Page 15

TEN

SEBASTIAN

T he city blurs past the windshield as I steer into Belltown, the sharp curve of the road dipping toward the water.

Seattle's summer sun is out in full force but it's wasted on me.

My thoughts are too loud. My skin still tingles from the press of Derrick's mouth on mine.

No matter how many red lights I hit, I can't slow down what just happened or how badly I already want more.

The gallery sits tucked into a brick building with tall windows and antique ironwork.

One of those spaces that looks like it should smell like espresso and pretension but somehow always smells like cedar, turpentine and raw possibility.

It's Christian's domain, which means it's mine too, at least the side of me no one else sees.

I park around back and let myself in through the private entrance. The space is quiet except for the soft hum of the lights and the distant sound of Christian talking to someone in the front.

When he rounds the corner, tablet in hand, his eyes flick immediately to the newly framed canvas I’m carrying under one arm.

"You bring me something finished or another tortured metaphor in oil?" he asks, half-grin already forming.

"Little of both." I shrug with a growing smile, feeling a flicker of warmth cut through the tension I've been carrying.

Christian is not only my art dealer but one of my closest friends.

The rare kind who sees past the surface to substance.

During hockey season we barely see each other, our friendship sustained through text messages and facetime calls at odd hours when the rest of the world is sleeping.

He takes the canvas from me without ceremony and props it against the nearest wall, his movements practiced and familiar.

"Let me guess. Moody background, impossible texture, and some vaguely recognizable man hidden behind a wall of brushstrokes?" His voice carries that particular blend of affection and exasperation I've come to rely on.

I give him a look, crossing my arms. "You sound surprised." There's a defensiveness in my tone I can't quite mask.

Christian snorts, his fingers already tracing the air an inch from the canvas, following the lines only he and I would recognize as meaningful. "Please. You've been painting him for weeks."

I tense, shoulders drawing up toward my ears.

The gallery suddenly feels smaller. "You don't know that.

" The denial sounds hollow, even to me. I know he knows.

Christian comes and goes from my studio whenever he needs to.

He has a key to my home, has had it for years.

Whatever is in there is up for grabs if he deems it's finished.

That's the kind of trust we've established over the years, built on late nights, brutal honesty, and a shared understanding that art reveals what words can't.

He tilts his head, amusement dancing in his eyes like he's enjoying my discomfort a little too much.

"Sebastian, I've been pulling pieces from your studio since you were nineteen.

I can spot a shift in subject matter from a mile away.

" His voice softens as he studies the canvas.

"Same shoulders. Same mouth. Same tragic longing in every frame.

" He pauses, and I feel exposed in a way that makes me want to snatch the painting back.

"You never paint people unless they've wrecked you. "

I don't answer. He's not wrong.

He softens slightly, backing off. "I stopped by last night to grab the last two for the exhibit. It was late and I guess you were asleep. Which is unusual for you in the off season. Didn't go past the studio, but. . ." He gives me a look. "You have company."

I raise a brow, trying to keep my expression neutral even as something uncomfortable shifts beneath my ribs. "What gave it away?"

"The second coffee mug in the sink. The pill bottles on the counter with someone else's name on them.” Christian ticks off the items on his fingers, his voice matter-of-fact but his eyes watchful. "You're good at hiding, Bast, but I know what to look for. I've had years of practice."

I sigh, running a hand over my fade, feeling the familiar scratch against my palm. The studio lights suddenly seem too bright, too exposing. "It's temporary," I say, the words coming out clipped, defensive.

"Mmhmm." Christian's noncommittal hum conveys layers of skepticism I'm not ready to address.

"He's. . .recovering." My voice drops, thinking of Derrick asleep in my guest room this morning, facedown in the pillow, the line of his spine vulnerable in the early light.

"I offered him a place to stay." The explanation feels inadequate even to me, stripping away all the complicated reasons, the pull I felt toward him from the first moment.

Christian doesn't bite. Doesn't dig. Just nods like he already knows there's more under the surface and trusts I'll give it up when I'm ready. It's this quality that makes him dangerous and essential in equal measure, his ability to wait me out.

He walks across the polished concrete floor to a canvas half-covered in kraft paper.

The painting. The first one I painted of him weeks ago.

The one I didn't mean to let him see. The one of Derrick, soft and quiet and furious in its honesty.

My fingers twitch at my side with the impulse to step between Christian and the canvas, to shield it from view like I'm somehow protecting the man it depicts.

"You want this in the show?" Christian asks, already peeling back the paper with a reverence that makes me look away.

I should say no. I should tell him to stash it until I'm dead and buried. I should reclaim it entirely, take it home and add it to the stack of canvases that will never see daylight. The painting reveals too much. Not of Derrick. . .of me. Of what I see when I look at him.

Instead, I say, "If it fits," my voice distant even to my own ears. The surrender feels monumental, like letting go of a guardrail I've been gripping too tightly.

Christian smiles like he's won a long game, satisfaction lighting his features. "It does. And it'll be the centerpiece," he says with such certainty that I wonder if he's had this planned since the moment he first saw the painting sitting on the easel in my studio.

I roll my shoulders, tension pulsing just under the skin, radiating down my back in warning waves. "No names."

"Always. B. Ardent, only." He scribbles something on his tablet with practiced efficiency. The pseudonym feels less like armor these days, more like a thin veil that anyone could lift if they looked closely enough. "But you need to be careful, Bast."

I glance at him, brows raised, though I suspect I already know what's coming.

"Because whoever he is, he's already in your house. Something tells me he’s not an unknown," Christian says softly, his tone gentle in a way that makes the truth harder to deflect. "And if he's in your paintings, too? You're not going to be able to hide this part of yourself forever."

