Surprise surprise, Max was being a bitch about the auction house. Par for the course; he was a bitch about a lot of things. Particularly when things came to me. We had never had a civil conversation since we’d met. I had expected him to at least be professional about this, but that was a mistake on my part. You didn’t dump a bucket of water on yourself and expect not to get wet.

I wanted the auction house. I didn’t just want it because Max had it. I hated the guy, but Strickland’s wasn’t a toy car we both wanted that he was playing keep-away with me with. Strickland’s didn’t strictly qualify as one of Dad’s old businesses that fell under Max’s control when he died. It was sort of in its own gray area, so Max getting it was likely because it was explicitly real estate.

Dad had been the owner, and he had donated and invested in it heavily. He hadn’t run it, really. He was there for all the old, expensive shit he could buy through it. He liked art. Maybe it was because he was sick that he hadn’t tried to make it the next Christie’s.

That was where I came in. What I really wanted was to open up a Strickland’s in New York. New Yorkers loved to spend hours staring at art. Art wasn’t the only thing that was auctioned, though; real estate was too. Why didn’t Clapsaddle lead with that? Then he’d have been talking my language.

Repossessed houses and properties were auctioned off all the time. The simplest way to make money in real estate was flipping. Strickland’s could broker the sales of high end, luxury real estate to the wealthy, discerning clientele it already had. What the hell would Max do with the auction house, anyway? Look at it? Use it to keep stalking Audra? Another oversight old Jackson had had putting his last will together.

The cat was out of the bag. The auction of the Strickland collection was going to be a charity auction. If Dad’s old friends knew what was good for them, they’d show their support.

I got an email from the Strickland’s people nearly every other day. The showings of the collection were beginning, which at another time would have meant nothing to me, but now, things were different.

I had fucked up. Again.

I was smarter than this.

A four-year degree and subsequent graduate degree at two Ivy League colleges said this. The fact that I headed a multinational said I was smarter than this. The fact that I had been raised in part by a single mother and had a sister said I was fucking smarter than this. Why then, was I apparently clueless when it came to Audra?

Weren’t we speaking the same language? Didn’t we want the same things?

I’d never felt so fucking awful after coming in my life. She didn’t even want to look at me. I know she enjoyed it. Maybe it was too much to say that, but I know I made her come that time. She’d said that if I wanted to see her again, I would know where to find her, but that wasn’t a fucking invitation.

That was what you said to end conversations with people you had no intention of talking to again.

What did I do wrong? She’d been willing the entire time; then she had suddenly checked out. She’d gone to the bathroom, and after ten minutes had passed and she hadn’t come out, I had knocked on the door.

I hadn’t thought she’d drowned or anything; I just wanted to know whether she was okay. She said she was washing her hair, and that she was fine. Through the door—she hadn’t bothered opening it.

Passable lie. Her hair was long, all the way down her back, it made sense that it would take a long time to wash. I hadn’t stayed around to see whether she would come out of the bathroom with her hair wrapped up in a towel. I left because I knew when I wasn’t wanted. I had been smart enough then, but not now. It didn’t last.

The problem was this: I still had to go back to New York. I didn’t live here. I didn’t work here. I could work from here, but it would all be remote. The other problem was… who was I kidding, there were so many? They all had the same root, though. The girl who made me think of New York, and Marin, and my dad, and my brother. The girl who was giving me a hard time. So hard in fact that I was ready to make some very irresponsible decisions concerning her.

Audra… I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to leave before I saw her again. I didn’t want to leave and possibly never see her again. Shit, I didn’t want to leave knowing Max lived here and was interested in her. Thinking of them together made me mad. I was jealous. The stone-cold fact was he was the better choice. If it was a competition, he had me beat geographically, and he owned the fucking auction house where she worked.

Previously I never would have thought of my brother as competition, but now I wasn’t so sure I could rely on that security. After seeing her practically flatline after we had sex, I wasn’t so sure I still had that security. I didn’t have that security, and it was my fault that I didn’t. I had lost it. I had fucked her twice and, well; it was safe to say that she didn’t want me to do it again. I still wanted her. God, so much. I hadn’t even been able to last the five minutes I told her to wait for me when I’d sent her to her room. I needed to be inside her.

Her specifically. I would have fucked Debbie to see whether it was just in my head, but the thought was so off-putting I couldn’t do it. Debbie was still the same; she hadn’t suddenly completely changed in the last few weeks. She was just not Audra, and that was just another one of my many problems.

Maybe I shouldn’t have tied her up; she said it hurt her wrist. Maybe I should have, I don’t know, what? Let her tie me up? Let her be on top? I had to do something. Had to. It was imperative. Top of my IN pile. The auction was only going to keep me till it was up, maybe a little while longer after it was over. I had to go back soon, but it was a charity auction; there was going to be a dinner, or ball or whatever that the Foundation threw that I would have to attend. I would just wait for Sissy to tell me or something.

