Today's fan cover is courtesy of penelopeadams_. Yay!

Emmie stood in the middle of Moon Beach Cooperative attempting to hold back tears. Shelly and Mel had outdone themselves. Melody had worked closely with Emmie regarding how she wanted to show her work. They'd both agreed simple was best – fancy framing or displays would only distract from the intricacy of the pieces Emmie had selected to showcase. They decided to suspend some from the walls with binder clips, sans frames. Others were scattered over a low table in the center of the room with a sign inviting people to pick them up and leaf through them. Next to the table on a narrow stand was an empty sketchbook and a cup holding an assortment of pens and charcoals. Another sign asked people to fill the sketchbook with their own drawings and doodles. She hoped to add to it herself in order to create a collaborative work with the other residents of the town.

In addition to Melody's curation, Shelly had prepared quite a spread for the opening celebration. The art cooperative had three rooms: the gallery space, the store where Emmie had bought her supplies, and a meeting and classroom space, where Trisha's Tuesday night group usually gathered. It was in this room that Shelly had set up a table with wine, fruit, cheese, and meat platters, each item perfectly arranged. Emmie was so hyped up, she could no longer tell if it was nerves or excitement causing a charge of electricity to wind its way along the length of her arms.

Trisha and Dan arrived with the kids, followed by Ava and her family. The clock kept ticking and soon the doors opened to the public. She thought for sure no one else would come, but it turned out Emmie had more supporters than she could have imagined. Mrs. Fielding and several other customers from Iola's arrived and made a point to ooh and ah over the entire display. Iola herself came with her boyfriend, Jim. Just as the gallery and reception room were beginning to feel comfortably full, someone tapped on Emmie's shoulder. In a crazy instant, she flashed back to her floating bed sex dream and she turned, expecting it to be Ryker.

Sam peered back at her.

"Oh wow, Sam. I can't believe you made it!"

He glanced around the room. "This is great – good turn out too. See, I told you you didn't have anything to worry about."

Trisha eyed them from the other side of the gallery where she was speaking to the Iola's head cook, Delton. Emmie gave her a smile and turned her attention back to Sam. "It still feels weird. To do something public like this, I mean."

"Like I said, be cautious. But don't become paranoid over it. That's my job. Let me do the worrying, all right?"

Emmie laughed. "I'll try. I really do appreciate you being here."

Before she could say anything else, her friends descended upon them, Shelly and Ava, in particular, attempting to dominate Sam's attentions. "He's cute!" Ava mouthed to her at one point. Emmie turned beet red and shrugged her shoulders. That may very well be, but Emmie didn't see him like that. He was a friend – an older brother-type person in her life. There was no room in her heart or her head for her to contemplate Sam in any other light.

When her friends had moved on, she walked with Sam to the reception room where she loaded a small tray with aged gouda and multigrain crackers. Sam, his back to the front window, began recounting how Penelope reminded him of his daughter when she was that age. As he spoke of a preschool-aged Ashlyn, Emmie's attention caught on a figure out the front window and across the road. She smiled at Sam's recollection of Ashlyn's participation in an Easter Egg hunt and when she glanced back towards the far side of the street, the figure was gone.

It could have been anything or anyone, but in the back of her mind she knew who she wanted it to be. She'd been wishing for him to show up and had thought after their semi-friendly encounter at Rhys' birthday party, it might actually happen. Maybe he was still across the street. Maybe he'd gotten a phone call and was taking it before coming to the gallery. Maybe he would be here any moment.

Time wore on, and while a number of people came to see her work, Ryker wasn't one of them.

#

He was here. He'd talked himself in and out of coming to Emmie's opening so many times, finally, he'd left MechaJames and driven to the gallery in what felt like a fugue state. There was no place to park on either side of the street near Moon Beach Collective. After circling the block, he found a spot kitty corner to it, just around the corner. From there, he walked down the street until he was opposite of the gallery, where he paused. There shouldn't have been any reason for nerves, and yet here he was, wiping sweat from his palms onto his jeans. It was irksome that he should be anything but disinterested. He was just a man going to an art show. An art show of a woman he'd been intimate with, sure, but that was months ago. It was over. She was pregnant with another man's baby, for Christ's sake.

He just needed to do it: cross the street, head into the gallery, show Emmie that he was a reasonably mature adult who wasn't the petty asshole Dan seemed to believe he was. Maybe he needed to prove it to himself as well...

He took a step towards the curb, studying the big windows of the gallery as he did so. Quite a few people mingled inside, enough that it was hard to distinguish who was who at first. Finally, he could make out Emmie, long auburn hair swept up into a low bun off her shoulders. He stopped moving and scooted back when he saw who she was with – who she was laughing with.

Sam.

