I'm pretending to work.

The canvas in front of me is a lie—abstract shapes in shades of gray and blue that don't mean anything. Therapy art, Marcus would call it. The kind of thing you make when your hands need to move but your brain is too fractured to direct them toward something real.

It's been three days since the supply closet. Three days of avoiding the main studio, three days of Marcus giving me that look that says he knows exactly how much I'm catastrophizing, three days of my phone staying ominously silent.

Adrian hasn't tried to contact me.

Of course he hasn't. Why would he? Isabella's version of events has probably crystallized by now into something immovable. Vera threw herself at him. Vera's desperate. Vera's using him for connections. The narrative is cleaner that way. It doesn't require him to do anything difficult like defend someone who's already proven she can survive on her own.

I add another layer of gray. It looks like surrender.

The studio is mostly empty at this hour—just me and the ghosts of everyone's unfinished projects. The afternoon light comes through the north-facing windows in that particular shade of gold that only happens when you're trying not to think about something. I've learned to recognize the specific texture of my own avoidance.

The door opens.

I don't look up. My brush keeps moving with mechanical precision, dragging color across canvas like I'm conducting a funeral for my own dignity.

"Vera."

Adrian's voice is different in the quiet studio—it doesn't have anywhere to hide. No ambient noise to soften the edges, no crowd to dilute the intensity of his presence. Just his voice and the sudden awareness that my lungs have forgotten how to function normally.

I keep painting.

"I'm working," I say, which is technically true and functionally a lie. "Can't talk right now."

He doesn't leave. Of course he doesn't. I'm learning that Adrian Volkov has this unsettling tendency to do the opposite of what makes social sense. He moves closer—I can hear his footsteps on the concrete floor, can smell him before I see him. Linseed oil and cologne and something underneath that's just him, something my body recognizes with embarrassing immediacy.

My brush hand trembles.

I set it down with deliberate care, buying time, constructing walls. When I finally turn to face him, he's standing close enough that I have to tilt my head back slightly. His pale eyes are doing that thing where they catalog everything—my paint-stained hands, my oversized sweater with the hole in the collar, the way I'm bracing myself like he's about to deliver bad news.

Maybe he is.

"I owe you an apology," he says.

The words are so unexpected that I almost laugh. Almost. The sound gets stuck somewhere in my chest and becomes something else—a sharp intake of breath that I try to disguise as exasperation.

"For what? For believing the rumor? For not defending me? For just existing in general? I'm flexible on which one you're apologizing for."

His jaw tightens. "You're not making this easy."

"I'm not supposed to make it easy. That's not my job." I turn back to my canvas, picking up my brush like it's a weapon. "Your job was to do literally anything except stand there looking conflicted while Isabella rewrote history. You failed. I'm over it."

I'm not over it.

"I didn't understand what was happening."

The words come out raw, and something in the way he says them—the genuine distress underneath—makes me pause. I keep my back to him, but my brush has stopped moving.

"It took me three minutes to process what she was saying," Adrian continues, and now there's something almost desperate in his voice. "Three minutes of her talking before my brain caught up to what she was implying. By the time I understood, she'd already moved on to the next part of her story, and I—" He stops. Runs a hand through his hair. I can hear the frustration in the gesture. "I panicked."

I set down my brush.

"Adrian—"

"Let me finish." His voice is sharp but not unkind. "Please."

I turn around slowly. He's standing in front of my canvas like he's forgotten it exists, his entire focus narrowed to a point that includes only me. His pale eyes are too bright, and there's a faint flush along his sharp cheekbones that I've never seen before.

"I panicked because I didn't know what to do," he says. "I've never had to do this before. Fight for someone. Defend someone. I don't know the rules for it. I don't know what I'm supposed to say or do, and by the time I figured out that I needed to do something, you were already gone, and then I didn't know how to find the words to explain that I wasn't—" He stops, swallows hard. "I wasn't choosing her. I wasn't choosing to believe her. I was just... broken."

The word sits between us like something fragile.

I should say something cutting. I should protect myself with humor or deflection. Instead, I hear myself ask, "Why does it matter so much?"

Adrian's eyes close for a moment. When he opens them again, there's something raw in his expression that makes my chest hurt.

"Because what's happening between us isn't transactional," he says quietly. "It's not a rumor or a story or something Isabella can rewrite with a few well-placed words. It's real, and when she tried to make it into something cheap and disposable, it—" He stops, breathing carefully like he's trying not to lose his grip on words. "It hurt."

My throat feels tight.

"You could have just said that," I tell him. "Instead of disappearing for three days and letting me convince myself that you agreed with her."

"I know." He looks genuinely miserable. "I'm not good at this. Social things. Explaining things. My brain processes at a different speed than everyone else, and I usually just let people think I'm cold or disinterested because that's easier than trying to articulate that I'm actually—" He stops, searching for the word. "Drowning."

