Chapter 14 Mavi
Mavi
The knock comes at seven. I wipe the paint from my hands on the rag at my waist and check that the pasta water is still simmering on the stove, then cross the apartment barefoot and step carefully over the canvas drying by the door.
When I open the door, Sai’s reaction stops me short.
I’m standing there in my real state, the paint-stained shirt hanging off one shoulder. No makeup covers my face and a streak of cadmium yellow marks my cheekbone. This version of me never appears on any screen.
Yet, Sai’s lips part and his chest stops moving for a full second. He looks at me, messy and unpolished with chaos behind me, like I am more beautiful than I was last night in the robe. He sees me this way because of the mess, not despite it.
The genuine flicker of surprise I feel settles quickly. I step back and hold the door wide. “Hey. Come in. Watch the blue canvas on the floor. It bites if you step on it.”
I watch as his gaze moves across the long amber light pouring through the west windows, the canvases stacked against the far wall, and the brushes, rags, and reference photos pinned to the corkboard without any clear system.
My apartment looks like someone shook a paint store and a thrift shop inside a blender and poured everything into four walls.
His own space sits perfectly aligned and measured to the millimeter. Though, there’s no judgment on Sai’s face, only fascination. His fingers twitch at his sides as though they ache for a camera.
The sight feels stupidly endearing. The man cannot turn that instinct off even for a second.
We still haven’t named what happened between us last night. I’m not sure I want to because then it makes it real. And something real can be taken away.
Sai moves straight toward the easel. The painting is not a literal portrait of him, yet the energy belongs to him completely. The urgent brushwork and the heat trapped in the colors come from the impression of his body that stayed warm on my skin this morning after I left his apartment.
He studies the piece, stepping close, then back again, tilting his head while he examines the visible underpainting in the lower left corner. “You left the cool ground showing on purpose,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“It changes the temperature of the entire piece. The cool layer bleeding through the warm one creates tension. The painting argues with itself.”
Something warm shifts inside my chest. He not only understands photography but art on the same level I do.
The conversation easily morphs into the differences between our mediums. He speaks about freezing a single moment while I dissolve time.
His whole face lights up as he talks about his work and for a moment, I can see that Sai Hollis isn’t just a photographer. He’s a creator.
When the pasta water starts to boil, I rush over to turn down the heat and twist back to look at Sai.
“So what are you feeling?” I ask as I pull open the drawer stuffed with takeout menus and QR codes.
“Thai, Italian, ramen on Fifth, or I started pasta but I can scrap it. There is leftover curry or pizza.”
Sai doesn’t answer at first. I start to repeat myself when I realize the Alpha’s gone completely still.
His eyes lose focus. His jaw locks tight. His right hand rests on his thigh while his fingers move in a rigid, rapid pattern. Index, middle, ring, pinky, press.
“Sai?”
His breathing turns shallow with small tight sips of air through his nose. Tension runs through his shoulders like something structural has seized inside him.
I gave him six different food options with six different sub-decisions. The cascade must have overloaded his system. I see it clearly now. His mind behaves like a screen that freezes when too many windows open at once and the processor simply stops.
My first instinct feels wrong but I follow it anyway. “Or we could go out. There is that new place on —”
The tapping grows faster. His breathing shallows even more. Adding a seventh option did not help. It only made everything worse. I stop talking. I close my mouth and stand there holding the fistful of takeout menus while I really look at him.
I set the menus down, take a breath and try something gentler.
“Hey.” I keep my voice soft and step toward him. “Can I touch you? Is that okay?”
The sound that leaves Sai is barely human. A small strangled noise rises from the back of his throat. His eyes begin to glass over and a shine builds along his lower lashes.
“Sai, do you want to sit down? Or we could move to the couch, or I could —”
“Please.” The word cracks out of him like something finally breaking. His voice comes out raw, barely above a whisper. “Please just stop asking me questions.”
Understanding slowly dawns on me. The hallway freeze on the first day happened because direct eye contact introduced too many social variables. Then everything unlocked when I said morning neighbor. Four syllables. No question. No choice required.
The doorway last night showed the same pattern. He could not speak or move or step forward until I pressed my hand to his chest and told him what I already knew he wanted. I didn’t ask do you want to kneel. I said get on your knees.
