Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Florian’s quiet too for a moment. He catches my hand and gives a light tug. We stop on the pavement in front of a comic shop, somewhere in the North Laines. The street’s empty around us.
And I feel it, something hot and tight and unwanted in my chest. A surge loosened by alcohol, and when I get like this, it’s hard to push back. I don’t want Florian to think he’s been fake boyfriending with someone who doesn’t have it together, at least on some baseline level.
“Hey,” Florian murmurs, searching my eyes, “I want you to know I had fun with you tonight. You can add that to whatever you’re thinking.”
My face heats up, and my eyes prickle, and I just stare at him, caught out. I expected him to push, to get me to spill, but he doesn’t. Instead, he holds my hand, steady in front of me, his expression soft. There’s a flicker of his lips.
“And,” Florian adds, “it’s okay to tell me that you didn’t have a good time with our arrangement. But it was important for me to tell you how I feel—”
Then, I search his eyes for a long moment.
He’s calm, with a look of concern on his face I didn’t expect to see, and when I catch his jaw, he gives the softest gasp.
I lean in to brush his mouth with mine, and he pulls me close, and our kiss deepens.
His mouth is soft, and his hands hold my face between them, and right now, it’s everything.
When we look at each other, I feel off-kilter, like everything’s upside down. Too much wine, for sure. Did we just kiss? What if Florian thinks I’m creeping on him, taking advantage? “Was that okay?” I ask him.
“More than,” Florian whispers, brushing his lips against mine, and I shudder. “I’m so glad to be here with you tonight.”
Finally, we straighten. Blood pounds in my ears. It’s entirely overwhelming having him so close. I run a hand over his chest, his buttoned-up suit jacket, his gaze focused only on me.
“Very authentic fake boyfriending,” I manage unsteadily. “Top marks.”
He chuckles. “You said authenticity was important to you.”
“Yes. I did say that.” Why the hell would I say that? Fake kisses are stirring up attention lower down. Clearly, I’ve lost my mind. This is starting to feel a little too real. Like I like having Florian around me a little too much. And God, his kiss? Amazing.
“What would you like to do now?” he asks. “I can go find another hotel or—”
“Let’s just walk? Is that okay? I… I’m not ready to go back to the hotel yet,” I confess.
“Of course.”
We walk through the North Laines, and it’s the middle of the night, if not later.
We skirt around puddles and through a fine mist that starts and up and down hilly streets.
There’s the sound of street sweepers, idling lorries while rubbish is cleared away.
Some seagull yells from the rooftops. At this unreasonable hour, few people are out, all the pubs and bars long since closed.
The feeling still sits heavily in my chest. And before I know it, everything starts to spill out as we reach the promenade and the blustering chill winds off the sea.
“It was hard to see my friends tonight,” I admit at last. “I love them so much, and I miss them, but I can’t help but feel like I’m left behind. Even though I chose to move to London. I feel like everyone expects me to be some big success, and I’m not. I’m just Matty.”
Florian stops. He looks at me, hard. “Mathias.”
My eyebrows lift. He certainly has my attention now with his I don’t fuck around in the boardroom energy.
“Matty,” he relents slightly. “You have so much, and you don’t even see it. A great group of friends, for starters. I can see why it was hard to leave them. But you left Brighton for your career, right?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak in that moment. Instead, I swallow down some bittersweet feeling. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to have a pity party—”
He waves me off. “You’re not. But also? You’re a recent graduate in a new, expensive city, and of course it takes time to establish yourself. I think you should consider cutting yourself some slack.”
Quiet, I consider him, crossing my arms tightly across my chest at a particularly sharp gust of wind. We turn to head back into the Laines and walk together in silence for a long time.
I start to point out to him places where my friends used to hang out, favorite bars and pubs and cafés.
Where Noah once fell down drunk laughing in the street and Raheem fireman carried him home.
And where some Banksy art is rumored to be, under layers of paint.
Places so familiar they’re my second home.
As we turn a quiet corner up a pedestrian lane, I take Florian up to the Rose & Crown.
A low light is on in the gallery, enough to see the work from the window. There’s some artwork I recognize.
“This is the Rose,” I tell him. “Officially, the Rose & Crown. It’s now an art collective some of my friends belong to.