Something in me softens against my better judgment.

"Drowning," I repeat.

"In social interaction. In trying to figure out what people mean when they say things. In the gap between what I'm thinking and what I'm capable of expressing." He takes a step closer, and I don't move away. "Isabella said something that my brain needed three minutes to process. By the time I understood it, the moment had passed, and I didn't know how to rewind and fix it. So I just stood there looking like I agreed with her, and you thought—"

"I thought you didn't care," I finish.

"I care." The intensity in his voice is almost frightening. "I care so much that it's terrifying. I care that she tried to diminish what's happening between us into something transactional. I care that you thought I was indifferent. I care that I hurt you by being incapable of processing social situations at a normal speed."

He's close enough now that I can feel the heat radiating from him. My body is doing that thing where it betrays every rational thought in my head—racing pulse, trembling hands, that specific weakness in my knees that I've learned to recognize as a warning sign.

"I'm not good at apologies," Adrian says. "I'm not good at most human things. But I'm good at seeing things. And what I see when I look at you is someone trying so hard to be invulnerable that she's convinced herself vulnerability is a weakness. Someone who survived things that would have destroyed most people. Someone who creates beauty because it's the only way she knows to prove she deserves to exist." He pauses. "Someone I can't stop thinking about."

I should move away.

I don't.

"That's not fair," I say instead. "You can't just say things like that and expect me to—"

"To what? Forgive me? Believe you? Stop being terrified?"

The words come out sharper than I intended, but Adrian doesn't flinch. Instead, he reaches out slowly—giving me time to move away—and takes my paint-stained hand in his. His touch is warm and careful, like I'm something that might break.

"All of it," he says. "I expect all of it. And I'm not expecting it to be easy."

I look down at our joined hands. His are long-fingered and elegant, the nails clean but there's paint under them too—permanent evidence of his work. We're both stained by what we create. Marked by it.

"I was horrible to you," I say quietly.

"You were scared."

"I was horrible and scared. I said things I didn't mean. I let you think—"

"I know what I thought." He squeezes my hand gently. "I also know that you were protecting yourself because that's what you've learned to do. And I know that I made it easy for you to believe the worst version of my silence because I'm incapable of operating at normal human speeds."

Despite everything, I almost laugh.

"You're not supposed to make this easier for me. You're supposed to let me sit in my guilt for a while."

"Why? So you can convince yourself that you're unforgivable? That's not how this works." He takes a step closer, and suddenly there's barely any space between us. I can smell him more clearly now—cologne and linseed oil and something warm underneath. "You're allowed to be scared and angry and wrong sometimes. You're allowed to be human."

The words hit something deep, something I've spent years trying to seal off.

"I don't know how to do this," I admit. "Any of it. I don't know how to be in something with someone. I don't know how to not assume the worst. I don't know how to trust that this is real and not just—"

"A phase? A distraction? Something that will eventually reveal itself to be as transactional as everything else in your life?" He reaches up with his free hand and touches my face, his fingers gentle against my cheekbone. "I can't give you proof that it's real, Vera. I can only keep showing up and trying to explain myself and hoping that eventually you'll believe me."

My breath catches.

"That's terrifying," I whisper.

"I know." He's close enough now that I can see the subtle variations in the gray of his eyes—silver and slate and something almost white at the edges. "But it's also the most real thing I've ever felt. So I'm willing to be terrifying if you are."

I should say something. Should move away, should protect myself, should do literally anything except what my body is screaming at me to do.

I don't.

Instead, I reach up and touch his hair—it's soft and slightly disheveled, and it smells like him. Like expensive cologne and the metallic tang of paint thinner. Like someone who creates beauty and doesn't even know it.

"If you hurt me," I tell him, "I will destroy you. Artistically. I will paint something so devastating about the experience of heartbreak that it will haunt you forever."

"Fair." His lips curve into something that's almost a smile. "I would expect nothing less."

And then he kisses me.

It's not gentle or tentative or any of the things I might have expected. It's desperate and careful at the same time, like he's been holding his breath for weeks and finally remembered how to breathe. His hand is still on my face, thumb stroking my cheekbone, and his other hand is still holding mine like he's afraid I'll disappear if he lets go.

I kiss him back because I've apparently lost my mind.

My free hand finds his jaw, and I can feel the tension in it, the way he's holding himself together. I want to tell him he can let go, that I'm not going anywhere, but I can't articulate anything except a small sound that might be a whimper or might be something else entirely.

When he pulls back, we're both breathing hard.

"I'm sorry," he says against my mouth. "For all of it. For not defending you. For not being faster. For making you think I didn't care."

"I'm sorry for assuming the worst." I pull back just enough to look at him. "For not giving you the benefit of the doubt. For being terrified of what this is."

"Are you still terrified?" His pale eyes are searching mine like he's trying to catalog every fear he finds there.

