Chloe choked, coughed, wheezed. Red patted her helpfully on the back. Apparently that knocked the last of her control loose, because she dissolved into helpless laughter. He stood there and watched as she bent double, clutching his jacket and gasping for air, completely carefree and unrestrained. Watching her made his heart feel oddly warm and … glowy. Like he could stand here and soak up her happiness forever.

That sounded a little bit like heaven.

After long, joy-filled moments, she straightened, dabbing at her eyes beneath her glasses. Her voice slightly hoarse, she said, “Now, then. Shall we go up, or did you bring me just to see the chair? ”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Despite the poky hallway downstairs, Chloe wasn’t surprised to find that the gallery itself was a loft space with cavernous ceilings, bright, clean lights, and scarred, white walls that gave the space an ancient sort of quiet. There was an exhibit, and people with champagne glasses wandered around muttering seriously to each other. Red ignored every curious and censorious stare aimed his way, leading her inexorably toward his destination.

Because there had been a destination all along. She realized that when he stopped in front of a trio of paintings and nodded at the little plaque beside them. It said, JOANNA HEX-RILEY, COURTESY OF THE WRATHFORD ART INSTITUTE. He said with a happy exhalation, “Joanie.”

“Do you know her?”

“Met her in London. We were friends. Heard this was here a little while back.”

“London?” she asked, and his face closed off like she’d yanked out his plug. She wet her lips and tried again. “What happened with your friend?”

He shrugged, coming back to life. A touch of amusement played at the corners of his lips. “Nothing happened. I left. I didn’t stay in touch.”

“Why not?”

“Lots of reasons. Lately I’ve been wondering if they were good ones. No, that’s not true.” He smiled wryly. “I know they weren’t. So I’m gonna work on that.”

Then he went all silent and brooding, which was highly unusual behavior in a man who handed out smiles the way traffic wardens gave out tickets. Luckily Joanna Hex-Riley’s paintings were fascinating enough to stop Chloe from doing something silly, like hugging him until he softened again.

She couldn’t begin to guess at how the artist had done it, but the pale, naked woman who took over each canvas managed to look almost transparent in places, as if pieces of her were fading into nothing. It was an interesting effect. It gave her interesting … feelings. Not entirely pleasant ones, but she was still impressed by them.

It was a while before Red spoke again. “We can go somewhere else if you want.”

“I’m fine here. Will you tell me something?”

“Maybe.”

“When did you know you wanted to do this?”

He didn’t bother asking what this was. “School trip. I was nine. Almost didn’t go because we didn’t have the money to spare. But at the last minute my granddad scrounged it up from God knows where, so I went.”

She smiled. “He sounds like a useful sort of man.”

“Yep.” Red held out one of his hands, those thick, silver rings shining dully under the bright lights. “He always wore these.”

“And now you always wear them.”

“Yep.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

His face tightened slightly, painfully. “Years and years ago. He was old. I only miss him sometimes.”

“My Nana died when I was twenty-six. My mother’s mother. I know what you mean.”

He put a hand on her shoulder and the tips of his fingers brushed her bare skin, close to her neck. A shiver seemed to roll through her and into him, like he’d hooked into her current and now they were connected. Their eyes met. His were dark and hot and secret as a jungle, his mouth slightly parted in surprise, or maybe something else. She wondered what he’d taste like. Right now? Alcohol, probably.

She’d like to get drunk off that mouth. She’d like a lot of things. It was strange, and a little worrying, to realize that while she was rapidly sobering up, her thoughts weren’t getting easier to control. At least, not when it came to him.

“You were saying,” she nudged him, “about the trip. Go on.” Also, please take your hand off me before my uterus explodes with lust. Actually, does the uterus even feel lust? Note to self: learn more about own genitals.

“We went to the National Gallery. Before that trip I never realized art could be a job. In my world, jobs were awful. They chipped away at you and made you miserable, deep inside where no warmth could touch. You only did them because you’d starve and die if you stopped. But that trip …” He shook his head and she saw the echoes of wonder in his expression. “It changed everything for me.”

He was quiet for a moment and she watched him with a new kind of hunger. A hunger that came from an unfamiliar place, that had nothing to do with his vitality or with his beauty, but with the ordinary things about him that were starting to feel like oxygen. This hunger was urging her to sneak inside his head and devour everything she came across. But that would be a little creepy, possibly violent, and probably illegal, so she settled for asking questions.

“What’s something you want to do but haven’t yet, something that would affect you just as deeply as that trip?” Something like my list?

“Why?” he asked teasingly. “You gonna make it happen? Because my birthday isn’t till June.”

“I have a strict socks-only birthday present policy.”

His eyebrows shot up. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means the only birthday presents I give to people are socks.”

He snorted. “Sounds like you.” Then, just as she began to think he’d avoid the question, he said, “One day I’m going to MoMA. New York.”

The Museum of Modern Art? She wasn’t surprised. Nor was she surprised that he’d phrased it so decisively. I’m going. It wasn’t a dream: it was a reality he hadn’t gotten around to yet.

Fired up, she said boldly, “I’m going to New York, too. Not for the museum; I just want to go. As part of my list.”

“You’ll love it.” He was wonderfully, achingly earnest, excited for her, not a hint of doubt on his face. He thought she would do it. The confidence he wore like a cloak was covering her, just as surely as his jacket. “Everything’s instant,” he said, his voice a mixture of awe, fondness, and bafflement. “It’s all sharp lines. It’s fucking wild.”

“You’ve already been?”

“Oh, yeah.” His hair fell in front of his eyes as he nodded, and the urge to push it back was so strong, she had to curl her free hand into a fist.

Of course, if she was brave, she’d reach up and do it. He touched her all the time. But he was confident in his way, and she was learning to be confident in hers. She asked another question. “You were there, but you didn’t go to MoMA?”

His easygoing smile turned flat. “I went with my ex. We didn’t get around to it.”

She wondered if that ex was the blonde from the pictures online, the one with the shark eyes. Before she could think of a polite way to ask—or a subtle way to pry his deepest, darkest secrets straight from his head—they were interrupted. Which was probably for the best, since she’d been mentally shopping for futuristic brain scanners like a villain in a superhero film.