The Hearts We Sold(35)

Gremma yanked out her earbuds. “Huh?”

“Were you planning on using your car today?” she asked.

Gremma had never been stingy about the use of her Camaro, but then again, Dee rarely asked to borrow it.

“Not really,” said Gremma. “Why?”

Dee looked down at her phone. “I think a friend might need help.”

Something in her voice must have tipped Gremma off, because suddenly her green eyes went bright with interest. “Would this happen to be your dealer? The reason you broke curfew a few weeks back?”

“For the last time, he is not my dealer. Nor my man of the night.”

A grin spread across Gremma’s face. “But you don’t deny the curfew thing.”

Dee hesitated. “He’s got a problem.”

“Gang war?”

Dee threw her a despairing look. “Not everything in my life is sordid and criminal. In fact, nothing in my life is sordid and criminal.”

“I would argue,” said Gremma, “but my SAT verbal scores weren’t as high as yours and I have no idea what sordid means.” She swung her legs over her bed and gave Dee another smile. The kind of smile that birds saw just before a house cat swallowed them whole.

“You can use my car,” she said, ever so sweetly, “but only if I’m driving.”

Dee grimaced and hit the call-back button on her phone. It rang twice, then James’s harried voice said, “Yeah?”

“My roommate has a car,” she said, without preamble. “But she would have to come along. My roommate. Um. You know. Teddy Bear Girl.”

“Have you warned him about me?” said Gremma. She sounded as if she were trying for offended but was delighted instead.

She expected James to hesitate, to think about it, but the words left him in a rush. “Seriously? Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you. How soon can you get to my apartment?”

“Pretty soon.” Dee glanced over; Gremma was pulling on a jacket.

Dee pursed her lips, heaved a sigh, and hoped she wouldn’t regret this.





The last time Dee had been inside James’s apartment, it had looked normal. Well, relatively normal. It looked transient and half put together, curtains serving as walls, and a kitchen made out of portable shelves and counters and a camp stove.

Now, when Dee pushed the door open, she felt her jaw drop. It wasn’t an apartment, not anymore.

It looked like a museum.

Paintings. Paintings everywhere. Propped up against the counter, the couches, laid flat on the floor. Oil paints were cast across canvases, swirls of color that might have come from the hand of any master painter. Several of them were covered with brown paper—Dee supposed these were marked for the gallery.

“All right,” said Gremma faintly. “Not a bookie, then.” She paused. “He still could be a dealer, though. Imagine all the drugs you could slip inside one of these frames.”

James was counting out canvases. “Will these fit in your trunk?”

“Not safely,” said Gremma, recovering. “But we’ll manage.”

“Good.” James went to the first pile of paintings and picked up two. There were wires attached to the back of the canvas, and he brought two small ones to Gremma and two slightly larger ones to Dee.

It was cumbersome work; the paintings weren’t exactly heavy, but they were unwieldy, and Dee found herself having to angle oddly through doorways. Once they were in the elevator, Gremma dragged a sharp breath between her teeth. “Your boy is an artist,” she said.

“He is not my boy,” replied Dee. “He is a friend. An artist friend. Whose tires were slashed.”

Gremma managed to hold her silence. Until the elevator doors pinged open and Dee waddled out to the first floor, trying to heft the paintings without bumping into anyone. Gremma’s car wasn’t exactly built for carrying storage, but the trunk was just large enough to slide the paintings into. Dee carefully set one on top of the other, trying not to damage anything.

“He’s hot,” said Gremma abruptly.

Dee threw her a look.

“What, because I’m gay I can’t comment on the attractiveness of boys?” said Gremma with a half shrug.

“He is not my type,” said Dee. “He’s…”

“Da Vinci reincarnated,” said Gremma.

“I’d say I’m more Delacroix than Da Vinci,” said James as he passed by. It must have been an art reference, but it went right over Dee’s head. She was too busy trying not to look mortified.

The art gallery was one of those trendy, up-and-coming deals—designed to look fashionable without being stuffy. There was something distinctly hipster-esque about the way all the employees were dressed. A woman wearing thick-rimmed glasses and a worn cardigan spoke to James for a moment, then unclipped the velvet divider for James to step through. Dee hesitated, then followed. The room was dimly lit, with spotlights shining on the paintings. The walls themselves were draped with linen and it gave the room a strangely muffled quality. When she spoke, it felt as if the air swallowed up her words, blunting their sounds.

“Where are we supposed to put these?” she asked. She had a painting in each hand. James took one from her and stepped through the gallery confidently, toward the back.