˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

not because he's particularly loud about it (though he is loud, you'll learn this later); no, you almost drop the squeegee because he pushes through the door at 4:47 pm on a thursday, thirteen minutes before close, wearing a jacket that's approximately four sizes too big for him and carrying a folder so stuffed with papers that it's held shut with not one but three rubber bands, and he looks around the shop with the expression of a man who has just found water in a desert.

“hi,” he says, to no one in particular, to the whole room, even if it’s just the two of you in there, “this is a print shop, yes?”

you set the squeegee down on the workbench, carefully, and turn to face him. the overhead fluorescents catch the ink stains on your forearms and he doesn't even glance at them, because he's looking at your face like you're the most important person he's spoken to all week. maybe all month. it's a little unnerving, but it’s also a little flattering. you don't know what to do with it yet so you file it away somewhere in the back of your brain, under things to think about later when you're not covered in printing ink.

“screen printing, mostly,” you say, “we do some digital transfer but the bulk of it is screen. you got a project?”

he exhales, relieved, “yes. okay. yes,” he comes to the counter, drops the folder on it with a thud, and starts wrestling with the rubber bands. “i have a band. not— i mean, i'm not in the band, i do their merch. i design stuff, i've been printing it myself but it looks —” he pauses, tilting his head, searching for the word, “bad. it looks bad. like, someone-made-this-in-his-dorm-room-at-2AM-bad.”

“was that someone you?”

“yes,” he says, very solemnly, “that someone was me.”

you almost smile. you manage not to. (barely.)

he gets the folder open and fans out a collection of printed designs on scrap pieces of fabric across your counter. some of them are clearly heat-transfer, where the ink sits on top of the fabric like a decal instead of sinking into it, and a few of them have the telltale ghost of a peel-edge. they're not terrible, actually. the designs themselves have something going on, this sort of loose, hand-done quality that feels intentional even when it isn't, and it’s the kind of aesthetic that college garage bands with slightly too much personality tend to gravitate toward.

you pick one up. it's a t-shirt graphic, band name in a font that looks like it was sketched out by hand, a rough little drawing of what appears to be five stick figures in various poses with their respective musical instruments.

“rookie '25?” you read.

“that’s us,” he leans on the counter, and it takes you a moment to realize he's watching you look at the designs the same way you'd watch someone read something you wrote, as if bracing for impact, “it's kind of a joke, right, we're all third years, and we’re not even in the class of ‘25 but– listen, i just do the— the visual stuff. which i'm clearly very good at," he adds, gesturing at the heat-transfer catastrophes spread across your counter.

“these aren't that bad,” you say, because you mean it and because you've seen genuinely bad— you once had a client bring in a file that was literally just a jpeg someone had screenshotted off google images, and you could tell the search was helmet png because it had the grey and white checkerboard background behind it, and asked you to screen print it without the background. this is not that. “the designs are actually good. it's just the execution.”

something shifts in his expression. “yeah?”

“screen printing will make them look completely different. it deposits the ink into the fabric instead of on top of it, so you get that—” you gesture vaguely at yourself, at the shop, at the concept of good printing in general, “— quality feel. more like actual band merch.”

“more like we didn't make it in a dorm room at 2 AM.”

“exactly.”

he grins. it's a good grin, takes up his whole face, eyes crinkling unabashedly, “okay,” he says, “tell me what i need to do.”

what he needs to do, as it turns out, is come back. a lot.

this is not unusual in itself;  screen printing isn't a one-visit process, especially for someone learning it for himself from the ground up. there's the initial consultation, then the file prep, then the film positives, then the screen burning, then the press check, and somewhere in the middle of all of that there's usually a lot of back-and-forth about colorways and fabrics and how many shirts they actually need. regular clients come in regularly. this is normal.

what is slightly less normal is that franco colapinto, merch guy for rookie '25, appears to have gotten the impression that he needs to test a new design approximately every two weeks.

you notice it somewhere around the fourth visit. you're at the light table, cleaning up for the day, when he comes in with that same overstuffed folder and the expression of a man with a mission, and he spreads three new sketches across your counter and says, “so i was thinking… what if we did a long sleeve this time, but with a different colorway? like, the same base design but we switch the ink colors?”

you look at the sketches. they're good, and it’s because they're always good, “a different colorway is basically a separate run,” you tell him, flipping through the pages, “you'd be paying per color per screen, so if you're doing two colorways of the same design you're essentially doubling your screen costs.”

he nods very seriously, “right, okay, so if we… what if we just did a sample first? just one or two shirts to see how it looks?”

