Chapter Thirteen: Same As You

Chapter Thirteen

Lincoln

SAME AS YOU

Performed by The Fray

Instead of going home to the quiet of my house after dropping Willow at her door, I took my pent-up energy back to the studio. I couldn't get the smell of her and the way her curves had fit perfectly into mine out of my head. Her courage—her resilience—was as big of a turn-on as that scent.

But I was also frustrated she'd reduced the threat of Poco to a passing inconvenience. She'd convinced herself it was just random and had nothing to do with her, while every instinct in me was telling me it was more.

In the studio, instead of going back to work on the cemetery scene with Willow, I pulled out a new canvas and tossed every one of my dark thoughts onto the pure white linen. The demons inside men. The shadows that lurked.

Anger. Jealousy. Power. Greed. Control.

Stroke after stroke.

It was gloomy. It was ugly.

But it soothed my soul to splash it onto the canvas. Dark brutal sweeps in dark brutal colors.

She's what you need.

The voice had me whirling around the studio, brush in one hand, palette in the other, insides screaming objections.

She was sitting on a stool in her black lace prom dress. Pastels and florals had been in fashion that year, so she'd hunted her dress down at a secondhand store, refusing to be seen in "any Easter egg color." Her hair, so fair it was the color of moonlight, had streaks of dried blood in it from the head wound at the back she was careful not to show me.

"You're not supposed to be here, Sienna," I said.

I closed my eyes, rubbing them and hoping it was just the exhaustion and turmoil of the last few days that had my subconscious bringing her back.

Then, don't make me show up by doing stupid shit, she said, hopping off the stool and sauntering over to the trio of paintings of the cemetery. Her stride had always been powerful. Purposeful. She'd held a confidence that had been hugely out of proportion to her mere seventeen years. She'd been a bright light. One of the ones snuffed out too early. Taken from us when they'd been destined to give the world life-changing gifts.

Every time I saw her like this, a translucent mirage, all I could think was it should have been me.

Should have been me.

Should have been me.

The dark cavern at the back of her head loomed momentarily as she eyed the painting, sinking into my gut along with a pile of remorse before she shifted so I couldn't see it.

After I'd opened the D.C. gallery and she'd disappeared from my life, I'd been relieved, which, in turn, had only caused me to feel guiltier. But I'd also been glad I'd been able to bring her some peace.

So why was she here now? It screamed something about me and my mental health and the state of my life that I wasn't sure I wanted to acknowledge. Maybe it was because I'd uprooted myself and was full of indecisions. Or maybe my worry over Willow had my subconscious playing back all my failures.

If you'd painted me amongst the gravestones, it would have been a cliché, she said. A Goth girl in a cemetery. Borrrrring. But her? It's perfect. Do you see how she's already made you better? She's your person, Lincoln. She needs you as much as you need her.

Her words swung through me like a hammer on an anvil, sparking and inciting. I'd barely gotten used to the idea of wanting to explore something with Willow, and here Sienna was, tossing around a much deeper meaning, as if the flame I felt could be forged into something permanent.

It was completely ludicrous and yet also felt frighteningly right.

Sienna looked over her shoulder at me, blue eyes seeing beyond skin and bone to the truth. To the scars Willow had said clung to me like a Grim Reaper. To the grief and remorse I hadn't let heal, but also to the flicker of light Willow had fanned into existence the moment I'd rescued her in the cemetery.

This is where you belong, Lincoln. It's time to let it all go. To be happy. To move on. Her head tilted. Oh, and you're going to want to get that… Lyrica is right about that one too.

She faded away as my phone rang in my back pocket.

The fact that Sienna knew so many things about my life that had happened after she'd died was one of the reasons my therapist believed her ghost was simply a manifestation of my own thoughts. But she felt real. Wouldn't a ghost haunting me see the people around me? Wouldn't she know what was happening? If she was real, why had she returned?If she was only a hallucination, what was I trying to tell myself?

Maybe I just needed to get more than three hours sleep tonight. If I didn't get more soon, I'd be back on the sleeping pills, and those would only add to my delusions.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and answered it without looking. "Hello."

"Um. Hi. Is this Lincoln?" a quiet but rough female voice whispered on the other end.

"Yes."

