CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NIKKI
†
JAKE MATTHEWS IS ONE hell of a stubborn man. I learned that pretty early on, since that day he scooped me up in front of a hotel full of guests and marched me off to his bedroom.
Not counting the time, too, when he insisted on waiting outside my office every day during March when the weather was particularly bad, just so he could walk me home to make sure I’d have someone to hold onto and wouldn’t slip on the ice that covered every sidewalk in the city.
Or how he finally got me to put Pete on a low-fat diet of chicken and rice, sternly watching to make sure I didn’t feed my poor cat the treats and bits of cake I knew he loved so much.
Mostly, though, I saw his stubbornness when it came to fixing up the studio. There were so many days when he’d come home thoroughly exhausted from bashing down walls and lifting insanely heavy bags of debris into the huge dumpster he’d hired that was dropped off just outside the building.
I’d ask him time and time again why he simply didn’t hire a contractor. I knew plenty of guys who could help him out, but he insisted on doing all of the work himself. When he was finished, though, I could see why he wanted the whole thing to be his own project.
Granted, he got an electrician in to do the lighting and to rewire the whole place. That’s where he learned just how stubborn I could be, too. No matter how much he was sure he could do it himself, I told him that I’d waited long enough for him and was sure as hell not going to lose him to an electric shock.
He grinned and acquiesced to that. But, the rest of the place was his own work.
By June, when summer was well and truly on its way and we’d been together for nearly six months, it was time for the studio’s grand opening. I’d been forbidden to enter during the final few weeks as he was putting the last touches to the place and he wanted it to ‘be a surprise’.
On opening night, we hired a small catering service and invited all our friends and family to join us. For the last couple of months we’d been going to see his mom regularly, but it was the first time in many years that Janine and my own mom were together again. We waited outside the studio as the guests arrived, and the two women embraced each other tightly.
Brandon and Clea hadn’t been able to make it to the opening. I called him, and he said he wanted to be there but that it was too far for him to travel. I understood. After all, they’d accepted Clea’s father’s offer for the down-payment on a house in Texas and, while I knew my brother would miss his home with us in Nebraska, his life was with Clea now, and she wanted to be close to her parents.
I felt sad at the thought of not having seen Brandon since his own wedding, and I wondered whether he and I would ever get back to the way we were before. Whether he’d ever forgive me for dating Jake.
In the meantime, though, I was bursting with pride as my gorgeous boyfriend had opened his very first studio. Once ‘Jake’ was opened and we were ushered inside, I got the first glimpse of all his hard work.
And I don’t mean simply the building work I was surprised he’d completed with such finesse and attention to detail; it was all the beautiful photography, too. Jake had never been one to flaunt his work outside of the pieces he produced for Woke, but now, it seemed that he’d been sitting on a whole body of work of his own that the world was only now beginning to see.
The walls were adorned with photographs of his travels, of life all over the world. There were the curious, laughing faces of indigenous tribes and snapshots of stunning animals and wildlife from dawn until dusk. There were panoramic shots of waterfalls catching sunlight so it seemed like rainbows were pouring from rock crevices, and there were other frames of ice so thick that men in Siberia carved it with saws into huge blocks.
There were abstract shots of cities at night, the long exposure time of the frame leaving streaks of bright light across the canvas. There were simple pictures of eagles diving into the lakes of Wisconsin where we’d driven for my birthday in April.
I walked around the maze of walls, ignoring the young waiter with a platter who came around asking if I’d like to try one of the hors d’oeuvres. I held my glass of champagne without drinking a single sip, because I was so captivated by the huge pictures that highlighted just how incredibly talented Jake was.
Beside each picture was a small hook on the wall and, as the evening went on, more and more of the hooks had a circle of black leather hooped over them, implying that the picture had been sold. It was a great idea, much more innovative than a sticky blue dot pressed onto the paint.
Jake walked around with me, his face beaming with pride as my mouth dropped open over and over again at the sight of even more beautiful pictures. I grinned at a scene I knew well: the view from Kalalau Point where he’d taken me on his motorcycle that very first night, just after he rescued me from the creep at the club.
“Remember this?” he murmured in my ear as I stared at the view.
