Chapter 8 Amelia
AMELIA
The gallery is packed, which should make me happy, but Adrian’s presence puts me on edge.
He’s set up his chocolate display directly beneath Crimson Constellation—my largest canvas, the one that took months to complete.
A swirling mass of reds and blacks that I’d painted in a fugue state, barely remembering half the brushstrokes.
Watching him arrange those truffles, I can’t stop thinking about Maya’s description at Thai Palace three weeks ago: hollow, soulless, tasting of fear. And something else—something personal.
I circle the room, smiling at potential buyers, explaining technique and vision while my brain tracks six different things at once.
The elderly couple by canvas three needs attention.
Red dot on canvas five—sold! Maya’s by the window with Adrian.
His hand just touched her lower back. She didn’t pull away.
Focus, Amelia. The collector in the corner is interested in—did I remember to email that supplier about gesso? No, stop, focus on the NOW—
“This dark chocolate ganache pairs beautifully with the Cabernet,” Adrian’s voice cuts through my scattered thoughts. His presentation is theatrical. “Note how the bitter notes enhance the wine’s complexity.”
The way he says it—like he’s revealing a secret—makes my skin prickle.
I drift closer to Maya, needing to check on her even though I’m supposed to be working the room.
She’s holding a silver tray of chocolates, weaving between guests with this fixed smile that I recognize.
It’s her professional mask, but underneath, she’s vibrating with tension.
“He’s good,” I admit grudgingly, watching Adrian demonstrate proper chocolate tasting technique to an elderly couple.
The way he touches the woman’s wrist, guiding her hand to her mouth—it makes my stomach churn.
“The presentation perfectly matches my aesthetic. But Maya...” I grab her arm, lowering my voice. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” she says automatically, but her eyes track Adrian’s every movement like he’s magnetic north and she’s a compass that can’t help but point.
“You seem distracted,” I observe, following her gaze across the room to where Adrian is arranging chocolate displays beneath my canvases.
The pairings aren’t random—blood-red truffles under “Crimson Constellation,” dark bittersweet pieces beneath my “Midnight Meridian.” It’s like he walked through my series and understood not just what I painted, but why.
“That’s what worries me,” I hear myself say, words tumbling out faster than I can organize them.
“The way he’s arranged his chocolates with my paintings.
The gloominess in my work—it’s like he understands it too well.
” My hand gestures encompass the entire display, the perfect symmetry, the way his art complements mine in a way that should be flattering but instead feels invasive. “It’s like he’s inside my head.”
Maya takes a chocolate from the tray and bites into it, and I catch that micro-expression—the one that means she’s hiding something big. Of course she is. She’s been hiding things for weeks now. Ever since that first tasting. Ever since Valentine’s Day and—
The gallery door opens.
I notice him immediately because he moves wrong in this space—not badly, but differently. The typical gallery crowd walks in a performative way, as if they’re always aware of being watched. This man moves like he owns every room he enters but doesn’t need you to know it.
He’s tall, with dark hair shaved shorter at the sides in a distinguished way.
The suit is expensive but not showy—charcoal gray, perfectly tailored.
But it’s his hands I notice first as he reaches up to unbutton his coat.
Long fingers, callused in a way that suggests musician or craftsman, not businessman.
He catches Maya’s eye and nods slightly—they know each other, how do they know each other—before approaching Adrian.
The ease of their interaction makes my brain start connecting dots.
They know each other. Well. This is Adrian’s friend.
The one Maya mentioned? Or didn’t mention? Why didn’t Maya mention him?
“Amelia,” Maya touches my arm, pulling me from my spiral. “Come meet Adrian’s wine expert.”
Wine expert. Right. Except I’m noticing the way he stands—weight balanced, awareness of the space around him.
But then he’s standing in front of “Crimson Constellation,” and the way he looks at it steals my breath. Not the vacant appreciation of most gallery-goers who make the right sounds but see nothing. Not even the intense study of serious collectors who are calculating investment value.
He’s reading it.
“The way the colors bleed together here,” he traces the air in front of the canvas without touching it—thank god, I hate when people touch the canvas— “reminds me of a Miles Davis solo I play. ‘Blue in Green,’ specifically. That moment around the two-minute mark when the notes blur into pure emotion and you can’t tell where the piano ends and the trumpet begins. ”
My carefully constructed gallery persona cracks like old paint. “You’re a musician?”
“Jazz pianist. I run The Blue Room.” His smile reaches his eyes—gray, I notice now, like smoke or steel or storm clouds depending on the light. “Your work... it speaks to that same place music comes from. Raw, honest, unafraid to explore the shadows most people pretend don’t exist.”
Something in my chest unlocks. My shoulders drop from where they’d been tensed near my ears all evening. Because he gets it, he actually sees what I’m doing, not just what I’m showing.
I find myself leading him toward the corner—away from the main crowd. “This one is part of the series, but most people miss it. The constellation pattern is more subtle, hidden in the—”
“Window reflections,” he finishes, leaning closer. I catch his scent—something woody with a hint of smoke and aged whiskey. “Cassiopeia, right? Five points mimicked in the apartment windows.”
