The Muse's Undoing

“Was that him?” If it’s possible, she looks even more concerned.

“Yeah. What? What’s that look?”

Nicole shakes her head and seems to sink inside her own frame. “I just want to understand what the hell is going on.”

“He works for him, and he was checking on me—that’s it. What the hell do you think is going on?”

“Raven made it sound like?—”

“Like what?” I snap, reaching the end of my rope.

Her voice is small when she answers. She can’t seem to bring herself to look at me. “Like parties and hookers and drugs…”

“Drugs? He’s just bi, Nicole. He drinks too much sometimes, but there aren’t any drugs. No parties, either, and I would know. I’m the fucking doorman.”

“Right,” she whispers.

“Maybe you should try talking to him,” I suggest, not kindly.

“Vaughn said you were kissing.”

I bite down on my lips. “And?”

She shakes her head. “Snuggling…”

This is exasperating. “So not snorting lines with our dicks out, then. Or taking turns on Gavin.”

She takes a deep breath. Her tone changes, softening. “He’s changed so much.”

“Fischer? Yeah. He’s been through a lot.”

“I wish he’d have let me know him. Better.”

That’s not something I can speak to, what Fischer decides to share with whom and when. I just know his heart. And I love it more than anything.

“Where is he?” she asks.

“Got me. I assume he’s at his place.”

“You haven’t talked to him?”

“Nope.”

“Oh. Matthew.”

“What’d you expect? That he’d pick me over him?” I nod toward the couch where Vaughn looks like he’s trying to get the job done.

“That’s not—I wasn’t trying to?—”

“I don’t blame him. You either. Kinda figured it wasn’t meant to be a long time ago.”

She makes a sympathetic noise, and it makes me want to ask her to go.

“He’s so fucking easy to love,” she says. “I used to tell him that, and he’d blow me off, remind me how his mother gave him away and never came looking. Like that was because of him somehow.”

I suck in my cheeks, trying hard not to tear up.

“But he just runs from it, you know?”