“I need a change.” But it was more than that. I needed to figure out who I was again, what I truly wanted. And I had to do that away from the prying eyes of New York. I felt as if I couldn’t move here. Couldn’t breathe. And every step I took had the potential to detonate another bomb.
“Fine. Buy a spot upstate. One I can drive to in a couple of hours. You’ll be out of the fray of the city but not cut off from your entire life.”
But I needed that distance. A clean break was the only way to truly start over. “I’m going, Car.”
“Fucking hell. Fine. But when you’re bored as shit in two weeks, don’t come crying to me.”
“I promise, I won’t.”
“I’m gonna miss you too, you asshole.”
I grinned. “You’re going to come visit in a month when I’m settled. Hopefully, we’ll be well into building the studio by then.”
“I am jealous of the space you’ll have.”
Space in New York might as well be made of diamonds. And when you worked on large-scale art the way Carson and I did, it was a commodity you’d shed blood for. “I’m finalizing the designs with the architect now. It’s been a hell of a thing getting to choose every last placement.”
“Let’s hope the new space brings inspiration.”
Carson and I both started at the voice behind us. Carson muttered a curse. “Have you lost the ability to ring the bell?”
Lara held up a glinting piece of metal. “I don’t have to knock. I have a key.”
“Brody could’ve been banging a chick out here.”
Her face screwed up. “He’s not you. He has some decency.”
He gave her a wink. “Come on, Lara. You know you’d kill for a walk on this wild side.”
Her lip curled. “Not if it meant I’d have to be inoculated afterwards.”
I choked on my beer, and Carson speared me with a glare. “Don’t laugh at her jabs.”
Lara crossed to a chair, gracefully lowered herself onto it, and then set her handbag on the table. “He has good taste, what can I say?”
“More like you’ve trained him well,” Carson muttered.
I set my beer on the other side table. “All right, children. Can’t we all just get along?”
Carson gave me a mock pout. “She started it, Dad.”
“Gross,” Lara complained. “I will not be related to you. Not even in a make-believe scenario.”
I sighed, leaning my head against the chaise. “This, I will not miss.”
“I’ll put a hit out on Carson if you agree to stay in New York,” Lara offered.
“No hitman is going to take me out. I’ve got ninja skills.”
Lara rolled her eyes and then turned her focus back to me. “Seriously. We can call off the move.”
“I leave tomorrow.”
She made a pssh sound. “If I can put together a gallery show in forty-eight hours, I can reverse the sale of your condo and studio.”
This had been the refrain for the past month. The first time I’d floated the idea past Lara, she’d nearly lost her mind. She’d told me I would ruin my career. Burn all my bridges. But I didn’t have much of a career at the current juncture. It had all been blown to smithereens. Or the people who were interested in my art only wanted it for some perversely morbid reason.
I hadn’t drawn or painted or done anything in the art realm in months. And I missed it like a phantom limb. This part of me that had ceased to be in a violent tearing. But every time I tried to put even a pencil to paper, I seized up, images of how my art had been turned into something twisted filling my mind.
“Brody…”
Lara’s voice brought me out of my spiral. “Sorry. What?”
She shared a look with Carson. This was one area where they were on the same page. “Stay. You need your family right now.”
I gave my head a shake. “I’m going.” I left it at that. I’d tried explaining myself time and again. It never did any good. With either of them. I’d miss Lara and Car. I’d miss the noise and the scents of the city. The chaotic rhythms that came from the life that flowed through this place. My favorite deli on the corner. The local bar my crew and I invaded every Thursday.
New York was massive. But it was also a small town. My town. And it would never stop being a part of me—as much as the skin that stretched across