“What areyousupposed to be?” he finally asked, his brow furrowed once more. “Are you a…disco ball?”
She shook her head, the corners of her mouth twitching as she tried to hide another smile.
“No, I guess your dress isn’t shiny enough for that,” he mused. “I feel like I should know this. Are you—grayscale? Monochrome? You look like a palette of some kind.”
“No, but you’re not far off.”
Theo shook his head. “Well, you’re beautiful, is what you are. But I don’t think I get the costume.”
Her dress was made of hundreds of paint chips cut into individual strips and safety pinned all over it in neat, overlapping rows.Violet had tried to convince her to wear heels to complete the look, but there was no way she’d make the trek across the city to campus in them. She was like a baby giraffe in anything higher than two inches as it was, subways and sidewalks and street grates aside, so she’d opted for a pair of thick gray tights and her (very practical) well-worn Docs instead.
Audrey grinned at him as they made their way downstairs. “I’mFifty Shades of Grey.” In truth, there were far more than fifty shades, but the point got across. She’d found enough paint chips to turn the gray dress she wore underneath into something reminiscent of a flapper costume but made out of paper. Every strip hung and swished under her coat as she moved, not unlike beaded fringe but a lot lighter.
“Aha!” Theo slapped his forehead. “God, I should have gotten that. I’m a sham of an artist.”
“To be fair, it’s a book-slash-movie that started out asTwilightfanfic.”
“I should have at least guessed the film version.” Theo straightened his hat again with his free hand to reveal both eyes, and Audrey found them evenly crinkled. “Veryclever, Miss Adams. Where’d you find so many different gray paint chips? They’d never let me walk out of a store with that many for free.”
That was the one question she was hoping he wouldn’t ask. Her cheeks burned again beneath the silver highlighter. “Uh…I, um…” She shut the door to her building behind her and pursed her lips. Theo stopped in his tracks, looking down at her with a wary expression. He’d noticed her hesitation. “I…sometimes go dumpster diving on the Upper East Side.” The burn deepened and intensified. “I found a whole box of them a few weeks ago. I guess someone redid their apartment and their designer finally trashed their paint options, maybe once the project was finished.”
“Dumpster diving?” She didn’t need to see his entire face toknow how deeply concerned he suddenly was under all that gauze. “Isn’t that dangerous?” His frown intensified.
Oh no.
“So…do you need food? Are you hungry? Because if that’s the case, I’ll feed you, I’ll buy you groceries, I really don’t mind. You know that, right? Your tips can’t gothatfar, I know they don’t. I don’t know how you’re getting by as it is with inflation and the costs of living here, and if you’re not getting enough to eat, I—I don’t like that, Audrey, I don’t like thatat all, that isn’t—” He was clearly getting more and more upset the more he thought about it, and he scratched anxiously at the back of his head through the gauze. “Or is there something else that’s wrong? Are you doing that because—”
She cut him off before he worried himself further. “It’s a sustainability thing.” She patted his arm reassuringly and kept walking toward the subway. “I’m okay, Theo. I’m not starving.”
The look he gave her was incredulous. “You’d tell me if you were, right? If you were struggling?”
She wouldn’t, actually.
“Sure.”
Her answer had been too quick. Maybe a little too bright.
“I don’t believe you.” His eyes narrowed. “You were right yesterday—youarea terrible liar.”
She sighed and reached up to rub her face, but stopped herself at the last second before she ruined her makeup. “All right, fine. No, I wouldn’t have told you, but I’m okay. I’m getting by about as well as any of my friends are.”
Theo’s mouth shifted beneath the gauze, and without warning, he tugged her beneath the awning of a closed shop before putting his hands on her shoulders and running them along her arms. His right hand stopped at her neck, and he looked at it for a second before yanking the glove off and replacing it. His fingers were scorchingagainst her skin, and she shivered at the contact, her gasp curling white in front of her silvered lips.
His eyes searched her own in the weak light filtering beneath the awning. “Audrey,” Theo finally murmured, his thumb gently caressing the side of her neck. “I’m serious. I don’t want you hurting, especially not when it’s something I can fix. You’re too precious for that—too good.”
“But it’s not your—”
He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and Audrey quieted.
“I can bear my pain, but I can’t bear yours,” he finally murmured. When he looked away, she finally understood.
He knew what it was to suffer. The thought of her feeling any version of what he must have felt at one point had scared him. It was written in his eyes.
Audrey lifted a hand and tilted his head to make him look at her again.
Someday, she’d have him shed the shrouds he wore.
Someday, she’d have him free of the hurt he harbored.
