This is good, I think, watching Diego and Tristan bicker about olive oil while Rett tries to organize our haul and Dane silently takes the heaviest bags. This is really, really good.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Zoe
Ablast of synthesized music, so loud it vibrates through the concrete floor, makes me wince. I take a half-step closer to Dane, his solid presence a welcome anchor in the middle of the pulsing, chaotic crowd.
“I’m not sure if this is art or if we’ve accidentally stumbled into a high-tech rave,” I shout over the noise.
Tristan, who is standing beside me with a look of pure, unadulterated glee on his face, just grins. “Isn’t it amazing?” he yells back.
He points to a sensor near my wrist that I’d gotten when we came in. Then he gestures to the massive, swirling light display that is currently projected onto the warehouse ceiling. It looks less like art and more like a screensaver from the 90s has achieved sentience.
This is, apparently, what passes for a “relaxing Saturday” in the Sterling pack.
After the quiet, earthy chaos of last weekend’s farmer’s market, Tristan had insisted that this Saturday’s activity be a little more... him. Which is how we ended up here, at theopening of an immersive art exhibit backed by Sterling Solutions’ venture capital fund.
“I don’t get it,” Rett says from my other side, his voice a low grumble of pure confusion. He has to lean in close for me to hear him over the music. “What exactly am I looking at?”
Tristan leans across me, his own voice full of a proud excitement. “Art, brother!” he declares. “Cutting-edge, boundary-pushing, mind-expanding art! You’re welcome!”
When we walk through certain areas, the lights change color. When we speak, the patterns shift and evolve.
It’s utterly bizarre and completely fascinating.
“It’s an expensive light show,” Dane mutters from beside me.
“It’s immersive,” Tristan corrects him. “And it’s going to make us a fortune when we license the tech to theme parks.”
I laugh, watching as a nearby wall pulses with color in response to my voice. “It’s fun,” I say. “Isn’t that enough?”
Tristan beams at me, throwing an arm around my shoulders. “Exactly! Someone gets it!”
Diego is a few feet away, simply enjoying the display. He moves his hand through a beam of light, watching as it splinters and reforms around his fingers. His face holds a childlike wonder that makes my heart squeeze.
Tristan’s arm tightens around me. “Come on. You have to try the neural interface room.”
Before I can ask what that is, he’s pulling me through the exhibit, navigating the crowd with ease. We arrive at a smaller room where attendants are fitting visitors with lightweight headsets.
“These read your brainwaves,” Tristan explains, practically bouncing with enthusiasm. “The display responds to your thoughts. Well, sort of. Your emotional state, really. It’s still early tech, but it’s mind-blowing.”
I allow an attendant to fit me with a sleek headset. It’s surprisingly comfortable, resting lightly on my temples. Tristan gets one too, and we enter the room together.
The space is dark at first, just the two of us standing in the center of what seems to be a blank canvas. Then, slowly, lights begin to appear. Faint at first, then brighter, swirling patterns that dance across the walls, ceiling, and floor.
“Oh,” I breathe, watching as a spiral of golden light responds to my voice, expanding and contracting with each syllable.
“Think of something that makes you happy,” Tristan says, his voice low and excited beside me.
I close my eyes. I don’t have to search for a memory. It’s right there, at the front of my mind. The four of them engaged in a full-blown, deeply serious debate over the proper way to hang a single painting. The sound of Dane’s patient, rumbling explanation of load-bearing walls clashing with Tristan’s passionate explanation of “aesthetics.” Rett, trying to create a level line with a laser pointer. Diego, just humming and suggesting they “feel the spirit of the wall.”
The lights around us shift, blooming into a soft, warm, and impossibly bright gold that pulses with a gentle, steady rhythm. It feels like pure happiness.
“Wow,” Tristan breathes. “Okay. Now... something exciting. Something that makes your heart race.”
My mind immediately goes to the grocery store parking lot. To the feel of Rett’s body caging mine against the cold metal of the SUV. The memory of his mouth crashing down on mine, a brand of pure, possessive heat. The raw, possessive growl of “Mine.”
The lights respond instantly, the warm gold shattered by jagged, electric streaks of deep, pulsing crimson and sharp, electric blue. The patterns shift and change with a frantic, almost violent energy that perfectly mirrors the frantic, chaotic hammering of my own heart.
