Chapter Eleven #3
“Yes.” He held up his hands in surrender.
“She was the one who asked me out first.” She didn’t think his face could burn any hotter than it had earlier in the bedroom, but it did now.
“I don’t have a good track record of confidence with women, especially at the early stages.
The long story short is that we were together for two years.
I was planning on proposing and then Diego found out she was cheating on me.
” He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head at her.
“Sometimes it’s really handy having an investigative journalist as your best friend, I won’t lie.
He’s both annoying and nosy as hell, but that occasionally works out in my favor. ”
“He’s protective?”
“He’s a pain in the ass.” Theo flipped the pancakes bitterly and moved the bacon to a stack of paper towels. “But he saved me a whole lot more heartache and suffering than if I’d have gone through with an engagement, and I’m thankful for that.”
“What was she like?” Maybe Audrey shouldn’t be prying about Theo’s ex like this, but now that they’d come this far, she wanted to know.
He paused, the tongs suspended in midair. They trembled in his hand, and his face grew dark. But it softened again when he met her eyes.
“She wasn’t like you at all,” he finally muttered, clicking the tongs bitterly as he fussed with the bacon.
“She was a mistake, was what she was. She’s a curator now at a large gallery.
The art world’s incestuous, and I never should have gotten involved with her in the first place.
In the end, breaking up was an enormous relief. ”
Audrey didn’t press him further.
Theo poured eggs onto the bacon grease and cooked them quickly before turning off the griddle and opening up a miniature sliding door built into his cabinets. It was an appliance garage, and when Audrey saw what was inside, she gasped.
“OH MY GOD, THEO. You have one of these and you come into the café every day? Why?!”
It was a jet-black Diletta Bello espresso machine and a matching grinder, a premium at-home version of what she had at the coffeehouse.
It had to cost somewhere in the vicinity of two thousand dollars.
He held up a hand and smirked, a single dimple appearing in his cheek.
“Okay, look: call this one a failed pandemic investment. When everyone was in quarantine, I was going to learn how to make café drinks at home, but the machine was kind of hard to use and I only ended up making a few shots of bad espresso with it. But by that point, it was too expensive to get rid of. Sunk cost fallacy.” Then he chuckled.
“Until I sat down and really learned how to use it—and added a single coffee drink to my repertoire.”
“Can I play with it? Please?’
“No.”
She put her hands on her hips indignantly. “You didn’t let me touch anything with breakfast, you have to at least let me play with—”
Theo turned and grabbed Audrey once again, lifting her at the waist and setting her gently down on the counter across from him with a shake of his head.
“Not yet. Don’t ruin my surprise. I’ve been practicing, just in case I ever got this opportunity.
” He leaned in and kissed her before turning to the fridge to take out a jug of milk. “Hush. Just wait.”
And then she watched him work.
He went through the motions she knew so well, she could do them in her sleep, and his brow furrowed in deep concentration while he watched the espresso drip, pulling it at a precisely timed moment before steaming the milk.
Theo seemed to hold his breath while he assembled everything, and though he sighed and grimaced when his hand shook and ruined the design he tried so very hard to patiently sketch in the foam, he still held the black ceramic mug out to her proudly in both hands with a soft smile.
It was a flat white.
Not only that, but when Audrey took a sip, she closed her eyes and hummed in pleasure.
He’d pulled a perfect ristretto.
He’d learned how to make her favorite coffee, just for her. No one ever made her coffee. No one besides Josh.
And now Theo.
She opened her eyes and licked the foam from her lips.
“Well?” His expression was anxious. “How did I do?”
“Perfect. It’s perfect.” She set the mug down carefully on the counter and dragged him all the way over to her, opening her legs wide so he could nestle himself between them and get closer. Theo rested his hands on her hips.
“This is everything I’ve ever wanted in a Sunday and never had,” he whispered. “I think I could do this with you every weekend and never get sick of it.”
“Me too, Theo,” Audrey whispered back, running her hands up along his neck and burying her fingers in the hair at the base. “Me too.”