"Absolutely," I admit. "But I'm more terrified of not doing this than I am of doing it, which I think means something."

He smiles then—a real smile, not the careful social approximation he usually manages. It transforms his entire face, makes him look younger and more vulnerable and somehow more devastating.

"It means you're brave," he says.

"It means I'm an idiot."

"That too." He kisses me again, and this time it's slower, deeper. It tastes like apology and promise and something that feels dangerously like hope. His hand leaves my face to pull me closer, and suddenly we're pressed together, and I can feel the steady thump of his heartbeat against my chest, and it's too much and not enough at the same time.

I pull back before I completely lose my ability to think.

"We should probably talk about this," I say, breathing hard.

"About what? That we're apparently doing this? That I've been thinking about you constantly for weeks? That I can't concentrate on my own work because I keep wondering what you're doing?"

"All of it." I lean my forehead against his, trying to regulate my breathing. "But also about what happens next. About Isabella. About the studio and the rumors and the fact that we're going to make this incredibly complicated."

Adrian's arms stay around my waist. "I don't care about complicated."

"You should. Complicated is my specialty. I've built a career out of complicated." I pull back enough to look at him. "I'm going to say things I don't mean when I'm scared. I'm going to push you away. I'm going to test whether you're actually serious about this or just infatuated."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes. You can say things you don't mean. You can push me away. You can test me." He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and the tenderness of the gesture almost undoes me. "And I will still be here, probably processing what you said at a glacial pace, but I will be here."

I should be cynical about this. I should point out that he doesn't know what he's signing up for, that I'm not worth the effort, that this will eventually crash into reality and hurt both of us.

Instead, I hear myself ask, "What about Isabella?"

Adrian's expression hardens slightly. "What about her?"

"She's not going to just disappear. She's going to keep pushing, keep telling her version of events, keep trying to make this into something ugly."

"I know."

"And you're okay with that?"

"No." He pulls me close again, and I rest my forehead against his chest. "But I'm not going to let her dictate what we do. And neither are you. We're going to be honest about what's happening between us. We're going to stop hiding. And if people want to believe her version of events instead of the truth, that's their problem."

It sounds so simple when he says it.

It's not simple.

But standing here in the quiet studio with his arms around me and his heartbeat steady under my ear, it almost feels possible.

"Okay," I say. "We're doing this. We're being honest. We're not hiding."

"We're doing this," he agrees.

I look up at him, and he leans down and kisses me again, and this time it's not desperate or careful. It's just real.

It's terrifying.

It's also the most real thing I've ever felt.

---

When we finally leave the studio, it's dark outside, and I have paint in my hair and Adrian's cologne all over my sweater. My phone has seventeen messages from Marcus, all variations of where the hell are you and you better not be doing something stupid.

I text him back: Define stupid.

His response is immediate: Are you with Adrian?

Maybe.

Oh my god. OH MY GOD. You kissed him didn't you? Don't lie to me. I can always tell when you're lying.

I look at Adrian, who's reading the messages over my shoulder with an expression of mild amusement.

"Should we tell him?" Adrian asks.

"Tell him what?"

"That we kissed. That I apologized. That we're apparently doing this thing."

I consider this. Marcus is going to have feelings about this. Complicated feelings that he'll try to hide behind humor and support. I should probably give him time to process before I confirm his suspicions.

Instead, I text: Yes. We kissed. Multiple times. It was very dramatic and involved a lot of angst.

Marcus's response comes through as a call.

I silence my phone.

Adrian raises an eyebrow. "Coward."

"Strategically avoiding a lengthy conversation about feelings. There's a difference."

"There isn't."

"There is in my mind, and that's what matters." I take his hand as we walk toward the exit. "Besides, we have bigger problems."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that Isabella is not going to take this well. Like the fact that the studio is going to explode with gossip the second anyone sees us together. Like the fact that I still have no idea what I'm doing with any of this."

Adrian squeezes my hand. "One problem at a time."

"I'm very good at handling multiple problems simultaneously."

"I know. But you don't have to do it alone anymore."

The words should feel claustrophobic. Instead, they feel like the first solid ground I've stood on in years.

We step out into the night air, and my phone buzzes again. This time it's a text from an unknown number:

Saw you two leaving the studio together. Interesting. We should talk. —Isabella

I show Adrian the message.

"Let her wait," he says.

"She's not the type to wait."

"Neither are you." He pulls me close, and I can smell his cologne mixing with my coffee and turpentine. "But you're also not the type to let someone else dictate your narrative. So we don't wait for her. We just keep doing this. Keep being honest. Keep showing up."

It should be harder than this.

It's not.

"Okay," I say. "We keep doing this."

Adrian kisses me under the streetlight, and somewhere in the distance, I can hear my phone buzzing with messages I'm not ready to answer yet.

But for the first time in a long time, I'm not afraid of what comes next.

I'm just terrified enough to know it's real.