“you already have samples from last time.”

“those were for a different design.”

“you have a lot of designs for a band with—” you glance up, “— what did you say, two hundred instagram followers?”

the corner of his mouth curve up, “two hundred and twelve, actually. we're growing.”

“right,” you look back at the sketches, because looking at the sketches is safer than looking at whatever is happening at the corner of his mouth. “i can do a sample run. it'll be a smaller setup fee since we've already got your base screens. send me the files and i'll work up a quote.”

“great,” he says, and you can hear the smile in it even when you're not looking, “i'll have them to you by friday.”

he does. he also leaves, on the back of the spec sheet, a small drawing of what appears to be a cartoon version of both of you at the light table, with a little speech bubble from cartoon franco that says this girl is very smart and knows everything about printing. underneath it, in different ink, as if he had scribbled it on a while later: also she should tell me if she wants coffee sometime.

you put it in the second drawer of the workbench, under a stack of order forms.

you don't throw it away.

the notes become a thing.

you don't know exactly when they become a thing, only that at some point you start leaving space in your own scribbled order notes— margin space, white space at the bottom of a spec sheet— because he always fills it in. it starts with his cartoon of the both of you at the light table and escalates, in the same way that things escalate when you're not paying careful enough attention, into something that occupies more and more of your brain at inconvenient hours.

he leaves a little sketch of a squeegee with a face on it. you draw a tiny ink well next to it with an arrow and write stop drawing on my work papers. he writes back never!!! with three exclamation points and a small star. he asks, via scrap paper, whether you prefer screen printing to digital and you write back a surprisingly long answer about the tactile quality of it, about how there's something you like about a process that's physical and a little unpredictable and leaves room for happy accidents.

the next time he comes in he looks at you over the counter with an expression you can't fully parse and says, “you wrote a lot.”

“you asked,” you say with a shrug of your shoulder.

“i did,” he agrees. and then, as though he is saying a universal truth: “i liked reading it.”

you think about that for three days.

the thing is— and you are aware this is a thing, you're not oblivious, you have eyes and a functioning nervous system— franco colapinto is very attractive and very aware that he's very attractive which should be annoying but he is so endearing in a way that is circles back to being less annoying, if that makes any sense.

he flirts with you the way some people breathe: constantly, easily, and apparently wwithout any effort. and the thing about that, the thing you keep bumping into when you turn it over in your mind at night, is that it doesn't feel like a performance. he flirts with the girl at the coffee cart across the street, sure (you've seen it, he got a free muffin out of it once) but when he leans on your counter and asks you questions about riso printing (which, you tell him, you’re learning to do despite working mostly with textiles), with his chin in his hand and his eyes on your face like there's nothing more interesting happening anywhere on earth, something about it feels different. it feels more… deliberate? if that’s the word. it’s like he's choosing it.

you're probably projecting. you are, statistically speaking, a person who has been wrong about things before.

still.

still.

INTERLUDE. elsewhere, a gig set up.

the venue is, as it has always been every first and third tuesday of the month for the past two years, at yuki's, a bar that holds one hundred people on a good night and smells like sticky floors and old cigarettes, the latter evident in the yellow-stained walls underneath the peeling wallpaper. isack is doing a soundcheck that has gone on fourteen minutes longer than necessary. ollie is tuning his guitar for what is, by her count, the fifth time, kimi tapping impatiently on his keyboard waiting for him to finish. gabriel and jack are arguing pleasantly about something involving a tambourine that no one asked for.

she is holding a clipboard and a cold brew and looking at the box of samples plopped on top of what is supposedly the merch table, and she is, quietly, losing her mind.

“franco,” she says, in the tone she has developed specifically for the moments when someone is about to hear something they won't enjoy. franco is arranging the samples by colorway, which she would find endearing if she were not doing math in her head. “how many samples do we have?”

“like, seven different runs,” he says, not looking up, “i'm still deciding on the hoodie colorway.”

