Lyssa stared at his outstretched hand. Partners?
Of course she was proud of how well things had gone. But the truth was that Dane Harrington had already planned to donate to the foundation. All she and Cal had needed to do was pass his honesty test. So it hadn’t been much of a challenge.
Which was why, although a big part of her wanted to put her hand in Cal’s to shake on the deal he was offering, she didn’t. Instead, she laid her palm on her chest and said, “Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. You can’t know how much your faith in my abilities means to me. One day, hopefully soon, I will happily accept your offer to be partners. But I’m not quite ready for that yet. I want to be the best I can be, and to get there, I need to learn so much more from you.”
Though he looked surprised by her response, she could see respect in his eyes too. “Okay, I’ll accept your no for now. But I won’t wait too long for you to feel that you’re ready. Especially when I think you’re far closer than you know.”
Yet again, his words filled her with a glow. She adored her brothers and parents. But Cal was the first person who believed she’d already accomplished huge things, rather than seeing her as someone who needed taking care of. Her brothers never disrespected her, and she knew they loved her unconditionally. But the Mavericks had never truly seen her as a capable woman.
“Tell me the truth.” After a deep breath, she asked the question that had been hanging over her for weeks. “Did my brothers put pressure on you to give me this job?”
She could see the answer on Cal’s face even before he replied. “It was more of a heavy-duty suggestion, rather than pressure.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, clearly uncomfortable with what he’d told her. “They’re just concerned about you. They want you to be happy. I hope you won’t be angry with them for that.”
“No, I’m not angry.” Disappointed, but not angry. “You must have worried you’d been saddled with a slacker.”
He laughed. A genuine laugh, thankfully, that lifted the mood again. “The foundation needed an accountant. You wanted to leave Chicago. I hoped it would be a good fit, which it clearly is.” He gave her a sideways look. “But if you didn’t work out, I was willing to give you the boot.”
She laughed too. “I’m so glad you didn’t.”
“I am too, Lyssa.” The smile in his eyes warmed her from the inside out. “Really glad.”
* * *
When Lyssa looked at him that way, her eyes so bright and intelligent and sweet all at the same time, his brain turned to mush. Which was why, instead of hurrying off to bury himself in work and keep his distance, he found himself saying, “Whenever I have a massive victory at one of my companies, I like to make a point of celebrating. What do you say to the rest of the day off to enjoy London?” He had meetings planned for his own business, but suddenly none of them seemed particularly important.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Now that Dane is on board and has given us a list of wealthy associates to contact, there’s even more work we can dig into.”
“I’m sure,” he said. Even though he wasn’t the slightest bit sure how to stop wanting to be near the loveliest woman he’d ever known. “Now we just need to figure out what we want to do. A museum, maybe? Or we could hunt down a tearoom and get the full works?”
“Actually,” she said, “there’s something I found online when I was getting ready for the trip that looks like it could be a lot of fun. Only I didn’t think we’d have time…and even if we did, I wasn’t sure you’d be interested.”
“Try me.”
“It’s a London street art tour.”
“You mean like graffiti?” He frowned, feeling like the fuddy-duddy she probably thought he was.
“It’s art,” she told him. “And it’s all over the city, but particularly in the East End. Evidently, some of it is really famous, and huge careers have come from the walls of London.”
Before last night, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done something just for fun, apart from attending Maverick barbecues when he was in the Bay Area. If he went to a function, there was always business—a customer, a donor, a potential investment.
It occurred to him how boring his life had become.
“I’m in.”
The way her eyes lit up made him more ecstatic than when Dane had darn near begged to join forces with the foundation.
* * *
An hour later, dressed in jeans, T-shirts, sneakers, and light jackets, they took the Tube to meet up with a free guided tour. It was an eclectic group, with an older couple from Scotland, a couple of Scandinavians, and two middle-aged women who hadn’t seen each other since high school and were clearly thrilled to be together again. Their tour guide had turned his body into an art form. Every square inch of visible skin, except his face, was covered with tattoos, from mythical creatures to skulls to jungle animals.
“Call me Delic,” their guide said, “short for Psychedelic. This place used to be dodgy. You wouldn’t walk in here without a weapon. But when Banksy had the idea in 2008 for a mural celebrating graffiti as art, life in this tunnel changed entirely. No one was allowed to enter while he worked, until the day he unveiled it. Since then, the city has allowed graffiti here with no penalties. You won’t find much of Banksy’s original art left. In fact, you can come here every couple of days and see something brand new.”
