“Today, when I met you and you were wearing a suit with no tie… I love that look on a man. You could have been walking the runway somewhere alongside your sister. I can’t believe no one ever tried to get you into modeling.”

Indeed, Riley’s agent had tried to get me into modeling, but few knew that.

“And,” she continued, “as good as you looked then, when I saw you tonight, your hair up in that stupid man bun—”

I opened my mouth, but she shushed me.

“Yeah, stupid man bun. I always thought they were stupid, until I saw you with one. With your hair up like that, paint smudging your chin, an art smock over a casual shirt and then faded jeans and bare feet… You were magnificent. That was Roy in his natural habitat. As good as you looked dressed to the nines, you looked a thousand times better in your element. As an artist. That was the real you, Roy, and the real you is magnificent.”

I sat, awestruck.

This woman had seen me. She’d truly seen me, and I wasn’t talking about her description of my physical attributes. I wasn’t sure anyone else had ever seen the real me with such clarity. Of course she’d never see the inside of my head—that part of me that held secrets I could never reveal, that part of me that haunted me when I let it surface. I’d kept it buried so long, and I’d gotten pretty good at it.

Until my father’s murder.

That had dredged everything up from the deep recesses to the shore again, things I’d learned to ignore, treat as if nonexistent.

Charlie Waters didn’t see that part of me. She saw me on the surface and in the shallow end.

That was a good thing. A very good thing. For what she saw wasn’t an untruth by any means. I was mostly me when I was painting. Business clothes? Maybe I looked good in them, but they weren’t me.

So yes, she saw and interpreted exactly who I was. On the outside and partially on the inside.

The only problem was…

I wanted her to see everything.

I’d finally found someone who moved me in a way I’d never known possible.

And that scared the hell out of me.

9

Charlie

My lower lip trembled. I desperately hoped it wasn’t enough for Roy to notice.

What had I done?

I’d gone off and rattled out exactly how magnificent he was. Exactly how amazing he looked, but I hadn’t even scratched the surface. I’d touched only on his physical attributes. Roy on the inside was a puzzle. He could say the most beautiful words to me, and then, nearly in the same breath, he could say something completely off-putting.

“Thank you,” he said softly. “Thank you for seeing me.”