“we have two hundred instagram followers.”

“two hundred and twenty-two,” he corrects, “gabi got us some new ones after his guess the song video.”

“franco. who do you think is buying all of this merch?”

he finally looks up,  “we're building inventory,” he tries, “for when we blow up.”

she stares at him. she has known franco for two and a half years and she has, in that time, developed a specific kind of patience for him that she would describe as hard won, “franco. the samples alone… how much have you spent?”

he gives her a number that makes her close her eyes, count to ten.

“that is our entire merch budget for the semester,” she says, very calmly, once she’s reached ten.

“it's an investment,” he reasons. then, because he is franco and franco cannot help himself: “and maybe you should buy a shirt or something. i noticed you've been wearing isack's hoodie for three gigs in a row, so maybe focus your energy—”

“finish that sentence,” she says, pointing a finger at him, “and i will put you in charge of social media again.”

franco closes his mouth. they both know what happened last time he was in charge of the social media.

she turns back to her clipboard, goes through the pre-show checklist they always do. she will deal with the samples later. she will also deal with whatever is happening with franco and his obsession with samples, because she has managed this band for almost three years and she is not stupid, and investment is not a word that explains seven runs of samples for a band with two hundred and twenty-two instagram followers.

the thing cracks on a thursday, which feels appropriate, somehow, since the whole thing started on a thursday and it's going to unravel on one, too. narrative symmetry, in a way.

franco comes in at the usual time, unusual in that he's carrying not just the folder but also two coffees, and he sets one on the counter in front of you with the ease of someone who has been doing this for months, which he has not, except that he's been leaving coffee? on scrap paper for months so perhaps it feels like the same thing to him. “i got you oat milk,” he says. “because you mentioned —”

“i mentioned it in a note,” you say, “two months ago.”

“i have a good memory.” he opens the folder. “okay, so i was thinking… new idea, what if we did a hoodie with a print on the sleeve instead of the chest? kind of more architectural, you know, less expected —”

“franco.” you say.

he looks up.

“how many of these are you actually going to sell?”

something in his expression does a quick, almost imperceptible thing. a flicker, there and gone, “what do you mean?”

“i mean—” you gesture at the folder, at the counter, at the general accumulated evidence of seven sample runs and three colorway tests and one inexplicable tote bag order, “you have two hundred followers. you've got samples in every fabric we carry, you've got color tests for designs,— i even printed tote bags!— and now you’re telling me you want to test out a new design. so i guess i'm asking — what are these for? like, genuinely man, what's the plan here?”

there is a pause. it's the longest pause franco colapinto has ever produced in your presence, which is saying something because he is, as a baseline, a person who reflexively fills silences. he looks at the folder. he looks at the coffee.

then, he looks at you.

“okay,” he says, slowly.

“okay?” you echo.

“don't— okay, don't make it weird.”

“i'm not making it weird, i asked a normal —”

“the tote bags were because you mentioned offhand that you'd never actually gotten to do a run of totes and you wanted to see how the registration came out on a smaller surface area.” he says it fast, like pulling off a bandage, and he continues, “the sleeve print is because you said once that you thought chest prints were overdone. the second colorway was because you said you liked— well, you said colors that shouldn't work together sometimes work together, and i wanted to see which ones you'd pick.” he stops. he looks, for the first time since you've known him, almost uncertain, “i wasn't really thinking about the followers, or the budget, i was thinking about… i just wanted to come in. and have a reason to come in. and you always know what to do with the designs so i just kept—” he picks up his coffee, puts it back down. “i know that's stupid.”

you look at him for a long moment.

“franco.”

“yeah?”

“do you know how much ink costs per liter?”

he blinks. “i — what?”

“ink.” you fold your arms, “do you know what the setup cost is for a new screen? the exposure time, the emulsion, the cleanup? every sample run we do, that's time and materials an —” you stop, because he's starting to look genuinely stricken, like a kicked puppy, which was not actually the goal here, “i'm not — i'm not mad. i'm not. i just need you to understand that this isn't a zero-cost thing, the samples. it's not like i'm doing your samples for fun.”

