dry so we could paint the walls. I pulled the door Drew had brought from the warehouse, making sure it would fit before I fixed the seal around it. It was almost three o’clock by the time I got the doorframe fixed and the door replaced, and by that time, Drew had opened up cans of the cream-colored paint Hailey had on the gallery walls.

“If we double-team this paint job, we can finish this sucker up tonight,” he said.

It sounded like a good enough idea to me, so I grabbed a roller and got to work.

Every once in a while, I texted Hailey. I could tell she was still upset, but more so because none of her paintings could be salvaged. She was relieved that she didn’t have to alert any of her outside artists that their paintings had been ruined, but I could feel the heaviness of her heart radiating through her text messages.

I wanted to get home to her as soon as possible.

“Why don’t you call her?” Drew asked. “I got this shit, man. Ten more minutes to let it dry, another coat, and this thing’ll be done.”

“You sure?” I asked.

“Yeah. Go. Call her, dude.”

I dialed Hailey’s number and was relieved when she picked up. She didn’t sound like she’d been crying or anything, and I smiled as my name rolled off her tongue.

“Hey, Bryan.”

“Hey there, beautiful. How’re you feeling?” I asked.

“Tired. Hungry. Want me to fix something?” she asked.

“Nope. I want you to stay in bed and rest. I’m driving by that Korean barbecue place to get us something to go.”

“The place where we had our first date,” she said.

“That’s the one.”

“How’s everything coming along?” she asked.

“That’s actually the good news. I got Drew over here to help me. In about ten minutes, we’re gonna slap one more coat of paint on the walls, and you should be back in business whenever you wanna be.”

“Wait, are you serious?” she asked.

“When you’ve got men who are skilled like Drew and me, fixes like this don’t take long.”

“How much do I owe you two?” she asked.

“We’ll talk about that later, but it most certainly won’t be two thousand dollars.”

“Oh my gosh,” she said breathlessly. “Bryan, I’ve got absolutely no idea how to thank you.”

“I know one way you can start,” I said, grinning. “Call Jennifer. Pitch her that story. We still need to get up and running for John’s showcase.”

“I can do that,” she said. “I’ll call her right now.”

“Let me know what she says. And Hailey?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s all going to be all right. Okay?” I asked.

“Okay.”

I hung up the phone and walked back inside to help Drew with the last coat of paint. We set up a box fan to sit overnight on the wall so the paint would dry quicker, and I made a mental note to come back for it in the morning. Drew and I studied our handiwork, impressed with how quickly we got all of this cleaned up and back in tip-top shape.

Then, Drew looked over and asked the one question I knew he would.

“I take it the two of you are doing better now?” he asked.

“We’re doing just fine,” I said, smiling.

“Good. Because Anna’s moved into town, and I wanna hit her up.”

“What?” I asked.

“Yeah. Ran into Anna at the store the other day. She looked radiant, man, a lot happier than she was back in July. But I didn’t wanna call her or anything because of the bad blood between you and Hailey.”

“Why’d she move into town?”

“She said something about starting over, but I didn’t really catch it. Her eyes are too pretty, dude.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, grinning. “Well, you have fun with that. I’ve got to pick up dinner for Hailey and me.”

“Get outta here, man. Go. I’ll lock this place up,” he said.

“Thanks, Drew. Seriously.”

I strode to my truck and got in right as Hailey called again. She seemed frantic, rattling things off a million times a second as I held my phone to my ear.

“Wait, slow down, Hailey. Start from the beginning,” I said.

“Don’t get dinner yet. We have to go to the police station,” she said.

“I’m on my way,” I said as I pulled out into the road. “What’s going on?”

“They pulled the footage from that camera across the street this afternoon. They want me to come take a look at it. I was hoping you’d go with me.”

“Of course, I’m on my way home now.”

“I also called Jennifer,” she said.

“Oh, really? What did she say about the story?”

“She loves the angle, and she’s going to run it. She’s even going to keep John’s death out of it. She’s only going to mention he’s a posthumous artist.”

