The Grumpy Landlord, page 20
New York.
It was the dream. The big one. The one I had applied for six months ago, back when I was living in the studio apartment, back when I was alone and desperate for a way out. I had forgotten about it. I had assumed I didn't make the cut.
"Willow," Ethan said. His voice was sharp with concern. "You're pale. Talk to me."
I looked up at him.
He looked solid. He looked like the foundation I had always wanted.
"I got it," I breathed. "The Guggenheim Fellowship."
Sadie gasped. "Oh my god. Willow! That's huge!"
"It is," I said. My voice sounded far away.
Ethan frowned. He didn't know what it meant. He wasn't part of the art world.
"Is that good?" he asked.
"It's... it's everything," I said. "It's the kind of thing that makes a career. It's the kind of thing that changes your life."
"Then we celebrate," he said, raising his glass. "To the Fellowship."
I didn't raise mine.
I looked at the phone again.
Residency requires full-time presence in our Manhattan studios.
Six months.
I looked at Ethan. At the way his hand rested possessively on my hip. At the way he was looking at me—with pride, with love, with a terrifying amount of trust.
He had just learned to open the door. He had just learned to let someone in.
If I left...
If I packed up and moved to New York for half a year...
"Willow?" Ethan lowered his glass. His eyes narrowed, reading the hesitation in my face. The sniper was back, assessing the threat. "What's wrong?"
"It's a residency," I whispered.
"Okay."
"In New York."
He went still.
"New York," he repeated.
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"Six months."
The words hung in the air between us, heavier than the humidity before the storm.
Sadie went quiet. She looked from me to Ethan, her earlier warning flashing in her eyes. Don't hurt him.
Ethan pulled his hand away from my waist. Slowly. Like he was unpeeling a bandage from a wound that hadn't healed.
"Six months," he said again. His voice was flat. Neutral. The emotion had been scrubbed out of it.
"It starts in two weeks," I added, because I couldn't stop the train wreck now that it had started.
He looked at me. The warmth was draining out of his eyes, replaced by the old, familiar walls. The fortress was going back up.
"That's a great opportunity," he said.
It sounded like a line from a script.
"Ethan, I didn't know—"
"You should take it," he said.
"We need to talk about it."
"What is there to talk about? It's your dream. You said it yourself. It changes everything."
He took a step back. Just one step. But it felt like a mile.
"I can't just leave," I said, panic rising in my throat. "We just... we just started."
"And now you're starting something else."
He looked around the gallery. He looked at the people celebrating. He looked like he didn't belong there anymore.
"I have to go," he said.
"Ethan, wait—"
"I have an early shift," he lied. "Congratulations, Willow. Really."
He turned and walked away.
He didn't look back.
I stood there in my green velvet dress, holding the offer of a lifetime in my hand, watching the man I love walk out the door.
Sadie touched my arm.
"He's running," she whispered.
"I know," I said, staring at the empty doorway. "But this time, I don't know if I can chase him."
Choices and Chances
Ethan
The house was quiet.
Not the peaceful quiet of a library or a church. It was the suffocating, heavy silence of a bomb shelter before the impact.
I stood in the kitchen, gripping the edge of the granite island. My knuckles were white. The stone was cold under my palms, sucking the heat right out of my skin.
I had run.
Again.
I had looked at Willow, glowing in that green dress, holding the offer that would take her away from me, and I had turned my back. I had walked out of the gallery, got in my truck, and driven until the engine noise drowned out the panic screaming in my head.
Six months.
New York.
It wasn't just a trip. It was a life. It was the big leagues. It was exactly where a talent like hers belonged—bright lights, big city, endless noise. Not here. Not in a quiet, gray house with a man who couldn't sleep without checking the locks three times.
I poured a glass of water. My hand shook. I stared at the tremor, hating it. Hating the weakness.
I heard the front door open.
Footsteps. Hesitant. Soft.
Then, her voice.
She was on the phone.
"I know, Riley. I know it's huge."
I froze. I shouldn't listen. I should walk away. I should go upstairs and lock the bedroom door.
But I stayed. I stood in the dark kitchen, a statue made of fear and regret.
"Yes," Willow said. Her voice drifted down the hallway. "They want an answer by Monday. The stipend covers housing... yeah, a loft in Chelsea. It sounds... amazing."
A pause.
"I know I have to take it. It's the Guggenheim, Riley. You don't say no to the Guggenheim."
You don't say no.
I flinched. The words landed like a strike to the solar plexus. A punch to the gut that knocked the air out of my lungs.
She was going.
Of course she was going.
Marian was right. Not about the talent—Willow had more talent in her pinky finger than Marian had in her entire lineage—but about the fit. Willow was a bird of paradise. I was a rock.
Birds fly away. Rocks stay put.
"I have to go," Willow said into the phone. "I'm home. I need to... I need to figure this out."
She hung up.
The silence rushed back in, louder than before.
I heard her walk toward the kitchen. She knew I was there. She could probably feel the chill radiating off me.
