“The ‘86 really opens up after about thirty minutes,” Adrian is saying to me, and I realize I’ve completely lost the thread of the conversation.
“Sorry, what?”
Maya shoots me a look that’s part amusement, part concern.
Footsteps on the stairs again. Gabe appears, straightening his cuffs as he descends. He looks completely relaxed, unbothered.
“Everything okay up there?” I ask.
“Just some nonsense about a smell complaint.” Gabe slides back into his seat, picking up his wine glass. “Walked the inspector through the whole place—spotless, naturally. He didn’t find anything unusual. Probably a competitor trying to cause trouble, or drunk customers playing pranks.”
He says it so easily, so smoothly. And maybe it’s the wine, or maybe it’s my crazy brain that picks up stuff, but something about his tone doesn’t quite match his relaxed posture. Like he’s performing casualness rather than feeling it.
But then his hand finds mine under the table, warm and solid, and he’s asking about my studio again with genuine interest, and I choose to let it go.
You’re paranoid. Maya’s been making you paranoid. It was just a random inspection.
“Now, where were we?” Gabe’s eyes find mine. “Ah, yes, you were going to tell me about your workspace.”
I nod and launch into an animated description of my studio—the skylight that gives perfect north light in the mornings, the way I’ve organized my supplies by color, the wall where I pin reference photos and sketches that probably look like a conspiracy theorist’s bulletin board to anyone else.
Gabe listens as if every word matters, asking questions about my process, how I decide when a piece is finished, and the difference between what I see in my head and what ends up on canvas.
“Sometimes there isn’t a difference,” I admit, more honest than I planned to be. “Sometimes I paint things I don’t remember deciding to paint. I’ll step back and see something—a face in the shadows, eyes watching from a window—and I don’t know if I put it there deliberately or if it just... emerged.”
“The subconscious at work,” Gabe says thoughtfully. “Like improvising jazz. Your fingers find notes your conscious mind didn’t plan.”
“Exactly like that.”
Above us, the jazz continues drifting down—saxophone and piano weaving together in a haunting melody. The music seems to seep into the stone walls, resonating in the space between us.
“That’s one of mine,” Gabe says softly. “That recording. From about three years ago.”
I listen more carefully, hearing the piano now as a distinct voice. “It’s beautiful. Melancholy but not... sad. Something else.”
“Longing, maybe. Or recognition of something lost that you didn’t know you’d lost.”
The words settle into my chest, heavy and true. I meet his eyes across the dim cellar, and something passes between us—understanding, attraction, the recognition of similar darkness.
This is dangerous, my rational brain whispers.You barely know him. He’s friends with Adrian. There are too many red flags to count.
But I’m so tired of being careful. Of painting darkness from a safe distance. Of organizing my life into neat categories where everything makes sense.
“The acoustics down here are incredible,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. “The way the music travels.”
“The stone walls create natural resonance,” Gabe explains, but his attention is entirely on me. “Would you like to hear it live? I keep a keyboard upstairs in my office.”
“I’d like that.”
Maya catches my eye, a silent question—are you okay, is this okay, do you want an out?
I give her the smallest nod.I’m okay. I’m choosing this.
Even though I don’t know what “this” is yet. Even though every rational part of me is screaming warnings.
Sometimes you must step into the darkness to really see what’s there.
And right now, with Gabe’s hand warm in mine and jazz echoing off ancient stone, I’m ready to step.