“i know.” he says, quietly. “i know, i should have— i wasn't thinking about that, i was only thinking about—” he makes a vague gesture that encompasses, apparently, you, “i'm sorry. genuinely. that was really inconsiderate.”

the thing is, he means it. and you can tell he means it, because it’s evident in the way his whole posture changes, losing the easy lean that's become so familiar to you, going a little more careful.

franco colapinto doing sincere is, you're learning in real time, a different frequency than franco colapinto doing charming. both of them hit you somewhere in the sternum.

“okay,” you say.

“okay?” it’s his turn now to repeat it.

“i said i wasn’t mad.”

“right.” he nods. then, after a beat: “but you're something.”

“i'm… something,” you agree, “i'm—” you stop. you pick up the coffee he brought you, the oat milk one, the one he remembered from a note you wrote two months ago. “i'm going to tell you how much each run actually costs. because if you're going to keep doing this you should know what it costs.”

he goes very still, eyes wide, “keep doing this?”

“i'm not saying go order ten more sample runs.” you warn him as you open the order book, flip to a fresh page. “i'm just saying, if you have an actual project, come in. and if you want to see how sleeve prints register, we can talk about that too. but we're going to write it down and you're going to look at the numbers.”

“you're still going to let me come in,” he says, slowly, like he's checking.

“franco.”

“sorry, sorry— yes. yes, numbers. i will look at all the numbers.” he's smiling now, and it's different from the grin he walked in with that first thursday, it’s softer, maybe. more like something he's not quite trying to perform, “can i also— just to be clear— can i still leave notes?”

you look down at the order book. you think about the second drawer of the workbench, which now contains approximately eleven pieces of scrap paper with varying degrees of cartoons and questions and one very earnest you seem like someone who is really good at most things and i would like to know what the other things are.

"yeah," you say. "you can still leave notes."

he exhales. reaches into the folder, pulls out the sleeve print sketch — the one that is, objectively, a better design than anything on the first visit, because he's been getting better, you've been watching him get better, which is its own kind of problem you haven't looked at directly yet. "okay," he says. "so. tell me about the numbers."

you tell him about the numbers. he writes some of them down on the back of the spec sheet and draws an exclamation point next to the ones that surprise him. at 5:03, thirteen minutes after the shop was supposed to close, he's still at the counter and you're still talking, and the overhead fluorescents are doing that late-evening thing where they get a little warmer, or maybe that's just the way you're choosing to see it.

“hey,” he says, eventually, when the conversation has wound down to a natural pause, “the coffee thing. the notes.”

“yeah?”

“i know i went about it in a way that was—” he makes a face — “a lot. and not very practical. and slightly expensive.”

“slightly,” you repeat, slowly, not quite believing him.

“okay… maybe very expensive. like, i put my own personal money towards it. but i meant it, the curiosity. i wasn't just coming in to waste your time—” he stops, tries again, “i wanted an excuse because i wanted to talk to you. but also i actually wanted to talk to you. does that make sense?”

it makes, unfortunately, a tremendous amount of sense.

“it makes sense.” you say.

“okay.” he gathers the folder, snaps the rubber bands back around it. “so if i asked you to get actual coffee— not a sample run, not a design excuse, just coffee— would that also make sense?”

you think about thursdays and talking to him for so long you close up forty-five minutes after you’re supposed to. you think about eleven scrap papers in a drawer. you think about a cartoon version of franco at the light table with a speech bubble saying this girl is very smart and knows everything about printing, which you still haven't thrown away and at this point probably won't.

“yeah,” you say. “that would also make sense.”

he smiles, fully. “thursday?” he asks.

“next thursday.” you say.

he leaves a sketch on the counter when he goes, and on the back of it, in the margin, is a small drawing of two coffee cups and a star.

you put it in the drawer with the rest of them.

THE SETLIST, a.k.a. the main show.

that's the way it goes  ⸻  isack  hadjar  x  reader  ⸻  or,  the band reminisce on how you got the manager role in the first place.

ENCORE, a.k.a. stories for the other band members, with different mcs.

you’ve spent the past two days alternating between staring at a blank page and berating yourself for staring at a blank page, which is, ironically, just another form of procrastination.

it’s not even that you don’t want to start, you just don’t know where. it feels like every thought you’ve had has already been said, painted, sculpted, dissected to death, and who are you to think you’ll come up with something new?

it’s exhausting, loving something this much. it’s exhausting, feeling everything so deeply that even the act of trying to put it into words feels like a betrayal of how big it is inside you.

you only remember the gallery because of a poster. you’re halfway across campus, nursing a smoothie from the caf’s walmart version of jamba juice, when you spot it tacked to the bulletin board— nouvelle exposition française: art from the 18th to 21st centuries.

