Breaking The Rules

“You don’t?”

“We took my girlfriend’s.”

She chuckles then takes another hit. Mia’s silent as she holds the smoke, then studies me while she blows it out. “Never thought of you as boyfriend material. Pegged you to be like me.”

“Guess you pegged me wrong.”

“Guess I did.” Mia smashes the small remains of the joint between her fingers, and it disintegrates as it falls to the ground. “Did you move here or are you visiting?”

“Visiting for the week.”

“What a coincidence—so am I.” She releases the same sly grin she gave me moments before going down on me last year. Twenty bucks the girl knows what she’s doing now just like she knew exactly what she was doing then. “Tell me about your girl.”

Standing here and reminiscing with someone I spent hours exploring in a haze isn’t the best way to be true to Echo. “I’ve gotta go.”

“You were badass, Noah, but you were never a dick. This is just a conversation between two old friends.”

She’s wrong about me, and sometimes Echo is, too. I am a dick, and I especially was when I was doing her. “We’re not friends.”

There’s a pessimistic tilt to her lips. “Touché, but we did enjoy the hell out of each other’s bodies. We will be working together, and as I said about the whole dick thing—it meant you had a slight conscience. So let me guess, you found the good girl who redeemed you.”

I rub the back of my neck. This is one of the things I hated about sleeping around. Occasionally, a girl had the stones to call me out on my shit and they’d be right.

Two minutes of conversation. I can give it to this girl if it’ll wipe the slate clean. “Yeah, but it’s more like she found me.”

She nods like I said more than I did. “So how redeemed has she made you? College route now?”

The hairs on my body rise like I’ve got a sniper trained to me. “Yeah.”

“When was the last time you hung out with anyone not her and partied? You know, be eighteen and not ninety?”

Before the two of us got serious. “What’s it matter?”

She toes a piece of green broken glass. “Matters more than you think. You’ll need to bring your girl in to let me meet the competition.”

“There’s no competition,” I say.

“Oh, Noah.” She pushes off the wall and walks backward for the opposite street. “Life is only about competition.”

I watch what I used to be leave. This is going to be a great conversation with Echo: You know how I decided to stay here for a week, ruining your chances to meet with other galleries before we head home? Great news: I fucked one of the waitresses, and she wants to meet you.

My cell vibrates, and I pull it out of my pocket, hoping to see a text from Echo. My eyebrows draw together when I spot Isaiah’s name: Where you at?

Me: Vail

Isaiah: Staying?

Me: Fir Tree Inn Room 132

Isaiah: See you by morning.

“Damn.” I forgot to tell Echo about Isaiah and Beth.

Echo (#ulink_12a72840-2d19-5a69-ac6e-f770b420f385)

Nestled at the bottom of a mountain, Vail is possibly the most beautiful town I’ve ever visited. The cobblestone streets with tidy buildings transport me into a cute little Swiss mountain village. Each store I pass screams expensive and boasts if you break it, you buy it. Well, the ice cream shop doesn’t boast that, but it would be cool if it did.

Staying in the hotel with Mom’s messages on my phone became torture, and walking alone isn’t the needed distraction.

A couple exits a store, and they laugh and hold hands. They’re beautiful together—wearing the same type of clothes and smile. They look like they’ve materialized out of a J. Crew catalog and chat over their shared love of some vase.

Noah and I would never have that conversation.

Feeling suddenly insecure and underdressed in my cut-offs and blue T-shirt, I tuck my free-flowing curls behind my ears and cross my sweater-covered arms over my chest as I wander past a line of galleries. I’ve visited lots of galleries over the summer, and judging by the quality of art in the windows, none of them have been this high-end. In any of these places, my work wouldn’t be fit to display in the bathroom. If what the curator in Denver said was true, my paintings are probably inhabiting a Dumpster.

Noah wouldn’t say it, but he harbors guilt for changing our plans. He won’t after I gush over the number of galleries in Vail. This side trip could be life-altering. Maybe I do have one last shot at proving myself before going home.

My pack dangles from my shoulder. I brought a sketchbook and chalk in case inspiration hits. Lots of inspiring views around me, but the art...wow. Talk about feeling less.

A beautiful painting of the night sky hangs in the window of a gallery and catches my attention. It’s not the lines or the choice of coloring that draws me to it. It’s the constellation, and I become completely lost.

“What do you think?”

“Excuse me?” I glance to my right, and a guy with a mop of sandy-brown hair sporting a pair of jeans and T-shirt stands next to me. He’s older than me. Easily thirtysomething, I guess. To be honest, people sort of blend in between twenty-five and forty.

He raises a bag in his hand. “I’ve walked by a couple of times, and you’ve been here staring. So I’m thinking you must like it.”

I blink, not realizing I had been entranced for so long. “It’s good,” I answer, because it is. “I like the shading here.” Then motion to where the blacks and blues merge. “It gives it a nice Impressionist feel.”

With the bag on his wrist, he shoves his hands into his pockets and appraises me as if I should have more to say, which I don’t.

“Is there a problem?” I ask.

“You don’t like the painting.”

I hike a brow. “I like the painting.”

“No.” The reusable grocery bag crackles. “You don’t. There’s a look people have when they like something, and you don’t have that light.”

Not caring for the interrogation, I break the news. “It’s wrong.”

His head jerks back. “What?”

“It’s wrong,” I repeat and gesture to the middle of the constellation. “It’s missing a star.”

“It’s art. There’s only what the artist intended.”

“True, but I don’t think that’s the case here.”