She stepped into the doorway.
She was still wearing the green dress. She looked like a jewel against the dark backdrop of the hallway. But her face was pale. Her eyes were huge, searching mine.
"Ethan?"
I didn't turn. I stared at the glass of water.
"You left," she said.
"I had a shift."
"Liar."
She walked into the room. Her heels clicked on the hardwood. Click. Click. Click. A countdown.
"You ran away," she said. "Just like before."
"I removed myself from the equation," I corrected. My voice was flat. Mechanical. "You had a moment. You didn't need me casting a shadow over it."
"You're not a shadow! You're my..."
She stopped.
"Your what?" I asked. I turned then. I looked at her.
"My partner," she whispered. "My frame. Remember?"
"Frames are replaceable," I said. "Art goes to the highest bidder. And New York is bidding high."
She flinched.
"You heard."
"I have ears."
"It's a fellowship, Ethan. It's six months. It's not a life sentence."
"Six months is a long time," I said. "Long enough to realize you don't miss the quiet. Long enough to realize you don't miss the baggage."
"Stop it."
She stepped closer. She reached out, placing her hand on my arm.
The heat of her touch burned through my shirt. It made me want to grab her. It made me want to pull her against me and beg her not to go.
But begging was selfish. Begging was weak.
If I loved her—if I really, truly loved her—I had to let her go. I had to be the one to cut the cord, because she was too kind to do it herself. She would stay out of obligation. She would stay because she promised Sadie she wouldn't hurt me.
And eventually, she would hate me for it.
I pulled my arm away.
"You should go," I said.
Willow froze. Her hand dropped to her side.
"Go where? To the guest house?"
"To New York."
I walked around the island, putting distance between us. I needed the barrier.
"It's your dream, Willow. You said it yourself. It changes everything."
"It changes my career," she argued. "It doesn't have to change us."
"Long distance doesn't work. Not for people like us."
"People like us? What does that mean?"
"People who need... contact," I said roughly. "I can't do phone calls, Willow. I can't do Zoom dates. I need you here. Or I need you gone. I can't do halfway."
"So come with me."
The offer hung in the air.
I laughed. It was a dry, broken sound.
"Come with you? To New York? And do what? I have a job. I have patients. I have a house that I haven't left in three years except to go to the hospital."
"You could take a sabbatical. You could... build things. You said you missed woodworking."
"I can't leave," I said. "This is my perimeter. This is where I survive."
"Survive," she repeated. "Is that all you want to do? Just survive?"
"It's enough."
"It's not enough! Not anymore. You told me you wanted to live. You told me you wanted the mess!"
"Maybe I was wrong."
The lie tasted like ash.
Willow stared at me. Her eyes filled with tears.
"You don't mean that."
"I do."
I gripped the edge of the counter again. I looked at the floor. I looked at the wall. Anywhere but her face.
"You're leaving," I said. "You're going to New York. You're going to become famous. You're going to meet people who don't have nightmares about sand and blood."
"I don't want other people," she cried. "I want you!"
"You want the idea of me," I said coldly. "You want the project. But the project is finished, Willow. You fixed the gallery. You cleared your name. You got the fellowship. You won."
I looked up. I locked eyes with her. I engaged the shutters, locking all the emotion away behind a wall of steel.
"There's nothing left for you to fix here."
She recoiled. She took a step back, her hand flying to her chest as if I had physically shoved her.
"Is that what you think?" she whispered. "That I'm just here to fix you? That I don't... that I don't love you?"
"I think you love the chaos," I said. "And I think you're realizing that the chaos has consequences."
"You are a coward," she spat.
The tears spilled over.
"You are a coward, Ethan Rourke. You are so afraid of getting hurt that you're hurting yourself first. You're bleeding out and you're refusing the tourniquet."
"I'm saving you the trouble," I said.
"I don't want to be saved! I want to be chosen!"
She wiped her face furiously. She took a deep breath. She stood tall, that fierce, stubborn light returning to her eyes.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay?"
"I'll go."
The words cut through me like a scalpel. Clean. Precise. Fatal.
"I'll take the fellowship," she said. "I'll go to New York."
She walked to the doorway. She stopped. She turned back.
She looked at me across the kitchen. The distance felt like miles. It felt like an ocean.
"But I'm not leaving tonight," she said. "I have to pack. I have to organize the cat."
She paused.
"I'll leave on Monday. That gives you two days."
"Two days for what?"
"To decide if you're actually a coward," she said. "Or if you're the man who knelt in the rain and asked me to stay."
She looked at me with a devastating clarity.
"I'll go, Ethan. I'll take the job. Unless you ask me to stay."
I opened my mouth. The words were there. Stay. Please stay. I can't breathe without you.
But the fear choked them down. The fear that I was holding her back. The fear that I wasn't enough.
I closed my mouth.
I said nothing.
Willow watched me. She waited. Five seconds. Ten.
The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.
Her shoulders slumped. The light in her eyes went out.