“Yes!” The word bursts out too enthusiastically, and I don’t even care that I sound like an overexcited art student instead of a professional having a gallery showing, because nobody has caught that detail.
“I buried it in the layering because I wanted—I needed it to reveal itself slowly, like when your eyes adjust to darkness and suddenly you see stars you didn’t know were there. ”
“Like when you’re listening to jazz,” he says, voice lower now, more intimate. We’re standing closer than I realized. “The melody you think you’re hearing isn’t the real one. The truth is in the spaces between the notes. In the silence.”
My hand reaches out without permission, touching his arm as I gesture to another detail in the painting. I feel his warmth through fine wool, the solid reality of muscle and bone. “Exactly. That’s exactly it. The negative space is as important as what’s painted. Maybe more important.”
“Gabe Dawson,” he says, extending his hand properly.
“Amelia Stone.” His handshake is firm and warm, lasting a beat longer than professionally necessary. “But you already knew that.”
“I did. Adrian’s been talking about your work for weeks.”
That should worry me—Adrian talking about me, Adrian paying attention—but I’m too focused on the way Gabe is looking at the smaller canvas, seeing the things I hid there. The shadow figure in the doorway that most people miss. The way the streetlight creates a halo that’s more menacing than holy.
“You paint what you see,” he says quietly. “Not what people want to see.”
“Isn’t that what art is supposed to do?”
“Most people think art is supposed to make them comfortable. Give them something pretty to hang above their sofa.” His eyes meet mine. “You’re not interested in comfort.”
“No,” I admit. “I’m not.”
We drift back toward the main installation, and I’m hyper-aware of him beside me—the careful attention he pays not just to my paintings but to the space around us.
He notices when the elderly couple needs refills on their wine before the server does.
Spots Maya looking overwhelmed and subtly redirects a chatty patron away from her.
“The depth of flavor in these is extraordinary,” Gabe says later, accepting a chocolate truffle from Adrian’s tray. We’ve somehow ended up standing together again, pulled by some gravitational force. “Amelia, you must try one.”
I take the truffle he offers—dark chocolate with gold leaf, one of the normal pieces according to Maya’s complex system. It melts on my tongue, rich and complex, but I’m more focused on the way Gabe is looking at me. Like I’m a piece of art he’s trying to decode.
“Speaking of flavors,” his eyes hold mine, and there’s something in them that makes my stomach flip.
“I’d love to show you my wine cellar at The Blue Room.
Private tasting. Just the four of us.” He glances at Maya and Adrian.
“We could pair some vintages with Adrian’s chocolates, maybe I could play something.
Show you how the acoustics work in that space. ”
My professional facade—already cracked—shatters completely. This is dangerous territory. I know it’s dangerous. Maya’s been trying to warn me in her careful, don’t-spook-Amelia way. But I’m tired of being careful. Tired of painting darkness from a safe distance.
I glance at Maya, checking whether she’s okay with this, if it is safe, and if I’m reading the situation correctly. She gives me the smallest nod, though her expression is complicated.
“That sounds... intriguing.”
“Tomorrow night? After closing. Around eleven?” Gabe suggests.
I nod, feeling heat creep up my cheeks. “I’d like that.”
Adrian appears behind Maya, and I notice the way his hand settles on her lower back. “Perfect. A proper double date.”
The word date hangs in the air, and my brain immediately spirals.
Date. This is a date. With a man I just met. Who’s friends with Adrian. Who makes chocolates that taste like fear. And who kidnapped my best friend. She should be calling the cops, not dating him. This is wild. You’re being insane. But also, his eyes are really—no, stop, focus—
“I should get back to working the room,” I manage, even though what I really want is to keep talking to Gabe.
“Of course.” But before I turn away, he adds quietly, “I meant what I said. About your work. You see things most people miss.”
After he leaves and takes my number—promising to text details for tomorrow—I spend the rest of the evening in a daze. I smile at collectors, discuss pricing with Beatrice Ellington, and accept congratulations on the red dots marking sold pieces. But my brain is spinning in a loop over Gabe Dawson.
The gray of his eyes shifted with the light. The timbre of his voice when he talked about jazz, it dropped lower and more intimate. I’d felt the calluses on his fingers during our handshake. The way he saw my work.
Tomorrow night. Wine cellar. Private tasting. With Maya and Adrian, who are definitely more than professionally acquainted now. And Gabe, who sees my art the way I see it. Who understands the darkness I’m painting.
I catch my reflection in the gallery window as I’m helping pack up at the end of the night—paint still smudged on my wrist despite three washes, hair completely escaped its attempted style, eyes bright with something between excitement and terror.
“What are you doing, Stone?” I whisper to myself.
But I already know the answer. I'm walking toward something that might devour me whole.
And the part of me that painted those predator’s eyes hidden in the centerpiece—the part that stays up until 4 AM chasing visions I can barely articulate—that part can’t wait.