I tried to see Audra at her house the next day, but she hadn’t been home. I knew she hadn’t been home on purpose and not that I had just missed her because it was nighttime when I went. It was after eight o’clock, the place she should have been was at her house, but she wasn’t. The day after that, I saw her at the auction house. I hadn’t wanted to see her there because if she was there, she would be working and she wouldn’t want to halt that to talk to me. Especially not to talk to me. It had worked once, but I doubted it would work again.

It wouldn’t fucking work again, let’s be real. I still tried, though.

When I hadn’t found her at her desk, I had asked where I could. Gallery, apparently. I had just watched her for a while. She had been mounting paintings to the wall, silently and quickly, stepping back after mounting each one to make sure she hadn’t put it up crooked.

I walked into the room, and I practically saw the moment she realized she wasn’t alone anymore. Her body became stiff, and she held the painting she had in her hand a little tighter like she was afraid she’d drop it and its frame would break. She didn’t bother turning around, and she didn’t move again till I was directly behind her, close enough to smell her hair. It smelled floral. Sweet.

She moved forward like her legs weren’t hers; like they were attached to her body and this was the first time she was using them and hung the painting up. I couldn’t remember ever having seen it in the house. It looked like what would happen if you accidentally spilled red, yellow, white and blue paint on a canvas. Or had some chickens with paint on their feet walk all over it. There were words too, names of colors, orange, gray, red, all over it. A mess, basically.

This shit just was not for me. I didn’t even try to feign my interest in art usually. Obviously, it wasn’t what I thought it was. I bet Audra knew exactly what. I decided to ask her. Her face when she was talking about those dead butterflies with Max or the old books with Sissy; she loved this stuff. I asked her.

“What’s that?”

“Painting. Oil on canvas. It’s by Jasper Johns. He called it False Start. It’s worth anywhere between fifty to a hundred million dollars.”

“For that?” I said incredulously. She looked at me, coolly.

“You’ve bought art before. You know it’s not cheap. You should be happy. The Strickland Foundation is going to benefit handsomely from this. Are you here because you wanted to approve the galleries before the showings begin?”

Business. She wanted to talk business. Or she was talking business because she didn’t want to talk about what she knew good and damn well I wanted to talk to her about.

“I wanted to see you yesterday,” I said, looking at the painting. She had put it up and was standing back to see if it was crooked. It wasn’t.

“Did you?” her tone was disinterested.

“I went to your house.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. She was putting up another painting. That one was a real fucking mess, just more spattered random color. I swear to god, why’d I go to school to study business if shit like this sold for a hundred mil?

She didn’t say anything after that. She stepped back to check it before reaching for another one. I stood in front of her so she would have to look at me.

“This isn’t a good time for me, Mr. Strickland. I have to work. Showings begin in a few days. You of all people are aware of the sheer volume of things I have to get through. What do you want?”

“I have to see you again, Audra.”

“Well I wish I had more time for you,” she said. That was definitely sarcasm her words dripped in.

“Oh no, Audra. Not this again. Why are you being like this?”

“Like what? I’m busy, Levi. I’m sorry I can’t put everything on pause and spread my legs for you whenever you get the urge. Your dick isn’t a big enough emergency for me to put work off.”

“Is that what you think I want?”

“Am I wrong? You want to see me? I know the meeting won’t involve conversation and a meal. I know you won’t call ahead of time so we can both agree on a time and place. Say what you mean, Levi. You want to fuck me again. You want to tie me up and fuck me again so you can straighten your tie and walk around like you’re one of us for a while before you need to unload again.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“If you really need your dick sucked that bad, you need to go find someone else to do it.”

“I’m not a fucking degenerate, Audra. I won’t deny that I want to fuck you again, but I’m not using you to channel all my rage, so I don’t start killing people.” When did I become fucking sociopath in her mind? I had never seen her that enraged and it scared me the amount of resentment I heard in her voice.

“Then leave me alone. Why does it have to be me? What happened to Debbie? Walk down the street, Levi, at least one woman will agree to let you choke her out and put it in her ass.”

Okay. That was enough.

“What the hell’s gotten into you?” I asked.

“You have, Levi. One too many times and I am done. How long before you fly back to New York? Huh? A week, a month? We will never see each other again. I do not want to see you again. Stop coming to my house. Stop coming to my work.” She moved past me to grab another painting. I held her arm and spun her to face me.

“I came here to talk to you. You think the only thing I want from you is sex?”

“Yeah,” she said. “And you got it, but you won’t get it again. Let go of me.”

“No.”

“This room is full of security cameras, Levi. I don’t need to tell you what this would look like to anyone who saw it.”

I let go of her hand. She was cold. She couldn’t have put it any clearer. She was done, but I couldn’t let her be. Nothing said she wouldn’t scream if I stayed there, so I hadn’t.

I had to figure something out.

New York was going to have to wait.