It was an old pub. They’ve turned part of it into studios, part into gallery space to host exhibitions.
The bar is now used as a café. It’s a real hub in the community.
And there’s a little shop where they sell work from the collective on consignment. ”
Florian listens, attention rapt, as if I’m telling him the latest stocks or something that he cares very much about.
I nod at the window. “You see that silver liquid-looking sculpture? That’s Raheem’s. And over there, the street-art-style blue painting is Noah’s work.” Once more, I fold my arms tightly across my chest. A cool gust of wind against the back of my neck makes me shiver.
“It’s great work. Thanks for showing me.”
My lips twist into a hint of a smile. “Look at you, Mr. Art Connoisseur. One trip to Sotheby’s, and you’re ready to go.”
He laughs, then sobers, looking at me.
And then, to my horror, I realize I’m crying when he reaches out to brush my tears away.
He pulls me tight into his chest. I gasp.
And then I let the tears come, and I let Florian hold me.
“I feel like I’ve let everyone down who believed in me.
My friends. My family,” I confess unsteadily.
“Everyone who supported me, and I’ve got nothing to show for myself. ”
He rubs my back, then tilts my chin up. “When did you finish?”
“Mid-June.”
“And it’s the end of July. So, you’ve given yourself… six weeks? Maybe? To get settled in London since then and feel like you should have finished work. I may not be an artist, but I see a logical flaw in your reasoning.”
I shake my head. “Less than six weeks, actually.”
“Proves my point.”
A flicker of a smile crosses my lips. I blink away the last of my tears. My voice is wistful. “When you put it that way. It just feels like a lifetime. Raheem and Noah have already been out a year, and they have all this work to show for themselves. They make it all look so easy.”
“It’s never easy.” Florian gazes at me. “You don’t know what they’ve been through to get where they are today. Or who’s helped them along the way.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Florian sounds very reasonable.
And I feel a little more cheered, with Florian listening as closely as if he were a real boyfriend.
I can only imagine what having a real boyfriend would be like, but that’s as unattainable as having a sold-out solo show at the White Cube Gallery.
“And also? It took them longer than six weeks.” Florian smiles.
“Thanks. I feel a bit better.” I sigh. “I guess I worry the trajectory isn’t good.”
“Give it a chance.”
I tilt my head, considering him. “You don’t even know if my paintings are any good or if they’re just rubbish.”
Florian gives me a look. “That’s because you won’t show me them.”
“Even if I did, you have admitted to knowing nothing about art,” I point out helpfully, in case he’s forgotten his lack of knowledge about art. “Which is why you’ve enlisted my help.”
“I know a little more now, thanks to you. And I’m grateful. I must confess I’ve heard a little about the Rose & Crown in Brighton before. But you’ve given me valuable insights from your perspective.”
“Oh?” I look at him, startled. The Rose can’t be making waves in London circles for a bunch of mostly emerging and early career artists.
Florian flushes a little. “I was browsing property listings a while ago, and we have a lead on a purchase.”
I stare at him. “On the Rose?”
“It was profiled in opportunities around Brighton, which is cheaper for me to invest in than London properties.”
“Invest how?” I eye him with trepidation.
“Well, I buy properties and redevelop them. Potentially. I invest where I see opportunities. And the Rose may be one such opportunity.”
“Right. I see.” I don’t know how alarmed I should feel right now.
A lump forms in my throat. It’s tough to swallow it down.
After all, I try to reason with myself, it’s not Florian’s fault if the Rose is for sale and it was profiled somewhere.
On one hand, that makes sense. On the other, it feels like a punch in the stomach that he’s even considering the sale.
He hesitates, gazing at me. And it looks like he wants to say something more but thinks better of it. Then he glances back at the gallery display for a long moment.
Overhead, the skies have lightened toward dawn in one of the longest days of the year. Even so, we’ve pretty much been out ’til the sun’s risen, which won’t be long now. I smother a yawn with the back of my hand.
“Should we continue walking?” Florian asks at last.
I nod with a last glance at the gallery. “Yeah. Let’s go to the hotel.”
And we start walking again. I’ll dive into this Rose situation another time when it’s not in the middle of the night, down a lot of wine.