“okay,” you mutter to yourself, squinting at the glossy image of a woman in a powdered wig, “what kind of french art?”

there’s no answer, obviously, but you still roll your eyes, half at yourself, half at the vagueness of the world. fine. you’ll take whatever inspiration you can get, even if it means enduring an entire exhibit of pastel cherubs and men in powdered wigs pretending to be thoughtful.

so you go that afternoon.

the campus museum— the gallery — is almost empty when you get there. just a couple of tourists trailing behind a guide, some art majors sketching quietly in the corner. the student at the front desk doesn’t even look up when you flash your id.

you take the stairs up to the second floor two at a time, where the exhibit starts.

it’s… fine. you can tell it’s supposed to be inspired, but something about the arrangement feels lazy, like they ran out of space halfway through and started improvising. you make mental notes anyway, walking past the first few displays in a polite sort of disinterest. oils, pastels, sculptures, impressionists next to surrealists next to something that looks like it belongs in a completely different museum. 

you start to think maybe your adviser was wrong, maybe there’s such a thing as starting too early. still, you stop in front of each piece because that’s what good students do, hoping that maybe something will stick.

and then it does.

you almost miss it, tucked away in a quiet section, almost hidden between two larger, louder pieces, a modest brass filigree frame, no bigger than a door, maybe four feet by six. not grand, not loud. just quiet. pretty unassuming. but it catches you anyway, in that strange, magnetic kind of pull that stops you mid-step.

the subject is a young man. he’s seated, turned slightly toward the painter, his gaze soft. his hair is dark, the kind of brown that turns golden when the light hits it, his skin luminous in the half-shadow, his mouth curved like he’s trying not to smile. the clothes are simple, a white shirt, collar open, a dark coat draped over his shoulders. it looks late 1800s, judging by the clothes and the furniture, but that’s not what hooks you.

it’s the way he’s painted. the light falls on him like he’s being seen for the first time, like the artist loved him so much he had to make him immortal. you can feel the affection in every inch of it— the slight tilt of his head, the soft crease between his brows, tthe way his hand rests on his knee as though the painter couldn’t bear to let that detail go unseen.

you lean in to read the plaque beside it. one word. alexandre. no artist’s name, no date, no title. just that.

you should move on. there’s an entire hallway left to see. but your feet don’t move. you just stand there, your reflection faint against the glass, the hum of the gallery’s air conditioning soft in your ears.

not to say you fall in love, but—

you sit down right there, ignoring the slight creak of the bench, the soft hum of the air conditioner, the faint echo of your own heartbeat. you take out your sketchbook. you don’t even think— your pencil moves before your brain can stop it. you start tracing his face, line after line, until you can almost feel the shape of him under your fingertips. the curve of his jaw. the tilt of his head. the mole near his ear that the artist must have adored enough to keep.

hours pass before you realize the light outside has changed, spilling through the high windows in muted gold. your music has looped twice, your pencil’s smudged your fingertips gray, and still you can’t stop. you’re not sure what exactly you’re searching for in his face— maybe the story, maybe the feeling— but whatever it is, it’s enough to make you stay there until the gallery lights flicker, warning you that it’s closing time.

you pack up reluctantly, look back once more before leaving. the man in the  painting stares back, unchanged.

you tell yourself it’s nothing, just curiosity, just character study. but when you get home and see your sketches laid out across the floor, every one of them looks just like him.

isack hadjar does not believe in luck. he never has. his father told him once over dinner that luck was just the word people used when they didn’t want to admit someone worked harder. luck wasn’t what got him into the best physics program at his university, nor was it luck that got him the full ride. luck didn’t make the universe expand or make the equations click into place in his head like they were always meant to.

merit did all that. long nights spent hunched over equations did. his scholarship, his discipline, his absolute refusal to believe in coincidence— that’s what did it.

so, obviously, he doesn’t believe in luck. or he shouldn’t.

