Page 1 of A Virgo’s Muse (BLP Signs of Love #12)

There’s a difference between being alone and being empty.

Alone, I can manage. I know how to take up space without needing to fill it with noise. I’m good at silence. I prefer it. Quiet feels like control. But this? This was different. This was hollow. This was the kind of quiet that eats at you.

I had been standing in front of blank canvas a lot lately.

It was the fifth one this week. My studio smelled like lemon, eucalyptus, and gesso, but none of it moved me.

The light from the big windows slanted across the wood floors, catching the dust I didn’t bother to sweep.

Jazz hummed low from the speakers, but I couldn’t feel it. Not really.

My fingers twitched around the brush. I lifted my hand toward the canvas like I was about to perform surgery, but my hand dropped before the brush could even make contact. Again. I exhaled through my nose and tried to ignore the tightness creeping up my chest.

I hadn’t painted anything new in five months. Not since the fire. Not since everything I ever created burned down with that house.

Everyone said I was lucky I wasn’t home.

They said that material things could be replaced.

But no one talked about what it was like to lose your beginning…

your first sketches, your rawest pieces, the ones no one was ever meant to see but were proof that you felt something once. I hadn’t felt anything since.

My phone buzzed across the room. I left the brush on the isle and walked over, already praying it was a cancellation or a rain check I didn’t ask for. It was none other than Sade.

Sade:

don’t flake. be dressed by 8. all black. and do not wear that sad-girl perfume you like.

I sighed, my thumb hovering over the screen.

Me:

I’m not going. I have a migraine.

Sade:

take two Tylenol and get cute. this club is invite-only. art collectors will be there.

and money.

She knew my pressure points… always had. She also knew my rent was a week late, and my assistant was politely asking when the next client would show. I hadn’t told anyone I couldn’t paint. I’d just… drifted… hidden behind old work, fake smiles, and gallery invoices I kept avoiding.

I stared at the canvas one last time, hoping it might whisper something to me. Still, nothing.

“Fine,” I muttered to myself.

By 8:12 p.m., I was in the back of Sade’s car wearing a black silk dress I’d only worn once back when I still felt like I belonged in it. My red lipstick was sharp and clean. It was the only thing about me that felt honest tonight.

“Okay, bitch,” Sade said, glancing at me through the rearview. “Didn’t think you were actually gonna come.”

“Neither did I.”

Angel’s Secret was hidden in a back alley with no signage. Just a single door, a velvet rope, and a man in a tailored suit who checked our names like we were applying for government clearance.

Inside, it was smoke and velvet. Gold light washed over the room, soft and heavy, making everyone look expensive. Sculptures rested on black pedestals. Paintings lined the walls like sins dressed up in color. A low hum of music and conversation swirled around me.

Sade was already drifting toward a group of men with watches that cost more than my studio. “You mingle. I sell your name. Don’t make it weird.”

She disappeared before I could even argue.

I walked slowly, ignoring the crowd, the drinks, and the meaningless small talk. I followed the tug in my chest toward the back where a small group of people surrounded a single sculpture.

It was made of metal, bent, scorched, and twisted into the form of a man’s back. His spine arched like he was collapsing under the weight of something invisible, something soul deep. My breath got caught in my throat before I could even understand why.

I stepped closer. The details were violent and beautiful… raw… honest. It didn’t whisper. It screamed.

“Does it speak to you?”

The voice slid over me low, rough, and laced with something that didn’t belong in polite conversation. I turned my head, and he was just standing there—tall, clean cut but not soft, sharp around the edges, black suit, open collar, no tie, eyes like smoke and something darker.

“It doesn’t speak,” I whispered slowly. “It screams.”

He watched me. His mouth didn’t move, but I felt the approval in his silence.

“You made this?” I asked.

He nodded once. “Didn’t sign it.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t need to.”

There was a pause between us. It was thick and warm, like summer heat before a storm.

“Desire,” I said, offering my hand.

He didn’t take it.

“Onyx.”

The name hit different—heavy, elemental, like something forged, not given.

His eyes were locked on me, roaming from the soles of my feet to the top of my head. He didn’t look away. He didn’t break eye contact once.

“I know your work,” he said. “You painted that piece, House of Mirrors . The one with the woman breaking apart without showing her face. That was you.”

I blinked in surprise. “No one ever brings that one up.”

“Most people look at art to be impressed. I look at it to be undone.”

I should’ve walked away. I should’ve nodded politely, gone back to sipping champagne, and pretended to be functional. But I didn’t. Because something about him didn’t feel like a stranger.

He felt like the part of myself I couldn’t reach. The mess beneath the surface I’d been too scared to paint.

“You don’t paint anymore,” he said suddenly, breaking the silence that fell between us. I paused.

“No,” I admitted. “I don’t.”

“You will,” he said, calm and certain. “When you paint me.”

Then he turned and walked away like he didn’t just drop a grenade at my feet and light the fuse with his mouth.

I watched him disappear into the crowd. My heart was beating louder than the bass vibrating through the floor. And for the first time in months… I felt something.

He disappeared before I could even stop him. I stood there surrounded by strangers, smoke, and dim gold lighting still tasting the weight of his words.

“You will. When you paint me.”

Who even says that?

I didn’t know if I wanted to scream, laugh, or chase after him. Instead, I inhaled then released a shaky breath, turning back toward the sculpture—the twisted metal man bent and burdened, frozen in pain. It stared back at me like it knew I was pretending.

This piece, this man… they both undid something I was trying real hard to keep taped together.

I floated through the rest of the night. Smiled here. Sipped champagne there. Laughed when Sade pulled me into a conversation with some finance guy who thought, “Art is cool if it has, like, a message.” I didn’t even correct him. My mind was still locked in that moment… that voice… those eyes.

