Chapter Twelve #2
Theo’s phone buzzed with a call, and he took it out, glanced at the screen, and turned it off before pocketing it again, bitterness flashing briefly across his features.
He stepped up behind her and slid his arms around her waist, burying his face in the crook of her neck and pulling her close to him.
He smelled muskier than usual, felt even hotter against her skin than he normally did, and when he inhaled deeply at the base of her throat, shivers coursed down her spine, and she gasped.
“You smell so good,” he finally whispered, brushing his nose along the length of her neck. “I’ve missed you since this morning. I missed having you here.” When his arms tightened around her, Audrey closed her eyes and tried to slow her racing heart.
None of this mattered. None of what she’d been thinking mattered.
Theo was still the same person he’d always been.
He just had an artistic persona, was all. So did a lot of people.
Even if that was true, though, it didn’t quite make her feel better.
She’d been too preoccupied with her thoughts to respond to him, and she could physically feel the moment he started to panic behind her. “Audrey? Are you mad at me?” His voice trembled when he asked. “What are you thinking? Please say something. Anything. Literally anything, I beg of you.”
The hurt in his voice helped her find her own. “I’m not mad, Theo. I was just surprised. Really surprised.”
As soon as she said those words, he exhaled sharply in relief and burrowed deeper into her neck, his shoulders slumping while he rested his weight on her back.
She dug her fingers into his dark hair, and he leaned into her touch, swaying gently on his feet.
Theo rocked her back and forth, soothing them both, and Audrey finally found the space to calm her mind and catch her breath.
“It’s not every day you find out your new boyfriend’s a world-renowned, critically acclaimed artist, you know?” she finally murmured. “When I met you, you were just some sweet, handsome guy wearing a hoodie and a mask who never drank my coffee while it was still hot.”
Theo froze on his feet and unburied his face to look at her. “Wait. You thought I was handsome? How would you have been able to judge that? I made damn sure you couldn’t see my face.”
Audrey twisted over her shoulder to find him absolutely bewildered, his dark eyes wide and confused.
There he was.
Same as always.
She snorted. “Girls just know, Theo. I could tell from the way you carried yourself, the way you talked to me, and even just the corner of your face you showed me.” She gestured pointedly to her left eye.
“But how was I supposed to know that anxious wreck I had a massive crush on at the coffee shop was actually the notorious Lightm4st3r?”
He groaned. “Oh god, I hate that I went with that name. I came up with it when I was a thirteen-year-old edgelord, and I’ve never been able to get rid of it.”
Audrey burst out laughing, and Theo’s grin widened as he pulled her closer, pressing a kiss just beneath her ear.
“A laugh—thank god,” he muttered. His nose tickled in that spot, and she laughed even harder.
“From the way you were looking at me when I opened the door, I thought you were about to break up with me after barely a week. That would have been a spectacular record, even for me.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Sorry, Theo. I might have been freaking out a little, but you’re still stuck with me.”
“Again: thank god.” Theo suddenly pulled away from her and lifted a wry eyebrow, his eyes studying every inch of her as he looked her up and down. “Do you have anything in your pockets?”
“What?” She frowned and turned around to face him. “No? My phone’s in my bag. This skirt doesn’t have pockets. Why?”
“Mm-hmm. I see.” He eyed the strap of her messenger bag across her chest and lifted it over her head, dropping it heavily to the floor beneath his diplomas.
“Theo, what are you—”
Audrey’s question turned into a squeak when he bent and picked her up, tossing her easily over one shoulder and locking the tops of her thighs tightly to his chest with his arm.
“Oh my god, put me down!” It was entirely unfair how strong he was.
“No.”
He shook his head and began to move, leaving the office and making his way over to a door set into the opposite wall. When he opened it, he took a few steps down a twisting staircase, and the upper floor of his house gradually faded away behind them.
“You’re going to hurt yourself! Put me down, I can walk!”
“No, trust me, this is better.”
“Why? Where are we going?”
“My studio. I don’t know if I got all the glass shards picked up when I was cleaning over the weekend, and I’d rather not risk your feet.”
“I’m wearing my Docs, I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t want it sticking in them.”
“They’re steel-toed and they have thick rubber soles. They’re literally work boots. I was in the lab today.”
