Wanted

“Good point.” He shoveled in the last of his eggs, then slid off the stool to go scrape the dregs from the pan to his plate. “You’re an exceptionally gorgeous woman with astounding acrobatic abilities in the sack. You have good taste in movies, terrible taste in candy, and you make a damn good Manhattan, thanks to my incredible teaching, of course.”

“Thank you,” I said graciously. “You’re wrong about Twizzlers. But I love you anyway.”

“As you should. But as for Evan Black …” He trailed off, shaking his head regretfully. “He’s an asshole who doesn’t keep his promises.”

“No, he’s not,” I said.

Fly

I sighed. Because I did. I really did.

Fly

“I’m eating,” I said, shoveling a huge forkful of hash browns into my mouth. “Where are we going this week?” I asked, thumbing my nose at etiquette and talking with my mouth full.

Our weekly museum jaunts had started last May on the very day that we’d moved in together after I’d graduated from Northwestern. Before that, I’d lived on campus and Fly

Fly

I’d felt a knot of jealousy curve in my belly. The neighborhood was safe and affluent to satisfy my parents’ concerns, but we’d taken the cheapest one bedroom we could find. We’d both wanted to pay our own way, and my starting salary at HJH&A wasn’t exactly impressive. Not that Fly

While the setup might have made Fly

I remained silent.

Pops, as Fly

Fly

Now Fly

“How about the Art Institute?”

“We went there last week.”

I shrugged.

He eyed me sideways. “If you already knew where you wanted to go, why’d you ask me?”

“An overabundance of politeness?”

“Let me guess. The windows.”

I took his hand and smiled happily. “See how well you know me?”

I feel about the Chagall windows the way some people feel about Notre Dame or the National Cathedral or Westminster Abbey. There is something about the experience of looking at that stained glass, with the oddly fractured images, so many of which seem to have been caught mid-flight, that makes my soul want to soar.

I’d discovered them by accident one day when I’d gotten turned around trying to find the cafe, and I’d stood there, no longer hungry, and just watched the light move across the vibrant, vital blue.

I knew that Fly

“You know you’re not going to find an answer in the glass,” he said after we’d been standing there for well over half an hour.

“I might,” I countered. I turned to look at him. “Maybe I already have.”

“Yeah? What are you going to do?”

I shrugged, not sure how to put into words all the thoughts that had been bouncing around in my head as I’d stood there in my private meditation. The blue sky. The images that floated through an eternity, soaring but never falling. Evan’s voice telling me to let go. To fly.

And my own fears holding me back.

But when you got right down to it, what did I have to lose?

“I’m going to go for it,” I finally said, boiling all my thoughts down to their utmost simplicity.

“Well, look at you. Angelina’s getting her groove.”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“I’m not. Seriously. I’m proud of you. The guy wants you. You’ve wanted him since forever. So make your move. Tell him that he’s an idiot for keeping a promise to a dead man. All he’s doing is punishing you and giving himself blue balls. And if he sticks to his guns then he’s an idiot and doesn’t deserve you anyway.”

“Exactly.”

He hooked his arm through mine. “Come on. We’ll hit American Modern on our way up to three, then I’ll buy you a glass of wine at Terzo Piano.”

“We just had breakfast.”

“And your point is?”

I had to concede I didn’t have one. After all, it was past noon and even though it was a Thursday, neither one of us was working today.

Besides, a little afternoon buzz might give me just the courage I needed.

nine

Before my weekly museum jaunts with Fly

As Fly

We’d made it past the iconic American Gothic and had moved on to Ivan Albright’s rather creepy The Door when my phone started singing “I’m Just a Bill” from Schoolhouse Rock. I gri

“Not only are we back in the U.S., we’re in Chicago.”

“Really? Where? Are you at the condo?”

They’re here? Fly

“Not at the condo,” my dad said as I nodded to Fly

“What hotel?”