"Oh. Hi. This is Trinity Carerra. You left me a message." She sounded as if she was about to be sent to the hospital with pneumonia.

It took me several seconds to register she was the artist whose contact information Lyrica had given me. "Right. Lyrica sent me your name and told me I'd be an idiot not to look at your work."

Quiet settled over the line for several seconds before she said, "You liked my work?"

If possible, she sounded even more breathless and broken than before.

"I haven't seen any of it yet. Lyrica threatened much-needed body parts if I didn't see it in person. Do you think you could bring some pieces out to my new place in Cherry Bay? You can wait until you're feeling better."

"I'm not sick," she said, but her voice denied her words. "I actually live in Cherry Bay. I'll be working most of tomorrow at my catering job, but I can come by Friday morning. Will eight work? Otherwise, it would have to be in the afternoon. I have class in the morning at Bonnin. I guess I could just skip—"

"Eight is fine," I said. What were the odds she was local? Maybe Lyrica had seen it as another reason to send her my way. Or maybe Sienna, fate, or whatever existed on the other side of this life was just messing with me. "I'll text you the address."

"I know where it is. Lyrica told me. It's across and just down the street from The Tea Spot, right? In the old bath works shop?"

I didn't know how to feel about Lyrica giving away the information about the gallery here. I hadn't told anyone but those in my closest circle I was opening a second location. We'd kept the purchase of the storefront as quiet as possible, hiding it behind a new corporation I'd formed, just like we'd hidden the purchase of my house behind a generically named trust. I'd spent a lot of money to hide myself away, not only from the media, but also from Felicity.

In the end, I supposed it didn't really matter as I would have given Trinity the address anyway. "I'll see you on Friday, then."

"Lincoln?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you. Even if you decide my work isn't what you're looking for, I truly appreciate having the opportunity to show it to you."

And damn, did that take away the annoyance I'd felt at Lyrica's interference and make me like her. But I wouldn't sell anything I didn't think was quality, and I wouldn't show anything that didn't fit with the as-of-yet undecided vibe I wanted here.

"I'm going to be honest, Trinity. I haven't narrowed down a direction for the new gallery yet, so if I say no, it won't be personal, nor will it be because I don't believe your work is good enough. It simply might not be right for me at this moment."

"I understand."

"I'll see you Friday morning."

We hung up, and I turned back to the place Sienna had last been. It was right in front of the loose impression of Willow. A ghost-like apparition on the canvas waiting to be filled in, to be given back her soul. Over her right shoulder was a smudge I didn't remember making. It looked, from this distance, almost like a butterfly…or a fairy. A guardian angel.

Maybe I really was losing it. Maybe this was the final straw that would break the proverbial back of my mental health and leave me mumbling nonsensical words into my teacup.

I looked back at the dark, vile image I'd just created. Demon horns peeked through a fine tapestry being torn by sharp claws, giving a glimpse into a room shrouded in a poisonous cloud. Blood drenched the ripped bed linens and spread over the tips of broken furniture. An elegant, feminine foot stuck out from the bloody sheets. A television in the room was barely visible, and although it wasn't finished yet, I knew what would be on the screen—a very different version of the demon, the same creature but with a decidedly human face.

What was I doing?

As an artist, I'd always been more of a realist, painting landscapes and people with an almost photographic level of detail. I'd always steered away from uncanny dreamlike images of surrealism and the evocative, spiritual nature of expressionism, and yet, here I was, embracing both. The art still held the photorealistic details I'd always captured, but it was layered with emotions set in fantastical scenes. Statements about humanity poured out through light and dark magic.

Was it something about the events in the past six months that had added another veneer of darkness to the shadows of my mind? Or had the events with Willow really impacted me so severely in such a short span of time? Maybe it was simply Cherry Bay sinking its fairy-tale vibes into my subconscious as Lyrica had insisted. I wouldn't know until I'd finished the pieces. Until more of the art spiraling through my head ended up on canvas.

So I picked up my brush and went back to work.

? ? ?

After staying way too late at the gallery, I'd come home and slept for only a couple of hours again before rising and heading to the home gym at the back of the house. The workout had burned through my lungs, proving I'd let it slip for too long.