“I said what I said.” He paused, contemplated something, and then lifted his free hand, jerked her laces free, and tugged her boots off before tossing them nonchalantly over his shoulder onto the landing. They bounced and skidded across his ceramic flooring, disappearing far out of reach upstairs.
“Hey! What the fuck, Theo, those were my shoes!”
He ignored her, gripping the banister tightly and moving carefully downstairs. But the light from upstairs eventually faded enough for Audrey to feel the beginnings of fear rise in her chest. His studio was dark, and it was getting darker still the more stairs they descended.
There must not have been any windows down there.
It was pitch-black.
“Th-Theo—!”
Her heart raced, so fast and so loud, she was convinced it echoed off the walls.
“I know, sweetheart. Hold on. Two more steps. Just a second.”
Theo turned and faced the wall when they made it to the basement floor, and Audrey drew in deep, gasping breaths, trying desperately not to panic when her face met the interminable blackness of the room.
But right as she was about to close her eyes in terror, Theo flipped a few large switches on the wall—
And the studio exploded into color and light.
Signs of all kinds lined two of the three brick walls of the converted garage studio, the electrified shades of neon gas buzzing in delicate glass tubes.
Everything from simple script phrases in various fonts, to classic diner signs, to full, stylized images crafted with light were mounted into the brick, their myriad colors swirling and bleeding into one another on the dark concrete floors and bouncing off the metal garage door.
Some of them moved and flashed, some of them were static, and some were brighter than others.
But the largest sign was placed in the middle: Sullivan Lightworks, formed in bright, blocky, clean, and modern sans-serif yellow font. But that wasn’t all.
There were also the sculptures.
Some hung from the ceiling, neon plays on classic lighting fixtures rendered sharp and cartoonish with their perfectly curved lines in mocking facsimiles of antique chandeliers.
Others stood in bases on the floor, upright and three-dimensional, arcing and curving in sweeping, interweaving abstract lines, alternating between chaos and grace, at once delicate and ephemeral, frantic and furious, futuristic and loud.
They screamed, but could shatter.
They were bright, but could break.
These were Lightm4st3r originals, and ones no one had ever seen out in the wild before.
Theo turned again and set her down on the surface of a work table that had been swept clean. There were several tables down there in the studio set between all kinds of untold machinery, tanks of gas and boxes of wires, scraps of metal and endless barrels of straight, glass tubing.
Chaos and beauty surrounded them.
Every color, all shades of blue and yellow, reds and greens, swirling purples and bright pinks, oranges, whites, all of them, every single color she could possibly imagine glowed in the studio space, casting their light on every available surface, dappling them with translucent gradients.
It was staggering.
Theo stepped between her legs and ran his hands along the length of her tights. His calluses caught slightly against the fabric, but all it did was prickle gooseflesh across her skin. Audrey suppressed a shiver at the sensation.
His face was bathed in all the light from his creations, as if it had been refracted through a prism and the colors laid perfectly across his features, mixing and mottling over them, becoming a chaotic palette all on its own. The paint of the cosmos.
“This is it,” he finally said, leaning forward and watching her face greedily while she drank in his art, his hands still rubbing gently up and down her legs.
The shifting light of his sculptures reflected back at her in his eyes, which dipped briefly down to her lips before meeting her gaze again.
“This is my studio. All my work—at least, all that I have here right now.”
“It’s beautiful,” Audrey breathed, her voice trembling in awe. “It’s incredible.” In fact, it was overwhelming. She wasn’t sure what to look at first, save for the single blank wall to her right: the only wall Lightm4st3r ever showed in any of his photos.
It must have been left bare to hide the secret of his art.
Even amid the multicolored lights surrounding them, she could see his eyes heat at her assessment. One hand slid up her skirt—his left—and his fingers plucked curiously at the waistband of her tights. “You think so?” The other hand slid to her neck, his tremor vibrating against her flesh.
“Yes. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She swallowed thickly. Theo’s palms were hot against her skin, and the heat was rapidly spreading downward across her body, never mind where his fingers lingered on her waist.
“You like it?”
“God, yes. Yes, it’s magnificent.” She met his gaze. “You’re amazing.”