Every instruction I gave him in bed arrived one at a time. Each one stayed clear with no ambiguity and no options. Hold still. Arms up. Look at me. Do not move until I say. Each command met immediate compliance and visible relief.
Sai’s not freezing when someone tells him what to do. He freezes when someone asks him to choose.
“Sai, baby, we’re having pasta. I already started it. It will be ready in twenty minutes.” My voice stays calm and warm with zero question marks. “Sit at the counter. I’ll pour you wine.”
Sai exhales, his eyes slowly refocusing. He drops into the seat with a heavy sigh, his entire body relaxing. I pour one glass of red wine from the open bottle already on the counter and set it in front of him before returning to the stove.
The next several minutes hold a tense silence because I have no idea what to say after that. Even after I plate the pasta and douse it in a homemade sauce I put together two days ago, I’m still unsure what to do.
I set the plates down without asking what he wants. Sai stares at the food for a long second while the freeze from earlier keeps hovering just under his skin. I slide onto the stool beside him and pick up my own fork.
“Eat,” I say, keeping my voice easy. “First bite is yours. No decisions needed after that.”
He exhales like the words unlock something inside him. His shoulders drop a fraction and he lifts the fork. The first bite goes in, then another, the tension easing out of his jaw with every chew.
I spear a piece of pasta and hold it up between us. “So tell me about the editorial you shot today.” He frowns as a smile takes over my face. “You’re not the only one who watches, Sai Hollis. The whole world talks about your photography and I managed to find something online.”
Sai’s eyes flick to mine. For a moment I think he might stay quiet, but then the words start coming, slow at first and then steadier.
“The model today kept dropping her chin every time the light shifted,” he pushes out.
“I had to talk her through it for twenty minutes. Told her to imagine the light was pulling her upward instead of pressing down. After that she held it.”
I nod and take another bite. “That’s the difference, isn’t it? Photography steals the moment exactly as it is. Painting gets to invent what the moment should have been.”
He turns the idea over, fork paused above his plate. “I never thought of it that way. I take what the light gives me. You decide what the light should give.”
“Exactly.” I grin around a mouthful of pasta. “I get to cheat. You have to be honest.”
Sai huffs a quiet laugh, the sound small but real. “Honest. That’s one word for it. I spent forty minutes adjusting a single shadow on her cheekbone because it kept falling wrong.”
We keep eating while the conversation moves between us.
He asks about the canvas I was fighting with yesterday.
I tell him how the blue kept fighting the ochre and how I finally gave up and let the colors argue on their own.
He listens more than he speaks, but every answer he gives is careful and considered, like he is testing the words before he lets them out.
By the time our plates are empty he is leaning forward slightly, elbows on the counter, eyes brighter than they were when he first sat down.
After dinner the movement to the couch happens without discussion. I sit first. He follows and settles beside me, close enough that our shoulders almost touch. The six inches between us feel alive with the memory of last night, but neither of us reaches to close the gap yet.
I feel him list toward me, the lean slow and driven more by gravity than choice.
His shoulder brushes mine. Then his head tips and finds the curve between my neck and shoulder.
I lift my hand and slide my fingers into his hair, starting a slow, steady rhythm enjoying the way a low hum in his chest turns into a full purr.
The sound slowly dies out, replaced with a deep rumble, Sai falling asleep on me.
His breathing deepens and evens out. His head slides from my shoulder down to my lap and I adjust so he lies across the couch with his head on my thigh and one arm tucked against his chest, face turned toward my stomach like he is seeking a warmth source even in sleep.
The most controlled man I have ever met just fell asleep on me.
I look down at him. His face in sleep looks younger than it does when he is awake.
The tension has left. His jaw unclenches and the faint line between his eyebrows smooths out.
He looks like the person he might become if someone cleared the noise from his head long enough for him to hear his own breathing.
My fingers never stop moving through his hair.
I see you, Sai Hollis.
Some part of me understands just a little bit more about the man who has taken over my mind. It’s not just that he craves control but that it becomes the very thing he needs to survive.
And if I can be what he needs, I’m going to give him everything. I lean back against the cushions, content to stay just like this, with this beautiful, broken-brilliant man asleep in my lap.