“This is going to be amazing,” Lyssa said softly to Cal.
The problem was that being with her felt amazing. And he was starting to crave it—the chance to see one more smile, to hear her laugh, to breathe in her sweet perfume, to watch her walk across a room toward him.
Delic led them into the tunnel, naming some of the artists as if they were international stars, none of whom Cal had heard of. But even he had to admit the art was remarkable. It covered the walls, the curved ceiling, the overhead beams. There was word art, flower art, bird art, psychedelic art, people art, animal art. He and Lyssa stood before a ferocious wolf.
“It should be in a museum.” She was as enthralled as he was.
Delic stopped next to Lyssa. “Take pictures,” he advised. “It’ll be gone in two or three days. I wish we could preserve them, but that’s the nature of street art. Here one day, gone the next.”
“I thought graffiti was just for gangs or hoodlums. But it’s truly art,” Cal observed.
Delic’s mouth curved in a wolfish smile that reminded Cal of the painting on the wall. “There’s big money in street art now. People get commissions.” He waved an arm encompassing the entire tunnel. “It’s also a venue for up-and-coming artists to show off their style.” He moved three murals down, Lyssa and Cal following. “Look at this one.”
Cal could make out the words Do Or Die in mesmerizing colors. A figure was built into each letter, an old man, a young Black woman, an Asian teenager, a middle-aged Russian wearing a babushka, an Indian woman in a sari, a bearded man with a turban.
“You see how it brings all the peoples of the world together, young and old, whatever ethnicity.”
“It’s beautiful,” Lyssa said on a breath of wonder.
“I’ve been all over the streets, and this is the first time I’ve seen this guy. I’m telling you, he’s going to be huge. Take a picture,” he ordered. “Remember the name—Han Solo.”
“Like Han Solo from Star Wars?” Lyssa asked as she snapped a picture.
Delic snorted. “You think anybody uses their real name?” Said the man who called himself Psychedelic. “No one knows who Banksy is.”
Cal felt a surprising excitement running through him. He’d be looking for this Han Solo. And he wanted to find out more about Banksy too.
They walked from there, sometimes getting on the Tube, then getting off at another station to view the side of a building or a long wall covered in fantastic murals, until they ended up in the East End.
Delic gathered the group around him. “More than anyone else in London, East Enders love their street art. Prepare to be dazzled.”
And the street art dazzled Cal. But Lyssa shone even brighter.
She took pictures of everything, asked great questions about the artists and what the graffiti meant. The art wasn’t just paint on walls; there were statues plopped down in the middle of a sidewalk, even a man standing on a plinth, his clothes painted exactly like the building behind him. At certain angles, he disappeared into the background. There were even little dragon statues glued to the tops of light poles, hidden gems everywhere you looked.
They wandered among ramshackle buildings now reinvented with mind-blowing murals, the colors bright against the sky. The art changed as the clouds passed overhead, took on different hues, the shifting light bringing out new facets.
“Come back in a week, and the place will be entirely different.” Delic shrugged. “It’s transient, like people are.” Then he shot them all with two finger guns. “And I guarantee you will be back.”
At the end of the block, he waved in his flock. “We’ve arrived at the moment you’ve all been waiting for.” He held up his hands like a maestro. “Now you create your own street art.”
Cal looked at Lyssa. “Did you know about this?”
She grinned. “I thought it might be best if I let you discover the full extent of our day out once you’d been enraptured by the street art we’ve seen.”
“I’ll watch you do it,” he said.
She batted his arm. “Oh no, you won’t. You’re going to create some magnificent graffiti today, or I’ll tell my brothers you chickened out.”
She made some bawk-bawk sounds, and without thinking, he reached out to cover her mouth with his hand.
Her eyes went wide as his palm touched her lips, and he quickly pulled away, but not before he had to acknowledge the bolt of lightning that jolted through him.
Working to focus his attention on the art, he realized that for the first time in a very long time, this tour had made him feel truly excited about something that had nothing to do with work. He’d never sowed wild oats. Instead, he’d gone to college, then to work, built his assets, grown his company. But today, with Lyssa, he felt young and carefree.