When he bent to kiss her, her heart skipped a beat.
It stuttered in her chest, a deliciously painful flutter of feeling chased by a deep, mournful ache.
She didn’t want to name whatever this was—not yet.
It was far too fragile, far too new to stand on its own.
But every glance, every kiss, every moment between them only strengthened it, made it sturdier, built the foundation of it to last.
But for now, she couldn’t even breathe it.
It was too soft, too delicate, too precious and fleeting.
They were both scared of it, for it, she could tell.
She could tell by the way Theo’s breath trembled when he pulled away, how a hint of fear still lurked around the edges of his eyes.
But with any luck, and with time, they’d move past the doubt.
The second time Theo’s lips met hers, their breakfast forgotten, she tasted coffee on his tongue.
The rest of that Sunday was just as perfect as it had started.
Theo was an incredible cook, and he let Audrey play with his fancy espresso machine while he plated up their breakfast. She made him a latte today rather than his usual, just so she could draw him hearts in the foam—which he loved and fawned over far more than she felt was necessary.
But she let herself bask in the warmth of his praise anyway.
After breakfast, they cozied up on the couch again, avoiding going outside in the intense gray fog blanketing Brooklyn after last night’s storm, and Theo asked what her favorite movie was.
Audrey bit her lip.
“It’s…really cliché.”
“No such thing.”
“Oh, it definitely is.” She sighed. “But it’s Anastasia.”
He blinked at her, a curious furrow between his eyes. “The Don Bluth animated movie?”
Audrey nodded and hid her face in the long sleeves of Theo’s black hoodie.
“Have you seen it?” she mumbled. His chest rumbled as he hummed, and she looked back up to see him shake his head.
But he’d already pulled out his phone and was scrolling with interest. Whatever he read gradually softened the frown he wore.
“Oh. I see.” Theo tugged her all the way into his arms and onto his chest while he settled down across the long length of his couch.
It was big enough for him to actually be able to lay completely flat.
“An orphan girl turns out to be a princess?” he murmured, combing his fingers gently through her hair.
“Never happened in real life, by the way. They never found her alive, and they’re fairly certain she died with her family, all of them shot and dumped in a communal grave. But I like to think that maybe this was the better version. That maybe it could happen.”
“Maybe it could.” Theo lifted the remote, pressed a few buttons, and fired up the movie.
Leaving was the hardest part. Audrey had hung up her dress in Theo’s bathroom last night to dry, but it and her tights were ruined. And besides that, she didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to leave him.
But Theo insisted she get home and finish her homework.
He even swore he wouldn’t text her tonight so she could focus—and he gave her a very stern look when she protested and threatened to message him herself anyway.
In the end, he won, and he walked her back to her place, dress slung over his arm, mask settled back over his face, and umbrella clutched tightly in one hand.
He didn’t stick around to submit to Violet’s intense questioning—Audrey still hadn’t wanted to turn her phone back on, and when she did, she had 127 unread messages, most of them from her roommate—but he did stay long enough to lower his mask at the top of the stairs, his gaze heavy while he studied her face.
“I need you to know something, Audrey.”
“What is it?”
“You make me want to create again. I haven’t made anything in a long time.
I haven’t been in the right place to do that, not like I’ve needed to be.
” He glanced nervously over at the door as if he were terrified Violet might open it at any moment before meeting her eyes again.
“But I want to show you what you make me feel like when you’re around.
How it feels deep in my soul to know you now.
” Theo closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m going to try.”
She didn’t know what to say. But she put everything it made her feel into the kiss she gave him before he left her apartment.
Every day that week, he came to the café and they had coffee together (or, at least, Audrey had coffee while he watched and they talked), and he waited for her to finish her shifts before walking her either to the subway or home.
On Thursday night, he came over and brought dinner with him again: roasted chicken with Yukon gold mashed potatoes and sautéed green beans, freshly baked sourdough rolls with fancy salted butter, and a chocolate mocha cake for dessert.
And once again, he refused to tell her where he’d gotten it.
