7. Soleil
SEVEN
SOLEIL
Daddy was already apologizing when I reached the table.
"I know, I know." He stood, kissed my forehead, and pulled out my chair. "I needed to talk to your brother about Meridian, and this week got away from me. I hope you don't mind sharing."
"Of course not." I kissed his cheek and sat. My sparkling water was there. His coffee was untouched. The Friday ritual, slightly altered — a third place setting, a third menu, my brother's blazer draped over the back of the chair beside mine.
Rhys was at the bar.
I could see him from our booth, leaning on the counter, one hand wrapped around a Bloody Mary that was already half gone. His sleeves were rolled. His hair was pushed back. He looked polished with an expensive shirt and a clean jaw.
He caught my eye and raised his glass. I waved him over. He drained the rest of the Bloody Mary, set the glass on the bar, and crossed the restaurant with a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Little one." He kissed my forehead and dropped into his chair. "How's Rafael? Still selling out?"
"He's working on a new series. I'm trying to get him to commit to a spring show."
"Good for him." Rhys picked up his menu. A waiter appeared at his elbow. "Can I get another Bloody Mary? And a glass of the Veuve, actually. Thank you."
I looked at the menu. Daddy looked at Rhys.
"It's barely noon, son."
Rhys smiled over the top of his menu. "It's brunch, Dad. Champagne at brunch isn't drinking. It's culture."
Daddy's jaw worked. He looked back at his menu without pressing further. Rhys turned a page and started discussing the eggs Benedict with the waiter, as if nothing had happened. The champagne arrived. He drank half of it before the appetizers came.
I watched my brother's throat move as he swallowed. The champagne disappeared fast. He set the flute down. His fingers stayed on the stem, turning it back and forth. He caught me looking and winked.
"What? I'm celebrating."
"Celebrating what?"
"Friday." He raised the glass toward me. "To Fridays."
The conversation changed to the Meridian. Daddy leaned forward, his voice dropping into the register he used for business. Rhys straightened in his chair. They discussed a board vote, a timeline, and a subsidiary in need of restructuring. I half-listened, stirring my water, my mind lost in thought.
Five days since the café. Five days since Nolan pulled his hand from under mine, stood up, said "I'll call you," and walked out the door.
I wasn't calling him. Not this time. I'd made that decision sitting alone with two coffee cups and an empty chair, watching him walk away through the glass, and I was holding it.
The holding took effort. It took up every spare room in my head, crowding out the things I should be thinking about — the spring show, the new submissions, and the framing vendor Margaux was still threatening to murder.
"You're quiet today."
I blinked. Daddy was watching me across the table, his coffee cup halfway to his lips.
"Just tired." I smiled. "Long week at the gallery."
He accepted it.
Rhys glanced at me. Then he picked up his champagne, and the moment passed.
"November 9," Daddy said, brightening. "I've arranged the dinner. Intimate, just like you asked."
"How intimate?"
"Very. Forty-five people."
"Daddy, I said thirty."
"You said under thirty. I heard that. I considered it. And then I made it forty-five because your aunt is bringing her book club." He sipped his coffee. "It's going to be lovely."
I opened my mouth, closed it, and let it go.
Rhys ordered another glass of champagne. Daddy's jaw tightened. Neither of them said anything. We both watched Rhys drink.
After brunch, Daddy kissed my forehead at the curb. Rhys hugged me sideways, his arm slung over my shoulder, his cologne mixing with the champagne on his breath. "Love you, little one."
"Love you too." I squeezed his hand. "Call me back sometime."
He grinned. "I'll try."
He wouldn't. We both knew that.
The gallery was quiet when I arrived. I unlocked the door, dropped my bag behind the desk, and stood in the middle of the room with my hands on my hips.
Submissions were stacked on the back table — portfolios from three new artists, photographs paper-clipped to cover letters, USB drives in labeled envelopes.
I should be reviewing them. I should be rearranging the display wall for the collector visit next week.
Instead, I stood in front of Rafael's grandmother's kitchen and pressed my thumb against the rosemary on the windowsill. I thought about a man who kissed my forehead like a prayer and then left me sitting in a coffee shop without looking back.
I dragged myself to the back room and pulled the first portfolio from the stack.
A ceramicist from Bed-Stuy — the one with the collapsing vessels and the gold-filled cracks.
I spread the photographs across the table and studied them.
They were extraordinary. The forms were unstable, leaning, the glaze crackled and split, and inside every fracture a thin line of gold caught the light.
I was arranging the photographs by size when Margaux appeared in the doorway. She leaned against the frame, crossed her arms, and studied me.
"What?" I asked.
"There's a really hot guy here to see you."
My hand stopped on the photograph. My face did something I couldn't control — a flush that started at my neck and climbed to my cheeks. My pulse jumping, my lips pressing together to keep from smiling or swearing, I wasn't sure which.
Margaux's eyebrows rose. She stepped aside and gestured toward the gallery with a flourish.
I smoothed my hair, wiped my palms on my trousers, and walked out.
He was standing in front of the Pinheiros streetscape. Black suit. Hands in his pockets. His head was tilted, his eyes on the painting, his jaw relaxed. He stood in my gallery like the empty chair in the café had never happened, like five days of silence were a scheduling error.
I stopped 6 ft. away from him and crossed my arms.
He turned. His eyes found mine. The almost-smile started, the ghost reaching for the corner of his mouth.
I didn't smile back.