“Okay,” he said in a voice he hoped sounded relaxed, “I’ll do it.” Then he teased her. “Although there’s a chance a graffiti chicken who bears a striking resemblance to you might make an appearance…”
She was rolling her eyes with a grin as Delic spoke again. “Let me give you a few basics about making street art. First, nothing is off-limits.” Then he gave them a brief review of street art techniques.
Cal hadn’t realized there were techniques. Though he had to admit that much of the work he’d seen today was true artistry.
With dramatic flair, Delic’s voice boomed out their final instructions. “Now, put on your masks and goggles, grab a spray can, and start painting.”
The beige wall where they were standing had obviously been painted over for the workshop. Lyssa was the first to choose her space on the end.
Cal grabbed the spot next to hers. “What are you going to paint?”
“Word art. Good luck with your Lyssa-faced chicken,” she joked.
As she retrieved a can from the rolling table a couple of paces behind them, Cal stared at his section of blank wall. He was forty-six years old, a businessman who knew spreadsheets and recognized business opportunities. He didn’t actually want to paint a chicken that looked like her, but he had no clue what to paint instead.
As if she saw his dilemma, she murmured, “Remember what Delic said—nothing is off-limits. Just relax.”
If she only knew just how much was completely off-limits, starting and ending with her.
Relax. Lyssa was right. He never relaxed. Except last night, when he’d held her in his arms.
A word suddenly formed on the wall beneath his paint can. That was one of Delic’s techniques: Let your hand spray instead of your mind controlling. Cal’s hand started with yellow. When he’d sprayed the word, he picked up a green can and hit the wall with the same word, off-kilter from the first.
He didn’t forget Lyssa, but he no longer looked at her, allowing his hand to spray while his mind wandered. Next was red, once again off-kilter, the word seeming to slide down the wall.
He thought about his life, which had been all about work from the day he’d graduated from college. He’d long ago thought about being a lawyer like his dad. But that hadn’t happened. He’d once dreamed of having a family. It hadn’t happened either. There’d always been reasons why the time wasn’t right for marriage. Always a way for him to justify that his career was more important.
But was that true? Or was there something else going on? Something that Cal didn’t want to face?
Pushing the questions from his head, he found blue and purple and orange. Color after color, he sprayed the same word until Delic clapped his hands.
“Put down your paint cans. And let’s see what you’ve done.” He made his way down the line of artists, giving kudos, making comments.
At last, Cal stepped back to see what he’d painted.
* * *
Lyssa tilted her head to look at her art. It wasn’t anywhere near the quality they’d seen on the tour, but it said exactly what she’d wanted to say, and she was pleased with her first-ever attempt at street art.
Then she stepped back to view Cal’s art.
“Wow.” She turned to face him, beyond stunned by what he’d produced. “Way to play me like you’re a street art novice.”
“I am a novice. I’ve never even thought about spray paint art until today.” Cal frowned at what he’d done. “Anyway, the colors are all jumbled together. You can barely read the word.”
“Are you crazy? This is a freaking masterpiece. It’s like you threw everything that’s inside you into that word you sprayed on the wall. And turned it into art.”
It was simple yet elegant, the word relax over and over in all the colors of the spectrum, every paint can that had been on the rolling table behind Cal and some of her colors too.
But he didn’t seem as pleased by it as she was. “Do you even know what it says?”
She fished her phone out of her pocket and played the song for him, “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, feeling its beat in her core. “Your painting has the same kind of beat as the song. It just keeps playing over and over in your head.” She opened her arms to encompass the whole thing. “It’s like those colors were trapped until they spewed out of you onto the wall.”
Though he shrugged, his eyes, usually gray, had softened to silver, and she knew he was pleased by her comment.
“It must be subliminal,” she had to note. “It must be what you really want to do. Relax.”
“It’s nothing more than the last word you said to me. I couldn’t think of anything else to paint.”
She folded her arms and shot him a look. “I don’t believe you.”
He pointed at her painting. “Even though ‘believe’ was the word you sprayed on the wall?”
She glanced at her word art, which she’d done in simple blue and white. “I like what I did. I’ll even probably put a picture of it online. Hashtag HavingFuninLondon and all that. But I was thinking while I put it up there.” She pointed at his art. “You were feeling.”
Something flared in his eyes. He almost seemed to sway into her for one brief moment.
Then, just as quickly, he stepped back. Almost as if he’d been about to commit a crime.