Audrey nodded and hid her face in the long sleeves of Theo’s black hoodie. “Have you seen it?” she mumbled. His chest rumbledas he hummed, and she looked back up to see him shake his head. But he’d already pulled out his phone and was scrolling with interest. Whatever he read gradually softened the frown he wore.
“Oh. I see.” Theo tugged her all the way into his arms and onto his chest while he settled down across the long length of his couch. It was big enough for him to actually be able to lay completely flat. “An orphan girl turns out to be a princess?” he murmured, combing his fingers gently through her hair.
“Never happened in real life, by the way. They never found her alive, and they’re fairly certain she died with her family, all of them shot and dumped in a communal grave. But I like to think that maybe this was the better version. That maybe itcouldhappen.”
“Maybe it could.” Theo lifted the remote, pressed a few buttons, and fired up the movie.
Leaving was the hardest part. Audrey had hung up her dress in Theo’s bathroom last night to dry, but it and her tights were ruined. And besides that, she didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to leave him.
But Theo insisted she get home and finish her homework. He even swore he wouldn’t text her tonight so she could focus—and he gave her a very stern look when she protested and threatened to message him herself anyway. In the end, he won, and he walked her back to her place, dress slung over his arm, mask settled back over his face, and umbrella clutched tightly in one hand.
He didn’t stick around to submit to Violet’s intense questioning—Audrey still hadn’t wanted to turn her phone back on, and when she did, she had 127 unread messages, most of them from her roommate—but he did stay long enough to lower his mask at the top of the stairs, his gaze heavy while he studied her face.
“I need you to know something, Audrey.”
“What is it?”
“You make me want to create again. I haven’t made anything in a long time. I haven’t been in the right place to do that, not like I’veneeded to be.” He glanced nervously over at the door as if he were terrified Violet might open it at any moment before meeting her eyes again. “But I want to show you what you make me feel like when you’re around. How it feels deep in my soul to know you now.” Theo closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m going to try.”
She didn’t know what to say. But she put everything it made her feel into the kiss she gave him before he left her apartment.
Every day that week, he came to the café and they had coffee together (or, at least, Audrey had coffee while he watched and they talked), and he waited for her to finish her shifts before walking her either to the subway or home. On Thursday night, he came over and brought dinner with him again: roasted chicken with Yukon gold mashed potatoes and sautéed green beans, freshly baked sourdough rolls with fancy salted butter, and a chocolate mocha cake for dessert. And once again, he refused to tell her where he’d gotten it.
She missed him that weekend. Her midterms were next week, and she had exams and papers due, so Theo wouldn’t hear of him distracting her. It was a firm no when she asked him to hang out after she’d responded truthfully to his question about how much more work she had to do.
Audrey got it done. She wrote her paper and turned it in on time. She even managed to study properly for her exams.
But it was certainly a miserable affair being away from Theo.
Every moment she spent away from him only made her ache all the more.
When she saw him on Monday, her heart nearly burst from excitement, and she only regretted that they were meeting up at her workplace and not somewhere more private. But the good news was that after Thursday, she’d be freer to see him again. They were already planning on spending the entire long weekend together at his house to celebrate once she’d taken her exams.
Which was perfectly fine, because she’d needed time to make a very necessary visit to the university’s health services clinic.
Audrey was on her way back home that evening, a fresh prescription for birth control burning a hole in her pocket. She’d never been on it before—there hadn’t ever been a need. She’d never gotten far enough for it. But now she couldn’t stop thinking about what it might mean to start taking it. And what Theo might say when she told him.
She’d just stepped out of her local Duane Reade with her new meds when her phone buzzed in her coat pocket. Her disappointment was palpable when it wasn’t a message from Theo but one from Violet, freaking out about something.
Violet| OMG CHECK INSTAGRAM. NOW.
Audrey| Why?
Violet| LIGHTM4ST3R IS BACK!
Audrey frowned as she opened the post Violet sent her. There it was, a new photo at the top of his feed, the first in well over a year. It appeared to be shot in his studio, with only some of the redbrick walls visible in the background amid a bunch of odd machinery. The image featured his messy worktable covered in large sheets of paper with dark black strokes printed onto them, surrounded by pieces of glass tubing. His bare hands were at the center as he compared a freshly twisted piece of glass to the lines on the paper, which was unusual in and of itself. He normally wore jet-black gloves in any photos with his hands, covering every inch of skin. This was the first time he’d ever revealed them publicly.
Huh.
This post was so different from his usual work. It was clearly an in-progress shot of his process, which he never showed prior toreleasing a piece. It was only after he revealed his latest sculptures that he posted any of the behind-the-scenes stuff.
The strategy was smart because Lightm4st3r wasn’t any normal sculptor.
He was a neon artist.
The reason he was so well-known was because he didn’t do it in the classic sense. He didn’t post or auction signs like you saw everywhere on the street.
His work was abstract, sculptural, futuristic.