By the time we left, it was after 1:00 a.m. The air outside was warm and wet. I rolled the window down just to feel something real. The breeze kissed my skin, but it didn’t clear my head.

Back in my apartment, I dropped my keys in the bowl by the door and kicked off my heels.

My dress slid off with a whisper forgotten in a puddle of silk by the couch.

I headed straight to the bathroom to rinse off the night and twist my curls into a loose pineapple before crawling into bed with nothing but my oversized tee and the low hum of the city below my window. But I couldn’t sleep.

I closed my eyes, and there he was. Onyx. He looked at me like he already knew something I hadn’t figured out yet… like I’d already started painting him in my mind and didn’t realize it.

And that voice…

I grabbed my sketchbook from the nightstand.

It’d been untouched for months, but my fingers opened it like they never forgot.

I pressed the pencil to the page. With one line, one shape, I sketched the curve of a jaw, a shadowed brow, and heavy shoulders.

I didn’t think. I felt, whole, alive… inspired.

By the time I blinked, there was a faint outline of a man in smoke and steel staring back at me.

I slammed the book shut. Sleep still didn’t come, but at least I felt something again.

I don’t know when I drifted off to sleep, but here it was morning, and my room reeked of something burnt.

Jumping up, I realized it was the coffee and lavender candle I forgot to blow out.

I was officially fully awake before my alarm started blaring.

Getting out of the bed, my muscles were stiff, but I was still alive.

I pulled my curls into a puff as I began to walk to my bathroom down the hall.

I did my daily hygiene routine, then I turned on the shower.

I allowed it to heat up before stepping in and washing away all of my sleepiness away.

I washed my body twice before getting out.

I dried my body off then applied lotion. Walking back into my room, I went straight to my closet.

I wanted to be comfy today, so I put my oversized My Desires Studio tee on and my black biker shorts that had paint splatters all over them. I went to my vanity mirror in the corner to fix my hair.

I used my brush to smooth down all of my flyaways. I pulled all of my hair to the back and put it in a loose ponytail before I added my paintbrush claw clip. I swiped on some clear gloss before making my way over to my beat-up Converses. I gathered my bag and keys and was on my way to my studio.

Walking into the studio, it smelled like turpentine and sage.

I looked up at my clock that was mounted on the wall.

The time read 8:45 a.m. I exhaled quietly before busying myself around the studio preparing the blank canvases, paint, paint brushes, and water to clean the brushes when they got too dirty.

Within no time, the kids began trickling in around 9:30 a.m., bright-eyed and loud, dragging their parents behind them. I smiled through it. I loved this part—teaching. Watching them discover color and shapes and the freedom of expression. They didn’t know about rules yet. They just created.

I guided them through an abstract self-portrait activity.

“You don’t have to draw your face the way it looks,” I told them. “Draw it the way it feels.”

One little girl painted herself in swirls of deep purple and gold. A boy in the back splattered red all over his canvas and said, “This is how mad I feel when my mom says no.”

They’re honest, raw, brave. I envy them.

Time flew by, and it was soon 6:00 p.m. The last kid left with paint smudged on his cheeks and a rolled-up canvas tucked under his arm. I locked the door, pulled the blinds halfway, and started cleaning up.

There was something peaceful about this part, washing brushes, scrubbing dried acrylic off tables, putting the room back together. It was the closest I’d come to calm in weeks.

Old school R&B floated through the speakers. The singer’s voice poured out soft and aching, wrapping around me like a memory. I swayed a little while wiping the paint-splattered floor, singing under my breath.

“Un-break my heart…”

I didn’t even hear the door open. Didn’t hear the alarm chime. My back was to it. I was rinsing out a cup of murky water when the hairs on my neck began to rise, like something just shifted in the air… heavy… electric.

I turned slowly. There he was, standing in the far corner of the studio, leaning in the shadows between the canvas racks and the exposed brick wall.

Onyx. Same black on black. This time, a hoodie. No jewelry. No smile. Just that same unnerving calm, like he was carved from silence and ash.

I didn’t move. My breath was caught in my chest.

“How did you get in?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Door was open.”

“It wasn’t.”

“You sure?”

His voice was low, like a secret I wasn’t supposed to hear twice. I narrowed my eyes. I should’ve been asking more questions. Hell, I should’ve probably called someone, but I don’t know. I just watched him and the way he studied the room, my art… me.

He stepped forward slow and quiet, like a question he already knew the answer to.

“You ever paint that canvas?” he asked, eyes flicking to the one I abandoned yesterday.

“No.”

“Why not?”

I swallowed. “You really want to know?”

“Yeah.”

“Because I lost it,” I said. My voice barely above a whisper. “The spark. The feeling. I thought it was gone. Then you showed up last night, dropped some cryptic-ass line, and disappeared like a movie villain, and now I can’t stop thinking about a man made of iron and grief.”

His mouth twitched in a smirk, almost a smile.

I crossed my arms. “You always sneak into women’s studios uninvited, or am I special?”

“You’re special,” he said simply.

The silence after that was so full.

“I wasn’t trying to pull you out of anything last night,” he added. “Just wanted to see what you’d do with the feeling.”

“Well,” I said, stepping closer. “I drew you. In my sketchbook around 2:00 a.m.”

His brows lifted slightly, but he didn’t speak. I could see it in his eyes. He already knew I would.

“I don’t know what this is, but something about you makes me want to create again.”

He finally closed the distance between us, and now, we were inches away from sharing the same breath. He smelled like smoke and sandalwood.

“Then let’s create,” he said, taking off his hoodie, tossing it somewhere in the studio.

I didn’t know why he was having this effect on me… not fully. But a part of me, the wild part I kept buried beneath routine and lists and Virgo logic, wanted to find out.