except lately, he’s starting to think luck might believe in him.

because somehow, despite all that, he’s stuck giving tours at the campus museum for his required work hours, and if that isn’t a cosmic joke he doesn’t know what is. it looks good on paper: air-conditioning, a small allowance, no heavy lifting (though he wouldn’t mind that, even!), and it’s a campus job, which means proximity to the lab.

the thing about paper is that it’s flat, and the thing about real life is that it’s not.

he thought the job would be easy. maybe he’d hang out behind the desk with pepe, the guy who’s manning the reception counter for the summer. he thought he’d get to stand around, read a book, maybe answer the occasional question about where the bathrooms were.

what he hadn’t accounted for was that apparently, everyone decided the gallery was the perfect summer activity. tourists, parents, retired professors, and most especially art camp kids in matching t-shirts, toting around sketchbooks bigger than their torsos.

so now, every day, he’s giving tours in the echoing halls of the museum, repeating the same script over and over in that half-bored, half-fake-enthusiastic tone he’s perfected. 

“this piece— uhhh— portrays the struggle of…” he trails off, realizing he’s read the wrong paragraph from his notes again. “...light and shadow. in a very symbolic way.” he gestures vaguely toward the nearest painting. the group murmurs politely.

isack knows gets away with it because his accent distracts people, makes everything sound more authentic. the upper deities of the financial aid department assigned him this post because he’s french. that’s it. not because he knows art, or cares too much particularly about it, but because the exhibit is called new french art, and apparently that makes him the closest thing to a cultural ambassador this side of the atlantic.

he doesn’t hate it, it’s just… tedious. the same questions, the same footsteps echoing against the same parquet floors. 

by the third week of summer, he’s perfected the art of cutting corners. he shuffles people past the middle section quickly, the one with all the portraits. no one ever notices. he times his speeches by heart: ten minutes from impressionism to postmodern, eight if he walks fast enough.

he thinks of luck again sometimes, but only when he catches the bus just as the doors are closing, or when pepe sneaks him free coffee from the café. those are just… a series of events falling into each other, not luck.

he doesn’t notice you.

not the first time, or the second, or the sixth, or even the tenth. to him, you’re just another blur in the periphery, someone sitting cross-legged on the bench, sketchbook open, headphones on, the faint clatter of pencil against paper swallowed by the museum’s stillness. he’s too busy counting heads, too busy watching the clock, too busy thinking about lunch.

but if he did notice, if he ever slowed down long enough to look, he might see how your shoulders tilt slightly when you draw, how you bite the inside of your cheek when a line doesn’t come out the way you want. he might see the mess of graphite on your fingertips, the ghost of the painting you’re recreating etched across a dozen half-finished pages. 

he might have even liked the way your brow furrows in concentration, how the strands of your hair keep falling into your eyes until you push them back impatiently, smudging a streak of pencil on your cheek without realizing. he might like the smallness of that moment, the sheerintimacy of it, the quiet act of someone so consumed by something that time forgets to move forward.

but he doesn’t notice any of that.

instead, isack hadjar finishes another tour, pockets the crumpled script the manager, claire, gave him at the start of the summer, and leans against the reception counter. pepe offers him a mint. he declines. there’s a smear of charcoal on the back of his hand— from brushing past one of the art camp kids brandishing their art supplies like a sword, maybe. he wipes it away without thinking.

luck doesn’t exist, he tells himself again.

if it did, maybe he would have noticed you earlier.

the janitor’s name is marcel, though most people at the gallery just call him mar. he doesn’t mind, really— he’s been working here long enough to know that art people aren’t good with names, just shapes and color and the idea of people.

he used to work construction before his knee went out, so now he cleans floors and empties bins and sometimes fixes the lights when they flicker too long. the gallery’s been his routine for nearly eight years, and by now, he knows every inch of it— the smell of oil and varnish that never quite leaves, the way the air shifts colder when it rains, the paintings that seem to breathe when the light hits them right.

he starts noticing you mid-june. 

he’s cleaned the floors around you more times than he can count. every evening, when the sun starts dripping through the high gallery windows and the shadows stretch long across the marble, he does his usual route of sweeping, wiping down benches, emptying the bins, until he reaches your corner. that’s when he gives you the same nudge he’s been giving for weeks now, broom handle tapping gently against the baseboard near your feet.

