Read Online Dancing Barefoot by Amber Lea Easton - Free Book Online Page B

part of up and coming fashion designer. She leaned her shoulder against the wall and squinted at him. "You're soaking wet, couldn't you find a taxi?"
    “I walked.” He didn’t want visitors. He needed solitude. 
    “Without an umbrella, I see.” She nodded at the door. “Let us in, please. I need to talk to you.”
    “ You couldn’t call?” He unlocked the door and held it open for her. 
    Without saying another word, he walked to his bedroom and changed cloth es. As an afterthought, he rummaged through all of the drawers in his dresser looking for a lost cigarette. There had to be one somewhere. He moved to the kitchen where he dumped out the drawers until, at last, he found what he was looking for.
    “I knew you wouldn’t quit,” Ava said without turning to look at him.
    “Everyone knows me so well, don’t they?” He collapsed onto the curving leather sofa, the only piece of furniture in the room except for a flat screen television and a stereo, and stretched his legs out. Only after he had lit his cigarette and inhaled the sweetness, did he speak again. “What brings you to my neighborhood? I thought you were working in your studio all weekend.”
    “Kevin tells me you saw Jessica yesterday,” she said. “Were you with her last night?”
    “Kevin is more of a woman than you are, always gossiping.”
    “And?”
    “And nothing. She has her life and I have mine.” 
    “Simple then.” She shrugged and smiled at the ceiling.
    “What are you smiling at?”
    “Did you tell her that you agreed to show your photographs in Boston for a chance at seeing her again?” She crossed her ankles and looked overly pleased with herself. 
    “I agreed to the gallery exhibit because it is the natural next step in my career.” He walked to the window overlooking the street. “I'm not going to stay in the States much longer. I’ve been in one place too long.”
    “Two months is now too long?” Ava unwound her legs to stand at his side.  She studied him with the knowledge of a sibling. “When did you decide this?”
    “I never should have come to New York.  All I have ever required was an address an d I have you for that, right?” He had let Ava twist his arm about coming to the United States. She had set up permanent residence here to start her own clothing line and wanted him close.  So here he was. Close. Too close, in his opinion. 
    “Tell me what happened with Jessica.”
    “I accepted an assignment with National Geographic. I'll be going to South America with Carter. We leave at the beginning of next month. Carter and I are doing a documentary together, a first for me. I look forward to it, new challenges and all of that.” He lifted the cigarette to his lips. “The thing in Boston will be finished, I’ll sublet the apartment, and be on my way.  It’s a good challenge. Something new.”
    “You’re acting careless, like you did after she returned to the States.  Unnecessary risks, rash decisions.  What happened in Boston yesterday?” Ava grabbed his arm and pinched until he glared at her. “Answer me. Is she married?”
    “I’m tired ...tired of promoting a book of photographs that will sit on a coffee table in a stranger’s living room...tired of talking to gallery owners who view my work as property, as an asset...tired of keeping a schedule.”
    “You’re lying. Is she married?”
    “Jessica has changed. She’s…” He thought of her last night at her apartment, splattered in paint, dressed in ratty clothes and…familiar. 
    “She’s what?”
    “Irrelevant, that's what she is.” He shoved away from the window and paced the room. “All that talent and promise hidden away beneath short hair and fancy clothes.”
    “F ancy clothes? Short hair? Must be ugly.”
    “She straightens her hair, can you believe that? All those curls gone, why does she do that?"
    “How awful. Tragic.” 
    He frowned at her laugh. "The Jessica I knew is dead.”
    “So dramatic.” She folded her