The city changes character as I move deeper into the arts district. Glass gives way to older stone, art deco facades from a time when buildings were made to inspire rather than to flip. The crowd thins and the noise softens. I pass galleries with their windows lit like stages, restaurants spilling warmth onto the sidewalk, a bookshop with a cat sleeping in the display.
I'm not sure how long I've been walking when I notice the queue.
It spills out of a converted warehouse, maybe thirty people waiting behind a velvet rope. Above the entrance, a banner announces the Silverpoint Museum of Modern Art Opening Night.
I don't do museums or art or anything that can't be measured, optimized, or converted into quarterly projections. Yet something about this queue makes me pause. These people are waiting patiently to look at things that serve no practical purpose.
A couple sharing earbuds. A woman in paint-stained jeans, maybe an artist herself. An older man reads a paperback as he waits. Nobody is angling for an advantage.
I could join them. I could be anonymous for an hour. The thought is almost absurd. Kaiden Rhodes doesn't wait in queues.
But I'm not Kaiden Rhodes tonight. I'm not Alexander Hammond either. I am just a guy who walked until his feet brought him somewhere unexpected.
I take a step toward the line and stop. Check my phone out of habit before shoving it back in my pocket. I should go home. I should review the Ravenwood projections.
I should do so many things.
Instead, I hover at the edge of the queue. I am an intruder in a world of people who actually know how to feel.
CHAPTER 3
THE FIRST TIME
EMMA
The phone buzzesagainst my thigh. Zoe should already be here, or at least close, and the fact that she’s texting instead of waving at me from across the street is a reminder that my Silverpoint social circle currently begins and ends with a single name.
Zoe: Em, I’m SO sorry, but this audit just blew up, and it’s due tomorrow. I literally cannot leave. Rain check? I’ll make it up to you, I SWEAR!
I stare at the text while standing on the corner of Fifth and Harbor, the wind cutting through my jacket like it has a personal grudge. The museum tickets are in my bag. Zoe bought them weeks ago, insisting we needed a culture night to celebrate my escape from Ashford. She’d been so excited about some painting that supposedly had life-changing energy, and letting the tickets go to waste feels like a betrayal of the effort she’s put into keeping me afloat since I moved here.
Me: It’s okay. Go save the world one PowerPoint at a time.
Zoe: You’re an angel. GO ANYWAY. Seriously. You need this. Take your sketchbook. Fall in love with the blue painting for both of us.
I could go home, curl up with a bowl of noodles and a book. There's another option, the one that makes my stomach do a nervous flip. I could walk into the museum and pretend I’m comfortable being alone.
The city has already started its evening transformation. Suits bleed out of glass towers into parking garages and happy hours. I’ve been in Silverpoint for three weeks, long enough to learn the bus routes and the coffee shops that won’t judge you for nursing a single cup for two hours, but not long enough to feel like I have any right to be here.
The Museum of Modern Art announces itself from two blocks away, all glass and sharp angles that catch the last of the evening light. There is already a queue of thirty people waiting behind a velvet rope. I join the back of the line and fish the tickets from my bag, feeling the weight of the second one.
I notice a man in a sharp navy suit standing at the edge of the queue. He isn't in line, but he isn't quite out of it either. He looks out of place. His shoulders are broad, and the suit fits him with a precision that suggests it was sculpted for his body. The white of his shirt is a stark, crisp line against his tanned throat.
The evening light catches his hair, black with an almost violet sheen.
He steps toward the ticket booth, stops, turns back. He runs his hand through his hair before walking toward the booth like he’s made a difficult decision.
I’m staring, and I can’t seem to stop. My marketing brain is already categorizing him as a premium brand, something expensive and out of reach.
The clerk at the booth shakes his head before the man even finishes asking. I can’t hear the exchange, but the body language is clear. The stranger’s shoulders drop slightly, and he nods once. It’s a tight, controlled movement.
He turns, and his eyes find mine.
They are blue. A startlingly deep indigo.
He frowns, and I feel caught doing something wrong.
Wow, okay. I was definitely staring too hard.