By the time I'd showered and changed, the sun had just started to rise. When I stepped out of my house, a light mist was clinging to the grass in cobweb-like strands rather than the dense fog of the previous morning.

As I slid my baseball cap on my head, an engine revved, and my eyes were drawn to a gray sedan parked in the shadows of a large cypress tree outside the cemetery gates. I couldn't see who was inside it, but my mind flashed back to the altercation with the guy downtown the night before last and the Civic I'd thought he'd sped off in.

I hesitated, debating whether to stalk over and demand to know what he was doing or minding my own damn business. Hardy would definitely encourage the latter, but then again, if he and his team were here, they wouldn't have let anyone loiter around just yards from my house.

I glanced over at Willow's cottage as I made my way toward Main Street. The house was dark and quiet. At around two-thirty, wide awake and flooded with concern that Willow would walk to work even though she'd told me she wouldn't, I'd found my way down to the office and brought up the security cameras.

Feeling uncomfortably like the stalker Felicity had become, I'd watched as Willow and her mom had loaded bakery boxes into the back of a Pathfinder. Staring at the screen, I'd wondered if the sick, voyeur-like feeling I'd had was how my security detail, or any detail, felt while watching the people they were protecting. Had Felicity ever been disgusted with herself for stealing parts of my life like this without my knowledge?

I'd almost reached downtown when Katerina's ringtone sounded from my pocket.

"It's too early in LA for you to be calling," I said in lieu of a greeting.

"Love you too, Mr. Grouchypants," she said. "I'm at the studio. I have a long morning of work ahead before I meet up with Dad at his last fundraiser here in SoCal before they head up to Santa Clara tomorrow."

I ran a finger over a brow and then tucked my hand into my pocket. "I'm sorry I've left you to deal with the campaign on your own. I know you have a lot on your plate."

"I do," she said with that recent bite to her tone that wasn't usually there. Then, she sighed. "It's fine. I understand why you've ducked out of the public eye. That's why I'm calling."

"What's up?"

"Felicity cornered me at the fundraiser last night."

Anger and concern flooded me, feet stalling. "She did what? Where was your detail?"

"She begged me to ask you to issue a statement saying you didn't take out a restraining order against her. The gossip is all over town, and she's getting backlash for it."

Any backlash Felicity got would be nothing compared to what she'd sent spiraling toward me. She'd tried to ruin me completely going into Dad's reelection year, making it sound like my family had hidden drug abuse, serious mental disorders, and even blaming me for what had happened to Sienna and Lyrica.

She'd used every single one of my ghosts against me, while I hadn't used any of hers. I could have easily sent out a press release hinting that she was stalking me and used the months she'd spent in a mental health hospital as a teenager to add credence to it. She'd once used that trauma and her fear of the media finding out about her past to tug me closer to her. And it had worked until she'd flung it all into the wind after I hadn't shown up at the resort in St. Micah like she'd expected me to. Even still, I'd done my best to keep the restraining order quiet. I hadn't flashed it in the media.

Feeling eyes on me, a ripple of wariness went up my spine, and I turned back toward the parked sedan. It wasn't the private investigator she'd had tailing me until Hardy had sent him on his way. The PI had been a fleshy, doughy man with a bald spot and a mustache that belonged in the 1970s. The person in the car, even shadowed, didn't look wide enough to have been the same person.

"Is she getting backlash?" I asked. "Or is this just more manipulation?"

"She's definitely encountering walls. No one is sending her any scripts. But that isn't just because of the rumors of what went down with you. It's because she's a diva and has burned bridges while on set. And you're not the only one she's tried to manipulate. I wouldn't have mentioned her at all if she hadn't demanded you ‘stick your head out of the little town you've tucked yourself into' long enough to help her."

Acid burned through me. "She knows where I'm at?"

"Or she was trying to get me to cough it up."

"Damn it. Thanks for letting me know. I'm sorry you had to deal with this."

Katerina sighed, and she sounded really tired as she said, "She manipulated me first, remember? Like you said, I am the one who introduced you."

"I was just teasing," I said gently.

"You were, but it's true."

"Don't take that on, Bumblebee," I said, instantly trying to comfort her by whipping out the rarely used nickname she'd earned with her nonstop energy as a kid.

