True Art

Chapter Nineteen

REMINGTON'S POV

The sound of the rain pattering on the conservatory glass roof was hypnotizing. A roar of laughter dragged me from my daydream. It was Monday, the day of Sean's dinner party to celebrate his birthday, and here I was moping in the corner.

I'd left Matthew in the hospital and said my goodbyes. That was it now. We'd be better off ending this thing before it started and one of us got hurt. But hadn't Matthew already been hurt? I was doing him a favour by keeping him away. He'd find someone his own age and have a good life. And I…

I’d just get on with my life like I had been.

Two of my closest friends, Nolan and Lewis, were entertaining the dinner party by regaling us all with their latest crazy story.

"And that's when Nolan realized it had said: use sparingly. Not liberally. I swear, we both looked like we'd been tangoed."

The table erupted in laughter, and I feigned a smile.

"Lewis, how was I supposed to know it contained self-tan? I mean, really, who puts self-tan in an after sun lotion?"

"I can see you both now. Arriving back at Dublin airport, decked out in your holiday finest and glowing like two radioactive tangerines." Sean laughed and lifted his glass in mock toast.

"If it wasn't your birthday, I'd tell you to fuck off." Nolan winked and we all laughed.

These parties were always fun. Close friends, good food, and wine. I'd have taken my turn, adding some recent story of something that happened on a trip I'd taken, but instead, my thoughts floated between Matthew and the emptiness I felt. I couldn't deny that it felt a little odd being here at a party, knowing he was in the hospital, injured and alone.

I had been alone for the last decade, so I could survive without him. I just had to remember how. It was ludicrous that one week, one single week, was all it had taken to undo my comfort with solitude and revert me to a lonely, shell of a man. The only person that had ever made me feel that empty was—

I couldn't let my mind go there. They were different situations, different people.

Nolan and Lewis had been living together for the last five years and lived in a beautiful house outside the city. Nolan came from money—a lot of money. His family members were the heirs to a chain of stores that had made his grandfather a millionaire. His father and uncles had taken over the business, and by the time Nolan took the helm, they were billionaires.

We'd met at an auction house a decade earlier when he'd outbid me on an item and had come over to apologize. I had thought he was trying to lord his win over me, but that was because I didn't know he was the most humble and wonderful man.

We'd been friends for the last ten years, and I had the honour of helping him add to his magnificent collection of art and sculpture.

His younger brother, William, was also at the dinner, along with his latest flavour of the day. It was impossible to predict who he'd show up with to any of these dinners. William was Nolan's half-brother, a son from his father's second marriage. He was much younger and had about as much class as a dishcloth.

He was also a writer, a successful one, but he was self-conceited and had the arrogance of someone who had everything handed to him too easily and expected the world to follow.

Tonight, he had brought a young man to Sean's party. We had all looked at each other and grinned. There was something about the young man's demeanor that made us suspect that he was being paid. Not paid to attend the dinner, but rather for the services he was most likely going to provide once they'd left.