"That's what I thought," she whispered.
She turned and walked away.
I listened to her footsteps fade. I heard the front door open and close.
She was going back to the guest house. To pack.
I stood alone in the dark kitchen.
I had won. I had protected her. I had ensured her future.
So why did it feel like I had just lost everything?
Empty Guest House
Willow
The sound of packing tape screeching off the roll was the ugliest sound in the world.
Screeeech. Rip. Smooth.
I smoothed the plastic down over the cardboard flaps. My hand was shaking. Just a little. A fine, persistent tremor that radiated from my bones outward.
"That's the last of the acrylics," I whispered to the empty room.
The guest house echoed.
It hadn't echoed in weeks. I had filled it. I had filled it with canvases and drop cloths, with music and the smell of turpentine, with my voice and Ethan’s low, rumbling laughter. I had filled it with life.
Now, it was just a gray box again.
I sat back on my heels, staring at the stack of cardboard boxes by the door. They looked like tombstones. Kitchen stuff. Clothes. Art Supplies.
I was efficient. I was organized. Sadie would be proud.
A tear slipped down my cheek, hot and stinging. I dashed it away with the back of my hand, leaving a wet smear on my skin.
"Stop it," I hissed. "You are going to New York. You are going to be a Guggenheim fellow. You are not going to cry over a man who told you to leave."
But he hadn't told me to leave. Not in so many words.
He had just stood there in the kitchen, surrounded by the silence he claimed to hate, and let me walk away. He had offered me an out, a parachute, because he was too terrified to jump with me.
I can't leave. This is my perimeter.
I looked around the room one last time. The easel was folded against the wall. The floor was swept clean of charcoal dust and dried paint. I had scrubbed the sink. I had erased myself.
Except for the walls.
I couldn't take the walls.
I walked over to the stack of sketchbooks I hadn't packed yet. I shouldn't look. looking was torture.
I opened the top one anyway.
Charcoal. Smudged shadows and sharp lines.
Ethan.
There were dozens of him. Ethan sleeping on the porch swing, his guard down. Ethan drinking coffee, the morning sun catching the gray in his eyes. Ethan’s hands—rough, scarred, capable of miracles—resting on the steering wheel of his truck.
I traced the line of his jaw on the paper.
I remembered the feel of that jaw under my lips. The scratch of his stubble. The way his pulse hammered against my tongue when I kissed his neck.
"You idiot," I whispered to the drawing. "You big, stupid coward."
I slammed the book shut. The dust puffed out, a small gray cloud.
I shoved the sketchbooks into the last box. I didn't wrap them. I just threw them in. I wanted them gone. I wanted them buried deep in the bottom of a suitcase where I wouldn't have to see them and remember that for a few days, I had held the sun in my hands.
"Mrrrow?"
I looked down.
Charlie was sitting on the bare mattress. The bedding was stripped, folded in a neat pile for the next tenant. Or for the silence.
My orange tabby looked small. Deflated. Usually, open boxes were an invitation for chaos. He should be jumping in them, shredding the packing paper, batting at the tape.
Instead, he was just watching me. His yellow eyes were wide and confused.
"I know, buddy," I said, my voice cracking. "I know."
I walked over and sat on the edge of the mattress. I scratched him behind the ears. He leaned into my hand, purring a low, sad rumble.
"We're going on an adventure," I lied. "New York. Big city. Lots of pigeons to watch through the window."
He blinked. He didn't look convinced.
"It's going to be great," I said, the tears starting to fall faster now, dripping off my chin onto his fur. "We're going to be famous. And we're going to live in a loft. And we're never, ever going to fall in love with a landlord again."
Charlie head-butted my stomach.
I pulled him into my lap and buried my face in his neck. He smelled like dust and cat food and home.
"I miss him too," I sobbed.
The confession tore out of me.
I missed him already. I hadn't even left the property, and I missed him like a limb that had been severed.
I missed the way he frowned at his coffee. I missed the way he tried to hide his smile. I missed the weight of his arm around my waist and the way he made me feel like I wasn't just a mess, but a masterpiece.
You're the frame.
But the frame had decided the picture was too loud. Too big. Too much.
I sniffed, wiping my face on my sleeve.
"Okay," I said. "Okay. Enough."
I stood up. I picked up Charlie. He went limp, resigned to his fate.
I put him in the carrier. He didn't even fight. He just curled up in the back corner and tucked his nose under his tail.
"Good boy."
I taped the last box shut.
Screeeech. Rip.
The sound of a door closing.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
Riley: I'm at the gate. Let me in.
It was time.
I walked to the French doors. I looked out at the garden. The rosebush I had trampled on my first day was recovering. New green shoots were pushing through the soil.
Life went on. Gardens grew back. Hearts healed.
Allegedly.
I grabbed my tote bag. I grabbed the cat carrier.
I unlocked the front door and stepped out onto the porch.
The air was heavy. The sky was a flat, slate gray, mirroring the emptiness inside me.