As she laughed she put a hand on his arm. Ryker turned away and stared into the shadows cast by the nearest tree lining that side of the street.

Emmie had every right to be with that guy, or any guy, of course. She always had that right. But that didn't mean Ryker had to consent to be in the same room with them while they laughed together and spoke together and thought about doing who knows what else together. He took a deep breath, leaning against the tree trunk, his eyes turned towards the handmade soap and candle store just a few steps behind him. Keenly aware that he'd be spotted by anyone exiting the art gallery, he slipped inside, greeting the clerk and then perusing the shelves for a good twenty minutes. When he exited, now the proud owner of three pine-scented soap bars and several dozen beeswax taper candles, it was a few shades darker outside. He used the dimming light as a cover as he quickly made his way back to his car.

He'd told no one that he'd decided to go to Emmie's so him not making an appearance wouldn't be noticed. No one would care. In the back of his mind, he knew he was doing what he'd just told himself he wouldn't – acting like an immature, jealous ass. But there it was. He couldn't escape himself and the reality of his situation. Maybe, no matter how hard he tried to be different, he was just like his dad, a man who had abandoned his kids to the care of a mother unfit to look after goldfish much less two young children. After his mother disappeared on them too, Iola was granted custody and he and Trisha barely saw their father the rest of their childhoods. To this day, he was off in some remote part of the world enacting a half-brained scheme of his, only coming around to ask Ryker for "a little cash for something that was guaranteed to pay off big time."

With a father like that to pattern himself after, maybe Ryker was doomed to wear the mantel of asshole for the rest of his days.

These thoughts ate away at him all the way back to his house and after he'd gone to bed. The constant lap of waves hitting the rocky shore, a sound that usually lulled him to sleep, instead seemed to batter him as if he was that shore; ground zero during the storm of the century.

The next morning, he called Dan and told him he'd be in to work late. Emmie would be at Iola's which meant it was safe for him to make his way back to the gallery. Trisha's friend Melody was the only one there when he walked in. She seemed surprised to see him.

"Ryker? What brings you here?"

Without answering her, he ducked into the gallery room. The richness of Emmie's work hit him like he was that damned rock on the shore again. Waves of grief, longing, anger, and acceptance washed over him in a relentless cycle.

The pieces on the far corner began in darkness. Slowly, the work transformed into light. More work on the table seemed to experiment with different shapes and patterns but all contained an underlying authenticity. Her work sought the truth. It was utterly compelling. He flipped through a sketchbook set up on a podium. In it, guests at last night's opening had created their own Emmie inspired pieces. The work wasn't separate, but instead acted as one collaborative piece, each person in the community of artists contributing to it. He took a moment, adding his own bit to one of the last blank pages. While he worked, the tap tap of Melody's shoes echoed across the room.

"What do you think, Ryker? There's something to her art, isn't there. I can't quite put my finger on it."

"It's honest." He set the pencil he'd been using back in its container and closed the sketchbook.

"Yes, it is, that's for sure."

"Um... I thought... Melody, can you keep a secret."

"Not really."

"What if it truly mattered? I mean, that something was kept private. Could you just, not lie but... not disclose something."

She put a hand on her hip. "What do you want to do, Ryker Tiberius James."

"I want to buy it."

"It? Which it? There's a lot of its here."

"All of it."

Melody gasped. "Are you serious?"

"Yes. Except for the sketchbook. I think she'd want to keep that."

"Oh, lordy."

"Just name your price and I'll write the check, only... here's where the nondisclosure comes in: I don't want Emmie to know."

Melody stared at him like he'd just told her not to let the world know grass was green. "You don't think she's going to figure it out?"

"Not if you don't say anything to her. Or to anyone. For the love of all that is holy, do not tell my sister. This is between you and me, okay?"

Still in shock, Melody paused, then slowly nodded. "Two pieces were sold last night, but the rest is yours as soon as the show closes at the end of the month."

"Sound like we have a deal."

Ryker left as soon as he'd paid up. Through the window, he spotted Melody smiling from ear to ear as she eagerly stuck red sold dot stickers to the tags below every piece in the gallery.

Maybe he was an ass like his father. Maybe he was stubborn and self-absorbed and wrong most of the time when it came to understanding other people's emotional needs, but for right now, Melody's smile confirmed what he needed to know: today, for a change, he'd gotten something right.

A/N: A lot going on in this update. What do you think of Ryker buying all of Emmie's art? Will she figure out it was him? Did he lose points with you for not going in to see the show during the opening?

As always, thanks for your support! Your votes in this update will go to replentish Moon Beach Cooperative with a new set of red sold stickers. Melody used them all up, thanks to Ryker!

The dedication this time is for fabulous cover designer penelopeadams_. Thanks so much for the cover!