Read Online So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) by L.J. Kennedy - Free Book Online Page A

photographs I’d actually ever seen of him
pictured him in such ostentatious outfits and out-there haircuts
that I wasn’t sure I would have recognized him had he walked right
up to me; style-wise, he was about as versatile as a chameleon on
speed). I almost wished Elsie were here—it would have been morbidly
satisfying to watch her brown-nose the people she actually did know.
    To top it all off, the art felt a little too
all over the place. The works in the gallery, a commodious space
with garish overhead lights, were all Quentin’s early stuff, most
of it created when he was first starting to make a name for
himself. Some of the pieces had been commissioned by indie art
museums and private collectors who’d spotted his talent before it
went supernova. It was strange, but I couldn’t quite pin down
Quentin’s style. His pieces ranged from shag carpets tacked onto
moveable, singing walls to vintage cars plastered with colorful
bumper stickers to giant, saturated photographs of women’s shoes to
self-reflexive photo and video installations that attempted to
capture the sinister aftertaste of the post-9/11 world of
surveillance cameras and Big Brother. It made me think of the
confusion that was probably on people’s faces back when
counterculture folk hero Bob Dylan decided to rock out on electric
guitar. The goulash of themes and styles was a little too
schizophrenic for me.
    “Oh shit, is that Chewbacca?” Kendra
shrieked, pointing at a life-size effigy of the Star Wars character flanked by two inflatable blow-up dolls (anatomically
correct ones, might I add) performing bizarre sexual acts on the
blissed-out-looking Wookiee. I wondered what Han Solo would
think.
    “Shock value and a mishmash of commentary
about American culture after the ’70s. It’s typical Generation X
navel-gazing,” I complained.
    “I have no idea what you just said, but WTF!
Who let Chase Adams into this party?”
    My heart nearly stopped at Kendra’s words. I
turned and looked in the direction she was pointing, and sure
enough, there he was, looking just like an angel from a Caravaggio
painting. I felt little pinpricks behind the skin on my face, and a
trickle of heat shot from my eyeballs all the way into the small of
my belly, where little butterflies started to somersault and wreak
general havoc.
    Crazy, what a visceral effect this guy had on
me, but looking at him was almost an artistic experience in and of
itself. His hair was slicked back, and although it was the middle
of October, his attire seemed to mock the idea of autumnal layers.
He was wearing a gray T-shirt with a teddy bear on it (irony, I
suppose), dark-wash jeans, purple-and-orange sneakers with the
tongues sticking straight up, and a slightly wrinkled, lightweight
blue blazer. It looked like he’d just thrown some clothes on
slapdash—most likely, whatever was lying on the floor—yet he still
managed to walk around with that same virtual halo over his head
that I’d noticed the first time I saw him.
    Everyone in the room paled next to him,
including me (in my very carefully chosen, simple black-and-white
sheath dress and thin gold necklace, which Kendra had described as
“Audrey Hepburn chic”). I was evidently not the only one affected.
At least a dozen females within close range were checking him out,
and a svelte redheaded cougar and a Zooey Deschanel–looking hipster
with glasses and big boobs made a beeline for him at the same
time.
    “Chase, whyyyyy didn’t you caaaaall
meeeeeeeee? I had noooooo idea you were gonna beeeeee heeeeeere,”
the Zooey chick said in a high, nasal voice, stretching out her
vowels and batting her lashes at the same time. I wanted to throw
up.
    “Chase, darling, what are you up to these
days? I’d love to see your new art. Are you still at the loft? I
told my stylist all about your murals, and she was thinking they’d
like to hire you to do one for them. Any interest? It could be just
the thing you need to get your art launched