She missed him that weekend. Her midterms were next week, and she had exams and papers due, so Theo wouldn’t hear of him distracting her. It was a firm no when she asked him to hang out after she’d responded truthfully to his question about how much more work she had to do.
Audrey got it done. She wrote her paper and turned it in on time. She even managed to study properly for her exams.
But it was certainly a miserable affair being away from Theo.
Every moment she spent away from him only made her ache all the more.
When she saw him on Monday, her heart nearly burst from excitement, and she only regretted that they were meeting up at her workplace and not somewhere more private.
But the good news was that after Thursday, she’d be freer to see him again.
They were already planning on spending the entire long weekend together at his house to celebrate once she’d taken her exams.
Which was perfectly fine, because she’d needed time to make a very necessary visit to the university’s health services clinic.
Audrey was on her way back home that evening, a fresh prescription for birth control burning a hole in her pocket.
She’d never been on it before—there hadn’t ever been a need.
She’d never gotten far enough for it. But now she couldn’t stop thinking about what it might mean to start taking it.
And what Theo might say when she told him.
She’d just stepped out of her local Duane Reade with her new meds when her phone buzzed in her coat pocket. Her disappointment was palpable when it wasn’t a message from Theo but one from Violet, freaking out about something.
Violet | OMG CHECK INSTAGRAM. NOW.
Audrey | Why?
Violet | LIGHTM4ST3R IS BACK!
Audrey frowned as she opened the post Violet sent her.
There it was, a new photo at the top of his feed, the first in well over a year.
It appeared to be shot in his studio, with only some of the redbrick walls visible in the background amid a bunch of odd machinery.
The image featured his messy worktable covered in large sheets of paper with dark black strokes printed onto them, surrounded by pieces of glass tubing.
His bare hands were at the center as he compared a freshly twisted piece of glass to the lines on the paper, which was unusual in and of itself.
He normally wore jet-black gloves in any photos with his hands, covering every inch of skin.
This was the first time he’d ever revealed them publicly.
Huh.
This post was so different from his usual work. It was clearly an in-progress shot of his process, which he never showed prior to releasing a piece. It was only after he revealed his latest sculptures that he posted any of the behind-the-scenes stuff.
The strategy was smart because Lightm4st3r wasn’t any normal sculptor.
He was a neon artist.
The reason he was so well-known was because he didn’t do it in the classic sense. He didn’t post or auction signs like you saw everywhere on the street.
His work was abstract, sculptural, futuristic.
It was exceptional.
It was one of a kind.
The caption of the post was simple, as they often were.
Lightm4st3r never wrote any real descriptions of whatever he’d made (unless it was the name of a finished piece), but he usually spoke in song lyrics or quotes from poems or literature relevant to whatever idea he was trying to execute.
It always sent the internet into a frenzy of speculation.
This one was especially short.
The Wound Is the Place Where the Light Enters You
It was a Rumi quote. Audrey read it over and over again, wondering what on earth it could mean. But then she froze in her tracks.
His hands—
They were very familiar.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears and her breathing quickened.
She threw herself back against the wall of the nearest building and frantically zoomed in on the photo, ripping one of her gloves off with her teeth so she could pinch at her screen more precisely, and there: there were all the odd constellations of tiny, raised starburst scars she knew so well, scattered across the backs of those hands.
She knew them so well because she saw them every day now.
Every day, those hands cupped her cheeks when Theo kissed her goodbye.
Every day, those hands swallowed up her own while their fingers interlaced on the way to the subway.
Every day, the right one shook while it tried desperately to hold onto a coffee mug without spilling it everywhere, just once, just for a moment.
Those hands had sketched her.
They’d cooked for her.
Made her coffee.
Tangled in her hair while they danced.
Gently swept tears away from her cheeks.
Held her while she broke.
Audrey’s phone slipped from her fingers. It clattered to the ground, cracking the protective case around its edges.
Theo had tried to tell her, but she hadn’t believed him. Not even in the slightest.
Theo Sullivan was Lightm4st3r, the famous, reclusive, avant-garde neon artist.
And now she knew it.