“How could I ever forget?” I asked, turning around to him and kissing him lightly on the lips. “It was one of the best nights of my life, until then, at least.”
There was a sudden clinking of steel against glass, the unmistakable sound of a group of people being called to order. We looked to see Marshall, editor of Woke, in the center of the studio asking for everyone’s attention. It worked, too, because we all slowly walked toward him, waiting to hear what he had to say.
“I think we can all agree that this new place of Jake’s is incredible,” he said, and the whole room broke out into spontaneous applause. Marshall waited for us to finish clapping before he spoke again.
“And although I have to admit that losing him as my principal photographer has been a huge blow to the magazine, he’s certainly shown that he has a bright career of his own without having to work for another soul for as long as he lives.”
Marshall pointed to a canvas on the wall with a black sheet over it, something I’d noticed earlier but Jake hadn’t been around for me to ask him about it at the time. “Is this your masterpiece?” he asked Jake in front of all the guests.
Jake smiled. “You could say that,” he said, “but I like to think that the real masterpiece is the subject of the picture.”
“Is that the one with the highest price tag?” Marshall teased, “Because I’m not sure I could afford any of the pictures I’ve seen here tonight. Not on my salary.”
“It’s not for sale. In fact, it’s priceless,” said Jake. “It means far too much to me, and it’s really the whole reason I’m here tonight, in this studio, surrounded by everyone who means anything to me.”
I had no idea what he was talking about and, as I looked up at him, I saw that he was looking down at me, and smiling. “Pull the sheet off,” he said to me. Filled with curiosity, I walked over to the frame and pulled on the sheet, the soft material falling to the floor. When I saw the picture, I gasped, holding my hands to my face.
The woman in the picture stood on the white sand, facing the turquoise waters of the ocean in front of her. Her chin was tilted slightly downward and her eyes were closed. The hair of her ponytail hung down her bare back and her fingertips were lightly pressed to her mouth.
The sun, like a bright ball of morning light, reflected all around her so that her skin seemed to be aglow with fire.
The most important element of the piece, though, was the emotion it so beautifully captured, stirring within the viewer a deep sense of longing.
I was blown away. Not because I didn’t recognize the woman in the photograph, of course, but because I had no idea that, as I stood on the beach in Kauai that morning in my white bikini and sarong, Jake had been there, watching me.
And, I was longing for him at that very moment. I imagined how his lips would feel against mine… and I longed for him.
First, there was silence and then gasps, followed by clapping as everyone showed their approval. I heard a few ‘awwwww’s’ as well as everyone now stood staring at me, the subject of the piece.
I felt Jake’s hands on my shoulders and turned to look at him. “This the morning after that night in the club?” I said.
He grinned. “Maybe I shouldn’t have been spying on you,” he said, “but it was too perfect a subject not to capture. Especially that specific moment. Do you know what I’m calling it?”
I couldn’t speak, my eyes glistening with tears. I just shook my head.
“It’s called… Wanting.”
He knew.
The room disappeared as he wrapped his arms around me, and it was only him and me, standing there, kissing each other. We didn’t even notice that everyone was there, watching us as we kissed.
When he lifted his head, we both realized that everyone was staring at us, and we laughed. And, so did everyone else.
“There’s just one more thing I would like to say, and then I’ll leave you all to enjoy the evening further,” Jake said. He took my hand, turning me sideways and, to my surprise, dropped to the floor on one knee. He opened up his one hand in which he held a small velvet box.
“Oh, my God, Jake!” I squealed. He opened the box to present me with a beautiful gold ring, set with two large diamonds, twisted together as though they were dancing.
“Nicole Thomson,” he said, his voice cracking. “You’re my resting place. You’ve made me realize what it feels like to have come home and, because of you, I’m no longer searching for my purpose. I want to spend the rest of my life feeling the same way. Will you please say yes and be mine forever?”
I burst out crying and he stayed on one knee, looking up at me. “Well, don’t keep the poor man waiting! Answer him!” Mom yelled at me from the crowd, and everyone laughed.
“There’s only one answer, my love. Of course, I will. Yes!” I cried, and as the room broke out into applause, he slipped the ring onto my finger, got to his feet, wrapped me up in his arms, and kissed me deeply, once again.