5. Lark
LARK
Iwoke up in Kit’s bed with morning light coming through the steel-frame windows and his arm across my waist.
The unhung piece was still on the floor against the far wall. In the morning light, it looked different—smaller, more raw, the torn paper edges catching sun that turned them gold and white.
Next to the bed. Where the morning light hits first.
I slipped out from under his arm. Found my clothes in a trail between the bedroom door and the hallway. Dressed quietly, bare feet on concrete, and stood in his kitchen looking at the glass cylinder with the olive branch cutting and the matte white mug on its perfect square coaster.
My phone buzzed. Saylor in the Floor 3 group chat.
Happy hour tonight. Rooftop. No excuses.
I walked home in the early heat. Twenty minutes across Pleasure Valley to Pixel Lofts, stairs to the third floor, key in the lock at 3D. I showered, pulled on a clean sundress, made coffee in a mug that didn’t match anything in my apartment, and sat on my bed with my laptop.
I didn’t know why I searched it. Maybe I wanted to see his name on a screen and feel the same thing I’d felt reading the receipt on Monday. That warm confirmation. The universe nodding.
I typed Lumaire art collection and followed the results down.
A profile in a design journal from two years ago.
Lumaire’s offices featured a rotating collection of emerging artists, personally selected by Ashford and managed by the company’s acquisition coordinator.
The coordinator’s name was Gretchen Dao.
Her title was Director of Brand Aesthetics and Acquisitions.
I clicked deeper. A short interview with Gretchen from an industry newsletter.
She described her process—sourcing emerging work from galleries and pop-ups across the West Coast, evaluating pieces against Lumaire’s visual identity standards, scheduling viewings and purchases.
She handled logistics. Timing. Delivery.
Scheduling.
My hands went still on the keyboard.
Kit hadn’t wandered into On a Lark on a Monday afternoon by accident.
He hadn’t stumbled past the open door and been drawn in by the universe.
Gretchen Dao had found the Noemi Sato piece on my website.
Gretchen Dao had scheduled the viewing. Kit had come in on a Monday because Monday worked for his calendar.
And the six pieces in his hallway—the collage I’d consigned, the Javi Chase panel from the pop-up days—Gretchen had sourced those too.
Over years. From galleries and shows connected to me, yes, but not because the universe was threading us together.
Because a Director of Brand Aesthetics was doing her job.
I closed the laptop.
The apartment was quiet. Through the wall I could hear the faint bass of someone’s music—Tatum in 3A, probably, or Eliza in 3B. Normal sounds. The building breathing.
I sat with my hands in my lap and felt the story I’d built collapse around me like tissue paper.
I’d told Saylor the universe sent him. I’d stood in his hallway and said it doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to be true.
I’d traced the connections between us—the art, the years, the shared language of light and material—and called it fate because fate was beautiful and easy and didn’t require me to own anything.
If it was fate, then Monday wasn’t my fault. Dinner wasn’t my choice. Going to his condo wasn’t a decision I’d made with my own hands and my own want. The universe had arranged it, and I was just following the current.
But there was no current. There was a scheduling coordinator named Gretchen and a CEO who evaluated art in person because he didn’t trust photographs.
Which meant I’d gone to dinner because I wanted to. I’d gotten in his car because I wanted to. I’d stood in his bedroom and put my hands on his chest because I wanted him. Not because the stars aligned, but because I, Lark Ellery, had chosen something and meant it.
And choosing meant it was mine to lose.
I sat on my bed for a long time. The heat built outside. The AC hummed. I thought about every decision I’d ever reclassified as a sign. Opening the gallery—I’d gotten a small inheritance and signed a lease on a storefront nobody else wanted, and I’d told everyone the universe opened a door.
But the universe hadn’t signed the lease. I had—with shaking hands, my savings on the line, and no guarantee that five years of groundwork would turn into a single sale in my own gallery.
I’d been brave exactly once, and I’d spent three years pretending I hadn’t been.
On a Lark wasn’t a sign. It was strategy. Five years of groundwork, taste, and intentional community building. Kit would see that immediately. I’d built something real with my own choices, and I’d handed the credit to the universe because owning it meant admitting I could fail.
I picked up my phone. Put it down. Picked it up again.
I didn’t text him. I grabbed my keys and walked back across Pleasure Valley in the July heat. The air pressed against my skin, and I didn’t wait for it to feel like a sign. I just walked.
The Lumaire building was glass and steel and looked exactly like the man who ran it. I gave my name at the lobby desk. The woman behind it made a call, then pointed me to the elevator. Eleventh floor.
Kit was standing when I walked into his office. Sleeves pushed to his elbows, ink visible from bicep to collar, the full scope of the work I’d only seen in glimpses. His face was careful. Waiting.
“I looked up Gretchen Dao,” I said.
His jaw tightened. He didn’t deny it.
“She scheduled your visit to my gallery. She sourced the pieces in your hallway. None of it was fate. It was logistics.”
“Gretchen sources work that fits Lumaire’s visual identity,” he said. “She schedules viewings. She handles logistics. That part is true.”
“So none of it was?—”
“She didn’t choose them.” His voice dropped.
“I did. Every piece in that hallway, I stood in front of it and said yes. I didn’t know your name.
I didn’t know they were connected. I just knew they were right.
” His jaw set. “Gretchen put them in front of me. My eye kept finding yours. I’ve tried to explain that and I can’t. ”
The office was quiet. Eleven floors of glass and steel and somewhere below us Pleasure Valley was doing what it always did, and I was standing in front of a man who’d just told me that the truest thing in his life was something he couldn’t design.
“I didn’t come here because of a sign,” I said. “I came because I wanted to. Because I’m choosing you, and I’ve never chosen anything this scary in my life, and I’m terrified.”
His hands came out of his pockets.
“That’s all I needed to hear,” he said.