3. Soleil #2
The ghost made it further than usual. His lips parted, the corners pulling, the muscles in his cheeks shifting — and then he picked up his spoon and took another bite, and the moment passed. But I saw it. The whole thing, start to finish.
"Tell me something," I said, reaching across and stealing a tostón from his plate. He tracked my hand but didn't stop me. "Something that isn't about work or art or pigment theory."
He turned his water glass. One rotation. "Like what?"
"Like what were you doing before the gallery last night?"
"Cooking."
I stopped chewing. "You cook."
"Trinidadian pelau. My mother's recipe."
I leaned forward. "You're Trinidadian?"
"My mother was. My father was from Georgia."
"And you can make pelau."
"I can make pelau that would end this conversation because you'd be too busy eating to talk."
My lips pressed together to hold back the grin. "Prove it."
He held my gaze across the plastic table. The fluorescent light buzzed. His eyes were dark and steady, and the warmth in them caught me off guard because it wasn't the careful warmth of a man trying to charm. It was accidental. Like a door left open that he hadn't meant to leave open.
"Maybe I will," he said.
The warmth spread from my chest to the back of my neck. I reached for my Malta and took a long sip. He watched me drink it. I set the bottle down and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and his eyes followed the movement.
We stayed too long. The woman behind the counter started wiping down tables around us, humming along to the bachata playing from a small radio by the register. I reached for the check. His hand landed on it first.
"I chose the restaurant," I said.
"And I'm paying." He held the paper flat against the table, his fingers spread over it. I reached for it again. He didn't move his hand.
"This isn't a negotiation," he said.
"Everything is a negotiation."
"Not this." His eyes stayed on mine. I let go of the check.
He stood and pulled out his wallet. I noticed my scarf — the burnt sienna knit — draped over the back of my chair. It must have slipped while I was eating. Nolan reached past me, picked it up, folded it once, and tucked it into the inner pocket of his jacket without a word.
We walked. The streets were quiet, emptying into that late-night stillness where the city thins to a hum.
I talked about the conservation lab, about the blue under the varnish, about how someone had to decide the painting was worth the patience of uncovering.
He walked beside me, close, his hands in his pockets. Our arms brushed. Once. Twice.
The third time, his hand came out of his pocket, and his fingers found mine. His palm was warm and dry. His grip was sure. I didn't look at him. I didn't need to. The contact traveled up my arm and settled behind my ribs.
We reached my building. I climbed the first step and turned. He stood one step below, which put us almost at eye level. The streetlight caught half his face — the sharp cheekbone, the line of his jaw, and the dark of his eyes fixed on mine.
"That blue under the varnish," I said. My voice sounded different to my own ears. Softer. "Hundreds of years of smoke, grime, and neglect, and underneath all of it, this perfect, luminous — "
His fingers found my jaw. Fingertips only. My words stopped. My keys went silent in my fist. The touch was light, barely there, tilting my face toward his. His thumb traced the edge of my jawbone. Slow.
He held me there. Just looking. The streetlight. My eyes. The breath I'd stopped taking.
He kissed me.
His lips were soft and unhurried. My hands found his jacket — both of them, fistfuls of fabric — and I pulled him up to my step, pulled him against me.
His hand slid from my jaw into my hair, fingers curling at the nape of my neck, and his other arm locked around my waist, pressing me flush against his chest. My back arched into him.
My keys dug into my palm. His teeth caught my lower lip, and I gasped against his mouth.
The sound made his arm tighten, his hand fist in my hair, his mouth press harder.
I kissed him back with everything, my fingers climbing from his jacket to his collar to the warm skin at the back of his neck.
He groaned — low, buried in his throat — and the vibration of it traveled through my lips and down my spine and pooled at the base of my stomach.
His mouth moved from mine to the corner of my jaw. Down to the spot below my ear. His lips were hot against my pulse. My head tipped back. My fingers dug into his shoulders.
He pulled back. Forehead against mine. Breathing ragged. His eyes were dark, close, searching.
"Good night, Soleil."
He let go and stepped down, turned and walked toward the street, hands sliding into his pockets, stride even, shoulders set. He didn't look back.
I stood at my door. Keys biting into my palm. Lips swollen. My pulse was hammering in my throat, my wrists, and the base of my stomach.
I unlocked the door, stepped inside, leaned against it, and closed my eyes.
My phone buzzed.
Nolan
You left your scarf at the restaurant.
I touched my neck. Gone. I hadn't noticed.
Soleil
Keep it. It'll be the only color in your apartment.
Three dots. Then he replied.
Nolan
It's already the only color in my car.
I pressed the phone against my chest and slid down the door until I was sitting on my own floor, grinning at the ceiling like a woman who had completely, irreversibly, and dangerously lost her mind.