The ghost died. His hands came out of his pockets. He took a step toward me. I held my ground.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For which part? The walking out? Or the five days of silence after?"
"Both." His voice was low. No deflection. "I handled it badly."
"You keep saying that. You handled the three days badly.
You handled the café badly." I uncrossed my arms because keeping them crossed felt like hiding, and I wasn't going to hide from this.
"What's really going on here, Nolan? Between us?
Because sometimes I think you want me, and other times I'm not sure at all. "
He closed the distance between us. Two steps. His eyes were dark, fixed on my face with the focus I'd learned to recognize — the intensity that made everything else in the room go blurry.
"I want you." His voice dropped. "Let me prove it."
His hand found my jaw. His thumb traced my cheekbone.
He leaned down and kissed me — slow, warm, his lips parting mine with a deliberateness that made my toes curl against the concrete floor.
My fingers found his lapels. I let the kiss happen for three seconds.
Five. His tongue brushed mine, and a sound built in my throat.
I put my hand on his chest. Not pushing. Holding. Creating a distance I controlled.
"No." My voice was unsteady. "That's not it. You can't just kiss me every time I ask a real question."
His forehead was close to mine. His breath was warm on my lips. His hand was still on my jaw.
"Talk to me," I said. "Tell me something real. Because I can't keep falling for someone I don't know."
His thumb stopped moving on my cheek. His eyes searched my face. The war behind them was plain — the impulse to deflect, to redirect, to kiss me again and hope the question dissolved. I held his gaze and didn't give him the exit.
He let his hand drop. Took a breath. "I don't know what to tell you."
"That's not good enough."
"I know." He rubbed the back of his neck.
His eyes drifted to the painting beside me, the Pinheiros rooftops, the laundry lines strung between buildings.
"The truth is, I don't know myself very well either.
I know what I'm good at. I know how I work.
But the rest of it…" He trailed off. His hand dropped from his neck.
"I was hoping you could help me figure that out. "
I shot him a look. "That's sweet, Nolan. It's also a deflection."
His jaw twitched. Caught.
"I'm not asking you to bare your soul on my gallery floor," I said. "I'm asking you to let me in. Even a crack. Give me something to hold onto so I'm not just falling into empty space."
He was quiet. His eyes came back to mine. The control was there — the walls, the system, the locked doors — but behind all of it, something was working. Deciding.
"Ask me a question," he said. "Anything. I'll answer."
I studied him. His shoulders were set, his feet planted. He looked like a man bracing for impact and choosing to stand in its path anyway. The offer was real.
A dozen questions lined up. Where do you go when you disappear? What happened at that café? Who were you looking for on that street corner? But the one that came out was simpler, sharper, the one that had been sitting in the pit of my stomach for days.
"Are you seeing someone right now?"
His eyes held mine. "Yes."
The word hit me in the chest. My face fell before I could catch it — the smile collapsing, my brows pulling together, the flush draining from my cheeks. I took a step back. My shoulder blade hit the wall beside the painting.
"Right." I nodded. Swallowed. "Okay. Good to know."
He stepped forward. His hands found my waist. His fingers pressed into the curve above my hips, firm, warm, pulling me away from the wall and toward him.
"She's standing right in front of me," he said.
I stared at him. His face was close. His eyes were dark, steady, and the corner of his mouth was doing the thing — the ghost, the twitch — except this time it kept going. Past the corner. Into his cheek. His lips parted.
Teeth. For the first time, I saw his teeth.
"You are — " I started.
He kissed me. His mouth swallowed the rest of the sentence.
His hands tightened on my waist, pulling me flush against him, and I grabbed the front of his shirt with both fists because my knees had made a decision my brain hadn't approved.
His tongue found mine. I made a sound into his mouth — high, involuntary — and his grip on my waist tightened in response.
His fingers pressing into bare skin where my top had ridden up.
I kissed him. My hands on his face, pulling him down to me.
His arms wrapped around my waist and lifted me onto my toes.
I kissed him until the gallery disappeared, until the paintings blurred, until the only thing in focus was his mouth and his hands and the heat of his body pressed against mine.
His fingers found the hem of my top and grazed the bare skin at my waist. I gasped against his lips. He pulled me tighter.
I pulled back. Breathless. My hands were still on his face. His eyes were dark, half-closed, his lips parted.
"My birthday is on the 9th of November," I said. "My dad is hosting a dinner. It's supposed to be small, but it won't be, because he doesn't know how to do small." I traced his jaw with my thumb. "I want you there."
His eyes searched mine. "I'll be there."
I kissed him once more — quick, firm, a seal on something. Then I let go, stepped back, and smoothed my top where his hands had been.
"Margaux is pretending not to watch us from the back room," I said. "You should go before she starts charging admission."
His mouth twitched. The ghost reached further than usual — past the corner, into the cheek. Almost teeth. Not quite. He turned, walked to the door, and pushed it open. The October air rushed in. He looked back at me once. Then he left.
I stood in my gallery. My lips were swollen. My skin buzzed where his fingers had grazed my waist. The rosemary on the windowsill caught the afternoon light.
I pulled out my phone and typed a message to my father.
Soleil
Daddy, add one more name to the guest list.
His reply came in seconds.
Hugh
Who is it?
I looked at the door Nolan had walked through. The October light falling across the threshold. The space he'd left behind still felt warm.
Soleil
Someone I'd like you to meet.
I didn't know it yet. I couldn't have known. But I'd just opened the front door of my father's house to the man who came to burn it down.