An Ounce of Hope (A Pound of Flesh #2)(112)
Rolling his eyes, Max shrugged. “I take that as a compliment.”
“You should,” Riley agreed seriously. “I’d do you.”
Max laughed, knowing that Riley’s incessant ramblings were an attempt to calm them both. Riley hadn’t stopped twitching for the entire car journey. Max was honestly relieved that Carter hadn’t joined them. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to cope with the two of them fussing around him. Max wasn’t na?ve, of course; he knew having friends who cared about him was a great problem to have, especially when he considered the shit he’d put them all through. But Christ.
He turned to Riley. “Thanks for doing this.”
Riley dipped his chin. “Any time, brother. You know that.”
Riley parked the Jeep and the two of them sat for a minute, listening to the engine tick as it cooled. Max went over his well-thought-out spiel silently, swallowed down his fear, and climbed out onto the quiet, humid street. With Riley at his side, Max felt somewhat comforted. He damn sure knew he couldn’t have done it alone.
The building they approached was fairly innocuous, save for the twelve-foot window affording a view inside it and an awesome banner that reached across the entire front declaring the show open and the names of the four artists, Grace’s included, whose work was being shown. A guy at the door with a clipboard and a mustache that would have put Salvador Dalí to shame smiled as they drew near. Riley gave them his name and then a name Max had never heard of, presumably that of the owner Riley had met at the body shop.
“Ah, special guests,” Dalí exclaimed with an extravagant wave of his hand. “Of course, of course, my darlings, go in. Enjoy!”
The two of them smiled nervously and, with Max in front, slipped around him into the air-conditioned lobby. “What the f*ck did you just do?” Max asked with a snicker.
“I have no idea,” Riley answered, glancing back at the door, looking as though he was ready to beat a hasty retreat. “But I think he just slapped my ass.”
Max laughed into his hand and shoved Riley toward a collection of paintings titled Bask in Death. Practically giggling like schoolchildren, the two of them came to an abrupt halt, eyeing the dark splashes of color against the whitewash of the gallery walls skeptically.
“Talk about a joy killer,” Riley uttered while simultaneously grabbing two glasses of orange juice from a passing waiter.
Max nodded, not voicing his views about the work even though he quite liked them, and glanced around discreetly. He couldn’t spot Grace amid the crowd of about one hundred people, and the anticipation built ever higher. He figured he may as well try to relax while he had the chance. He sipped the juice and meandered around the paintings, stopping at a couple and quietly losing himself in the colors, themes, and messages of each one. He’d never been one to really stop and appreciate art, despite his affinity for painting, and soon found himself enjoying it. Riley, meanwhile, tilted his head this way and that, trying to make heads or tails of the numerous canvases they passed, much to Max’s amusement.
“I don’t get it,” Riley grumbled, after staring hard at a canvas that was bare but for a single orange circle in its center.
Max cocked an eyebrow, equally puzzled. “Yeah, I’m with you on that.”
“Now these I like,” Riley said, disappearing around a corner.
Max followed to find him standing in front of a wall covered in photographs. Some were small, no bigger than the size of a postcard, while others were at least three feet wide. Max immediately recognized the forests, the mountains, and the rocks that resided by a small cottage back in Preston County. Max looked at the title plaque. Mind, Body, and Soul by Grace Brooks. He smiled before he even felt the desire to do so; at the same time a swell of pride gathered in his chest.
“These are hers,” he whispered.
The colors were extraordinary. Grace’s eye for textures and light was glaringly obvious in each shot. The angles were precise and thought out, leaving the viewer disoriented in some and calm in others. This was definitely the mind part of her work. She’d had that effect on Max from the moment they met, all baffled and off kilter.
“They’re great,” Riley said after a quiet moment, gradually making his way around the next corner of the exhibit, where the lighting, Max noticed, was duller, and less like the harsh, bright white of the rest of the place.
Above this particular collection of photographs, painted directly onto the wall of the gallery in black cursive lettering, were the words “Hope for the Soul.” The swelling in Max’s chest receded as his gaze wandered over the black-and-white images littering the wall, replaced with the crushing weight of his guilt.
“Oh, Jesus,” he mumbled, crossing one hand and arm over his stomach while cupping his mouth with the other.
“What?” Riley asked, looking up from one shot that Max remembered Grace taking as clearly as if it were yesterday.
“It’s me,” he croaked.
Riley frowned. “Are you serious?”
Max nodded and moved closer to the wall. The shots were taken the day he’d met her at the cottage, the day they’d sat on the overturned log and he’d touched her for the first time, his hands on her thighs. There were pictures of Max’s face, arms, hands, but, to anyone else, including Riley, it was just some random man. Grace was right. No one would know it was Max but the two of them. Astounded, Max looked at every one, noticing some he didn’t remember her taking, some that, from the wrinkles next to his eyes, he could tell he was laughing. In the few shots that showed his eyes, Max noticed, even in black-and-white, how happy he looked, how young and relaxed and, dare he say it, in love.