Maya was caught between two bad options. She wanted to get her canvas pulled so she could paint all night. Just like she had for the past week, ever since Felix had forced her out of bed by dumping a bucket of ice water on her. But, the frame was too large for her to stretch the canvas herself. So, if she wanted the job done, she’d have to enlist help. And talking to people was the last thing she wanted to do.
She beat the nails into another wood frame, her last piece for her first solo gallery show. After she was done, she sat on the small chair in the makeshift studio and wished that she’d never given up smoking. Or that she liked weed as much as Felix. Maybe she should start smoking pot. If she was high, she could paint and not feel like she was going through a physical withdrawal every time Javi-fucking-Hernandez popped up in her thoughts.
She was about to get up and go in the house to see if Felix was back from his catering job. She needed a few more minutes of staring off into space and wondering if there were any Eternal Sunshine pot strains. If she told him to shut up and help her, he would do it. For about another week. Then, she’d have to talk about her feelings with him. He’d make her.
She heard female voices and footsteps approaching the door a few seconds before Carla and Alana walked in. Shit. Felix must have let them in the house.
“See, I told you. She looks just as bad as Javi.” Carla talked about Maya as though she wasn’t even there. Nice.
“Javi’s pretty close to catatonic, though. She’s not that bad.” Alana’s statement dragged her part of the way out of her miserable fog. Just because Javi wasn’t happy, that didn’t mean he wasn’t back with Karrie. He’d have to be catatonic to put up with that bitch.
Carla walked over to where Maya was sitting and waved a hand in front of her face. “You there?”
“Yes, why are you here?” Maya didn’t mean for that to come out as a whine, but it did. She wanted to be alone until she stopped hurting. So, forever.
“We’re here because our brother’s miserable.” Alana motioned for her to look at herself. Maya looked down; she was a little dirty and paint stained, but that was nothing new. “You’re clearly miserable. If you weren’t, you would already have made fun of Carla for her outfit.”
Carla’s jaw dropped. “These are Stella McCartney, and they’re perfect.”
“They’re $200 yoga pants and, thus, worthy of ridicule.”
“What are you both doing here? Javi is back with his wife. Can you please go torture her?” Both Carla and Alana broke out in peals of laughter. “Seriously, what’s going on?” Maya didn’t have the energy to shower or eat; she certainly didn’t have the energy to decipher these two today.
“Javi is not with Karrie.”
A curl of hope made its way into Maya’s throat and lodged itself there, but she might have been hallucinating, so she said, “They sure fucking looked together at the bachelor auction.”
Carla blew her bangs off her face. “First of all, I’m not sure she got an invite for that, but I’ll take responsibility for her being there. Also, she stiffed the charity, so she doesn’t get to take him on his date, which I picked out with you in mind.”
“I still don’t see how any of this is relevant to them not being back together.” She saw the texts. He’d wanted to talk to Karrie, and he’d denied being with her.
“It has everything to do with it,” Alana said. “Karrie schemed to win Javi in front of you. She’d heard about you two getting together and decided to make a last-ditch play to get her meal ticket back.”
“But they’re not together.” Carla pulled out her phone and shoved it in Maya’s face. “Here. Look at this.”
A video of Karrie smashing Javi’s car with a tire iron for over a minute followed. She thought she heard Javi laugh in the background. Maya didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. She looked to Alana, who watched the video and snorted in amusement.
“That was right after he told her they are never, ever, ever getting back together.”
“I’ll say. But I still don’t see what this has to do with me. It’s not like he apologized for groping his ex-wife in front of me.” It had been humiliating. He knew that her mother had been the other woman and yet he’d let her feel that way in public.
“Your brother threatened him with bodily injury, which I thought was poetic given how Javi treated Cole when we first got together,” Alana said.
“He what?” Felix hadn’t even mentioned that Javi had stopped by, which they’d definitely have to talk about at some point.
“Yeah, I had to hire Felix’s catering company for our wedding to get him to give us the location of his house.” Alana put her hand on Maya’s hair. “He upsold me to the lobster buffet. The least you can do after you cost our parents that much money is talk to my brother.”
Maya didn’t shake her off, even though the mention of their parents brought up another reason why she and Javi were probably better off apart. “Your parents already hate me. That’s not going to help.”
Carla snickered. “If our parents hated anyone for spending money, I would be in trouble. Daddy doesn’t like that Javi got divorced. And he’s a snob. Also, a little racist. But he’ll get over it.” She pointed at Alana. “He’s gotten over being sexist enough to put Alana in charge of the company along with Javi.”
Alana nodded. “And our mother likes you a lot. It’s going to up her street cred with the Junior League ladies so much to have an artist daughter-in-law.”
Maya shook her head. This was too much. She needed some time to process. But looking at Javi’s sisters, she didn’t get the sense that they would leave without tying her up and throwing her in the trunk to bring to Javi—or at least an agreement that she’d talk to him.
“Does Javi know you’re here?” Both sisters shook their heads.
Alana crossed her arms over her chest. “We’re not leaving.”
Maya sighed. She stood up and rubbed her hands on her pants. “Well, if you’re not leaving, you should make yourselves useful.” She handed a gesso brush to Carla. “You’re going to prime that canvas.” Then she grabbed Alana by the arm. “You’re going to help me stretch this one. If you won’t leave, you’re going to make yourselves useful.”
“But these are $200 yoga pants.” Maya and Alana both raised one eyebrow in response to Carla’s protest. “Fine. Can we at least drink wine after this? I didn’t think that doing work for free was part of the ‘save my idiot brother from himself’ agenda.”
“Sure. But you’re buying. I’m broken up with my rich boyfriend.”
Alana grabbed Maya’s hand. “Not for long. We’re going to fix this.”
Maya wasn’t going to cry like a little bitch, but Javi’s sisters liking her, wanting her to be with him, gave her hope that it was fixable.