Page 154 of Celestial Combat

He didn’t answer.

I closed the sketchbook, held it to my chest, and stood – barefoot on the cool wood floors. The air smelled like ginger and soy from the dumplings we’d made earlier, and faint incense curled near the windows where it had burned down to the last coil.

I walked over to him, slow, careful, and sat in front of him. His eyes met mine as I entered his space.

“I love them,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “They’re beautiful.”

I pressed a hand against his chest.

“You’re beautiful,” he said instead, low and certain.

The words hung between us – simple, honest.

I leaned into him, the sketchbook still pressed to my chest like something sacred, and let the weight of his gaze pull me under again.

Chapter 39

Present

Brooklyn, New York City

THE LATE AFTERNOON SUN DRAPED over Brooklyn’s streets. We’d slept in, breakfast in bed, lazy conversation. Now we were wandering around the city with no clear destination in mind.

We turned onto a narrow lane off McCarren Avenue and stumbled onto a pop-up art exhibit. It was an alleyway turned gallery – bare brick walls plastered with murals and canvases, paint dripping in neon and charcoal, bold faces and abstract shapes. The pavement was cracked, littered with posters for underground concerts and beat poets. The air smelled like spray paint, roasted coffee, and a distant whiff of pizza from a corner joint.

I froze, eyes wide. My fingers squeezed Zane’s. “Zane, look at this.”

He stood beside me, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, letting me pull him forward.

The murals were electric. A jagged forest of hands reaching toward a blood-red moon. A woman’s face split in half – one siderealistic, the other pixelated. A massive portrait of an old man’s weathered face, eyes like shuttered windows.

I ran my fingertips along a painted line of gold leaf that shimmered on the brick. I read the scrawled graffiti poem beneath it:“We are light, trying not to burn.”

Zane watched me as I moved – tilting my head to catch the colors, stepping closer to a canvas that felt alive. He leaned against the wall, one foot planted, eyes soft. He didn’t say a word, just soaked in the way I lit up – like the mural’s fire was warming me from the inside out.

I knelt to inspect one piece – oddly shaped wooden panels nailed together in a collage. I turned to Zane, cheeks flushed. “Isn’t this insane?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” His voice was low, quiet – like he didn’t want to break the moment. “You look happy.”

I glanced at him, eyebrows raised. “I am.”

He smiled – just a curve of his lips, nothing more.

I grabbed his hand again and led him deeper into the exhibit, pointing things out. “Look at the texture on that one ! The brush strokes are so thick.” I ran my hand across the wood-panel mural, feeling the ridges. “And this face, the expression, it feels like it’s watching you.”

He leaned close, examining the paint. A stray lock of hair fell over one eye, and he looked up at me, all soft edges and still air.

We stopped at a mural of intertwined cherry blossoms and koi fish, ink-black branches against a pastel sky. It reminded me of everything he’d shown me – his poems, his sketches. I looked at him, heart warm in my chest.

Zane stepped forward and kissed my temple.

The mural glowed in the twilight, and in that grungy, rugged alley… we felt like we belonged there. Just us, just art, just the slow unfolding of the day.

The air smelled like rust and spray paint.

When we made it out the other way of the exhibit, I saw it: an interactive graffiti wall, already covered in layer upon layer of names, symbols, and declarations of love. The kind of messy, electric surface that held stories in every streak of color.

I grabbed Zane’s hand. “C’mon. Let’s leave something.”