“You have a lawyer just for your art.”
“Yeah?” He opened one eye and winced.
“For Lightm4st3r?”
His wince deepened. “I wanted to tell you. I thought about it. I was about to try when I was making pancakes last weekend and you asked for a secret, but you’d reacted so strongly to me, uh…” The tips of his ears reddened. “You were very incredulous about the kind of street cred I might have as an artist, so I panicked and punted to the trust fund instead.”
That was a fair point. If he’d told her last week, she might have thought it was a joke.
In retrospect, it felt far less kind of her than she’d have liked it to.
“And, um…” Theo trailed off again with a sigh. “In all honesty, it’s a pretty big fucking secret. I didn’t want to burden you with that, especially this soon out of the gate. Figured I’d put something out into the ether, and at the very least, I could point to it later when we talked about it. But I didn’t want to rope you into keeping it with me this early. And I, uh…” He attempted to smile, but it twisted into a grimace instead. “I didn’t actually think you’d recognize my hands that fast. Not that I’m surprised, you’re really smart, but um…”
He trailed off when Audrey didn’t say anything. She didn’t quite know what to say. Instead, she picked nervously at her thumbs and turned her attention back to Theo’s wall of diplomas, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth.
He’d been a trained electrician this entire time when she couldn’t even build a working circuit to reliably test her battery design. Hehad a terminal graduate degree and could teach college if he wanted to. He was a world-renowned artist. He’d been written about inTimemagazine. He could do so many things. He could date someone so much better, so much prettier, someone who didn’t rummage around in garbage in her spare time, who hadn’t failed classes so bad she lost her scholarship her freshman year, who didn’t work in a café for minimum wage plus tips, who owned nicer outfits than the nineteen-dollar cocktail dress she’d once found in a Forever 21 clearance section. He came fromsomuch money, had grown up riding horses, going to private schools, probably summering in Europe, and she didn’t even have a passport. He owned a brownstone with a river view in Brooklyn and a two-thousand-dollar espresso machine. He could—
Theo’s phone buzzed with a call, and he took it out, glanced at the screen, and turned it off before pocketing it again, bitterness flashing briefly across his features. He stepped up behind her and slid his arms around her waist, burying his face in the crook of her neck and pulling her close to him. He smelled muskier than usual, felt even hotter against her skin than he normally did, and when he inhaled deeply at the base of her throat, shivers coursed down her spine, and she gasped.
“You smell so good,” he finally whispered, brushing his nose along the length of her neck. “I’ve missed you since this morning. I missed having you here.” When his arms tightened around her, Audrey closed her eyes and tried to slow her racing heart.
None of this mattered. None of what she’d been thinking mattered.
Theo was still the same person he’d always been.
He just had an artistic persona, was all. So did a lot of people.
Even if that was true, though, it didn’t quite make her feel better.
She’d been too preoccupied with her thoughts to respond to him, and she could physically feel the moment he started to panicbehind her. “Audrey? Are you mad at me?” His voice trembled when he asked. “What are you thinking? Please say something.Anything.Literally anything, I beg of you.”
The hurt in his voice helped her find her own. “I’m not mad, Theo. I was just surprised. Really surprised.”
As soon as she said those words, he exhaled sharply in relief and burrowed deeper into her neck, his shoulders slumping while he rested his weight on her back. She dug her fingers into his dark hair, and he leaned into her touch, swaying gently on his feet. Theo rocked her back and forth, soothing them both, and Audrey finally found the space to calm her mind and catch her breath.
“It’s not every day you find out your new boyfriend’s a world-renowned, critically acclaimed artist, you know?” she finally murmured. “When I met you, you were just some sweet, handsome guy wearing a hoodie and a mask who never drank my coffee while it was still hot.”
Theo froze on his feet and unburied his face to look at her. “Wait. You thought I was handsome? How would you have been able to judge that? I made damn sure you couldn’t see my face.”
Audrey twisted over her shoulder to find him absolutely bewildered, his dark eyes wide and confused.
Therehe was.
Same as always.
She snorted. “Girls just know, Theo. I could tell from the way you carried yourself, the way you talked to me, and even just the corner of your face you showed me.” She gestured pointedly to her left eye. “But how was I supposed to know that anxious wreck I had a massive crush on at the coffee shop was actually the notoriousLightm4st3r?”
He groaned. “Oh god, I hate that I went with that name. I came up with it when I was a thirteen-year-old edgelord, and I’ve never been able to get rid of it.”
Audrey burst out laughing, and Theo’s grin widened as he pulled her closer, pressing a kiss just beneath her ear. “A laugh—thank god,” he muttered. His nose tickled in that spot, and she laughed even harder. “From the way you were looking at me when I opened the door, I thought you were about to break up with me after barely a week. That would have been a spectacular record, even for me.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Sorry, Theo. I might have been freaking out a little, but you’re still stuck with me.”
“Again:thank god.” Theo suddenly pulled away from her and lifted a wry eyebrow, his eyes studying every inch of her as he looked her up and down. “Do you have anything in your pockets?”
“What?” She frowned and turned around to face him. “No? My phone’s in my bag. This skirt doesn’t have pockets. Why?”
“Mm-hmm. I see.” He eyed the strap of her messenger bag across her chest and lifted it over her head, dropping it heavily to the floor beneath his diplomas.