The smile that spread across my face matched the one I knew Hailey had spreading across hers.

“That’s fantastic news,” I said. “I’m about fifteen minutes away from you.”

“I’ll be standing outside when you get here.”

The moment I pulled up into my driveway, Hailey slid into the seat of my truck. For all the stress she’d been under and all that had taken place today, she looked incredible. I took her hand and brought it to my lips, kissing her knuckles as her smile bloomed.

“Let’s take a breath before we get going, okay?” I asked.

We sat there collecting ourselves while the sun slowly set over the houses of San Diego. Hailey’s thumb was tracing small circles on top of my skin, and every single hair on my body was standing on end. I knew there would never be a point in my life where I wouldn’t crave her, where I wouldn’t want her every second of every day in my life.

“You ready?” she asked.

“Yeah, are you?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

We arrived at the police station, and Mike was there to greet us. He led us over to a computer with a black and white picture pulled up onto the screen. It was a close-up of Hailey’s gallery with a man who looked to be kicking in her front door.

The anger I thought I’d squashed quickly rose up my throat as Mike pressed a few buttons.

“I’m going to back it up a bit. Take your time, Miss Ryan. Let me know if you recognize this man,” Mike said.

She backed it up and played it a few times while her eyes darted across the screen. The man was gangly and tall, with long limbs and a thick head of hair. The picture was a bit grainy, but higher quality than I’d expected from a telephone pole camera in the middle of a run-down part of town. The more Hailey backed it up and played it, the more I got the sense she was trying to digest more than she was trying to figure something out.

And the saddened look in her eye told me she knew who it was.

“Hailey?” I asked as I rubbed her back. “You know who that is?”

She swallowed hard and my heart lurched for her. Tears rose to the rims of her eyes as her fingers reached out for the screen. She was dancing over the picture of the man, her fingertips stopping right at the man’s hands.

“His rings,” she said breathlessly.

“His rings?” Mike asked.

“That’s Max Wentmore,” she said. “I know that’s him. His rings, I’ve always seen him wearing them whenever he comes in. That’s who that is.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I know it’s him,” she said as she turned her watering gaze toward me.

“Where does he work?” I asked.

“Bryan, just calm down. We’ll handle it from here. We’ve already questioned him and—”

“Where does he work, Hailey?” I asked again.

“Bryan,” Mike said.

The look in his eye was serious, and I drew in a deep breath through my nose.

“We questioned him today. We now have a reason to bring him in, so that’s what the police will do,” he said. “You hear me?”

Hailey was looking up at me with her desperate eyes, her hands curling around my throbbing fists before she raised up and planted a kiss on my cheek.

“Let’s go home. I’m hungry. We can pick up some food on the way back.”

My gaze sat heavily on Mike’s face as he rolled his shoulders back.

“Sounds good,” I said as my lips kissed her forehead. “We can cuddle up and watch a movie.”

“Sounds like a solid plan,” Mike said.

“You keep us updated on everything,” I said. “And I mean everything.”

“Miss Ryan’ll get a phone call every step of the way. Our next step is to bring Mr. Wentmore in for questioning,” Mike said.

“Let’s go home,” Hailey said again. “Please?”

I wrapped my arm around her and ushered her out of the police station, no longer capable of standing there and being told I couldn’t do anything. My body was humming with anger and a nasty taste for revenge. I wanted that asshole to know exactly who he’d messed with. How dare he treat Hailey with that kind of disrespect? How dare he attempt to destroy one of the only other spaces he was advertising his artwork in?

Who the fuck did this guy think he was?

I held Hailey’s hand as we drove through a fast food joint and got ourselves some dinner. We hunkered down onto the couch as I spread a blanket over us while the television mindlessly droned in the background. I had to press Hailey to eat something before I could even think about eating myself, and by the time she got her dinner done, she was already closing her eyes and falling asleep against me.

At least she still felt safe with me, and I’d do anything and everything I needed to in order to make sure it stayed that way.