Voices came over the line—deep male voices—and Katerina covered the phone, but I could still hear something in her voice that put me on edge. She was frustrated with whomever she was talking to. She came back on after only a brief exchange. "I gotta go. Just wanted you to have the latest intel, seeing as you said adios to Hardy and his team."

I barely got out a goodbye before she'd hung up. An unease for my sister settled through me. Something was up with her, and I needed to nail it down before it turned into something bigger.

I'd just put the key in the lock of the gallery door when the gray sedan buzzed by behind me. I held my breath, but when it continued down Main Street, heading out of town, I let it out again.

It was nothing. Not the strange man from the other day and certainly not Felicity, who was obviously in Los Angeles since she'd cornered my sister. I seriously doubted she'd hire another PI after the Secret Service had shown up at her door to hand-deliver the restraining order. Felicity was manipulative, and her emotions swung wildly, but she wasn't stupid. She wouldn't come after me again. She had no desire to end up in prison instead of on a movie set.

My gaze landed on The Tea Spot's bright sign welcoming its early morning customers. Through the windows, I could see a crowd had already gathered, and another group of college students hurried down the sidewalk toward the café. Were they all going to sample Willow's desserts?

A surprising flare of jealousy rose up inside me.

I wanted my own damn sample. Not just of the treats she'd made but of her. I wanted to inhale that buttery, sugary scent of her all over again. To see the flush I'd imagined while we'd messaged back and forth last night in person.

When my phone had vibrated with a text the night before, I almost hadn't answered it as my hands had been covered in paint, and my mind was busy pretending the ghost pacing in the corner hadn't returned. But when the phone had buzzed again, Sienna had stomped over to my easel and hissed not to be an idiot and to answer the damn thing.

I wasn't sure what had disturbed me the most—Sienna being there, all dark and moody, or the pure pleasure that had whipped through me when I'd seen the picture attached to Willow's text. It had been a pretty row of petit fours decorated with flowers lined up on her kitchen island. What she probably hadn't realized was that the photo had captured her as well. She'd appeared in the reflection of a mirror over their dining room table. When I'd zoomed in, I'd seen she had flour on her cheek and a smile that reached her eyes.

I'd ached to brush the flour off and let my touch linger over those raspberry-colored lips. Instead, I'd had to make do with the words she'd written instead.

WILLOW: Just so you can see you don't have to worry. There are way too many of these to carry. I really will be driving to work.

I'd replied instantly.

ME: They look incredible. I can practically taste them from here. You should drive some over to me right now.

And I'd wanted her to. I'd wanted her to show up at the gallery so I could get another hit of all that sweetness.

WILLOW: Can't leave. Too much still to do. Everything is at a critical spot.

I'd sent her a photo of my hands covered in paint.

ME: I'd come retrieve them myself, but I'm also at a critical spot. For the first time in months, I've got multiple projects going all because of you.

After several long minutes, she'd finally replied, downplaying her role as my current inspiration. Or maybe she really didn't have a clue just how much she'd impacted me in the mere hours we'd known each other. Somehow, Sienna's words about Willow being my person had encouraged the subconscious thoughts I'd already had, making me wonder just what possibilities existed for Willow and me. After all, if a ghost told you something, even if it was just your own wants and dreams talking, shouldn't you listen?

WILLOW: I'm sure it's Cherry Bay inspiring you. It has a very magical vibe.

ME: It does. But that's not the reason I'm painting.

My response had pushed her too far, and she hadn't responded.

Now, with the lights streaming from The Tea Spot beckoning to me, I could acknowledge that the vibe of the town had been what brought me to Cherry Bay. It had stirred the creative well inside me, but it was Willow who'd truly sunk into my skin.

I ached to walk into the café, see the joy on her face, and pull her to me. While I could tell myself it was to ensure she was safe, which was certainly true, it was also because of the uncontrollable craving I'd been besieged with the moment our paths had crossed.

The intensity of those emotions, as well as the fact she kept pushing me away, made me hesitate. Made me think it might be best if I gave us at least the morning to recover before thrusting myself into her presence again. Otherwise, she might begin to think it wasn't Poco, but me who was stalking her.

So, instead of storming into the café and demanding to see her, I locked myself in the gallery and threw myself into my art. The work seared through me just as my workout had that morning, proving I'd been away from both for far too long.