The words land with precision, finding the exact space between my ribs where fear and desire have been waging their silent war.

I look away. "I'm not ready."

"Then get ready." He pauses, meeting my gaze. "You can't half-exist forever."

The words hit like a punch to the sternum. I know he's right. I've built my life around locked doors and compartmentalized rooms but Derrick Shaw is in every one of them now and I don't think I want to shut the door anymore.

DERRICK

The first thing I notice after Bast leaves is the silence. Not the comfortable kind, the strange, echoey sort that makes you feel like you're squatting in someone else's life.

I wander the house barefoot, my toes curling against the cool hardwood, feeling like I've stumbled into a museum curated by a man I've realized I only half know.

It's too clean, too orderly. Not a speck of dust, not a single thing out of place.

Even the throw pillows look like they'd judge me for sitting on them wrong.

The living room is all glass and steel and earthy tones, masculine but minimal.

The back wall is mostly windows that open to a view of Lake Washington so stunning it feels fake, like someone hung up a billboard of paradise.

There's a narrow dock stretching out from the yard, and a sleek boat bobbing gently at the end of it like a secret waiting to be used.

The kind of boat my mom and I would point at on TV shows and joke about ‘when we win the lottery’.

I should just watch TV, maybe scroll through my phone. Normal stuff. Text my mom, check in on her but my attention keeps drifting back to the hallway, like there's a magnet pulling me toward it.

Specifically, to that door.

The one Bast hides behind for hours, emerging with flecks of paint on his hands that he thinks I don’t notice.

The one I've passed three times already under the very adult guise of ‘just stretching my legs’. My physical therapist would approve of all this aimless wandering.

Every time I walk by it, the urge grows stronger, an itch I can't scratch.

Redirecting my thoughts, I don't give in and try the library instead.

Floor-to-ceiling shelves, all art books and architectural theory, sketchbooks and dusty journals.

Nothing like the sports biographies and comic books that fill my shelves back home.

I find a notebook full of figure studies, faceless bodies in motion.

Bast's hand, I think. I flip through it slower than I mean to, studying the lines, the precision, fingers hovering just above the paper like it might burn me.

The figures seem to dance across the pages, caught mid-motion with such accuracy it makes my chest tight.

Whoever he is when he's not standing between the pipes. . .it lives in these pages.

Eventually, I cave. Of course, I cave. I'm bored, hella curious, and maybe a little desperate to find something that makes Sebastian Bergeron human rather than the mythical figure I've built him up to be since I was twelve.

I double back down the hall, and this time I stop at the door. It's not locked but it might as well be with the way my fingers hesitate on the knob, trembling slightly. The voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like my mother tells me this is how you lose trust, by taking instead of asking.

I shouldn't—but I do.

The scent of paint hits me first. Thick, sharp, and earthy in the way only real oil paint can be. Nothing like those craft acrylics Mom and I used on rainy Sundays when I was a kid. This smell is expensive, sophisticated, the kind that belongs in museums behind velvet ropes.

The room opens up like a cathedral, vaulted ceilings, whitewashed walls spattered with color like confetti frozen mid-toss.

A massive window overlooks the lake, the golden light of late afternoon pouring across the hardwood floors, turning dust motes into tiny constellations that dance when I disturb them.

And the canvases.

They're everywhere. Leaning against walls, stacked in corners, propped on easels in varying stages of completion.

Color explodes in every direction, violent reds, serene blues, textured blacks with depth I want to fall into.

Abstract pieces that feel like emotions given form.

Landscapes that seem to breathe. Each one different yet connected by some invisible thread I can't quite name but can definitely feel.

My breath catches when I see it.

A sketch, just a partial one, done in charcoal. Half a face. My face.

I step closer, drawn forward like I'm being pulled by invisible strings.

There's no mistaking it. The shape of my jaw, drawn with a tenderness I didn't know could exist in charcoal or pencil.

The curl of my hair, each coil given attention that feels almost reverent.

The slight downturn of my mouth that I recognize from a thousand mirror checks.

Drawn with so much precision it makes my throat close up. It's me, but it's also. . .more than me. Like he saw something I don't see when I look at myself.

Then I see the signature at the corner, elegant and understated.

My knees nearly give out. I have to steady myself against the edge of a table, careful not to disturb the paintbrushes soaking in jars of clear liquid.

I take a step back, the air thinner than it was seconds ago, like I've climbed to some high altitude where oxygen comes at a premium. The paintings hanging in the hallway. The pieces in the guest room. The ones I'd admired while thinking they must have cost a fortune—they're his. All his.

Whipping out my phone, I google the name and nearly faint but it has nothing to do with my concussion.

Sebastian Bergeron, Seattle Vipers star Goalie. He's B. Ardent. And he's been drawing me.

“B. Ardent is one of the most sought-after reclusive artists in the modern world.”

“No public appearances. No known photographs. Estimated net worth: $1B.”

“Work sells at auction for upwards of $500K–$1M.”

"What the fuck? How is this possible? How has he been able to hide this without the league knowing?" I whisper.

I spin slowly, taking in the room again, like seeing it for the first time. How could I have been so blind? How many secrets can one man keep under that cool, clipped shell of his?

And then I feel it, that twist of something low in my gut. Not betrayal exactly. But something like being sucker-punched by the truth.

This whole time. . .

A floorboard creaks behind me. I turn, heart lurching. Bast stands in the doorway, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable. His eyes flick from me to the sketch on the easel.

“Well,” he says quietly, voice even. “I guess I have some explaining to do.”