“closing soon, miss,” he says, voice low so it doesn’t echo too much.

you always blink up at him like you’ve been pulled out of a dream, pencil still hovering in mid-air. “already?”

he chuckles, every single time. “already,” he repeats.

and every single time, you fumble to pack up your things, pencils rattling into a tin, papers rustling, the faint panic of someone who doesn’t want to leave just yet. you always glance back once, before the turn of the stairwell takes the painting out of sight. he doesn’t miss it.

sometimes, when he locks up after you’re gone, he wanders over to that same corner. not for long— just enough to look at the painting you keep sketching. alexandre. he’s not an art man, never claimed to be. he cleans up the places people make art in, that’s all. 

he tells thea, the security guard who works the second floor, once, during their late closing rounds. “that girl— the one with the sketches— she loves that painting too much.”

thea just shrugs. “artists. they all get obsessed with something.”

but mar doesn’t think it’s obsession. it’s gentler than that. it’s the same look, he thinks, that he gets when he comes home, sees his wife on the couch watching her usual reruns of jeopardy, murmuring that dinner’s in the fridge, asking if she wants him to reheat it, and he’ll always shake his head, says he’ll do it himself. it’s the same look, he realizes, when you’re in love.

by july’s end, he knows your rhythm by heart. the faint squeak of your shoes on the stairs. the sound of your bag clinking with keychains. and he starts timing his rounds around that, letting you stay a few minutes longer before he has to turn off the lights.

sometimes he thinks about asking what it is you see in that boy— what keeps you coming back. but he never does. instead, he lets you have your quiet, and he keeps your secret safe.

and every night, right before lights-out, he finds you there, still sketching under the too-bright fluorescents, shoulders curled inward, pencil racing against time. he gives you that same small nudge, careful not to startle you.

“closing soon,” he murmurs again, softer this time.

and you, as always, look up, eyes a little dazed, heart still somewhere inside the painting. “already?”

he smiles. “already.”

you smile back, a little sad, a little grateful. and then you leave, the sound of your keychains echoing down the empty hall.

your roommate has long since given up on the idea of personal space when it comes to you.

not that she minds— you’re her best friend, her artistic tornado of a human being, and you’ve bared your lives to each other that you’d never do to anyone else, but it’s close to midnight on a sunday, and you’re sprawled at the foot of her bed like you’re at your therapist’s couch. she’d been half-asleep when you barged in, laptop in hand, hair a mess.

she’s half under the covers, scrolling through her phone, when you start wailing— not dramatically, but close enough. that low, frustrated groan that means you’ve hit another creative wall.

“i can’t find anything,” you say, as if the world itself has conspired against you. “nothing. no record, no origin, no provenance, nothing.”

your roommate glances up from her screen. “you’re still talking about the painting, huh?”

you nod, hitting your head on the mattress over and over again, cursing how soft it is, “you’d think someone, anyone, would’ve written about it, but all the catalogues just skip over it. some don’t even list the artist’s name, and the ones that do can’t agree if alexandre is supposed to be the artist or the subject or maybe someone’s dead lover. like— how does that happen? how does a painting like that just— slip through the cracks?”

she hums in sympathy, which, in her language, means she’s listening but also trying not to roll her eyes. you’ve been like this for weeks now, sketching, googling, scouring the archives, even emailing the museum’s administrative office (“for research purposes,” you said, like that made it sound any less crazy).

“maybe it’s cursed,” she suggests, deadpan. “maybe if you say alexandre three times in front of a mirror, the painting appears behind you.”

your ears perk up at that, “you think so?”

her eyes widen, incredulous, “oh my god!”

jack’s head pops out from beneath the blanket, hair mussed, squinting at the light. “do you have to be here?” he mumbles, voice thick with sleep. “it’s, like, midnight.”

you jolt. “oh my god, jack, i didn’t know you were—”

“he’s always here,” she says, running her hand through jack’s hair. “i told you, we have no personal space in this household. none. you, me, and apparently my boyfriend, who’s now invested in your art crisis.”

jack rubs his eyes, still half-asleep. “what crisis?”

“she’s in love with a painting,” she says simply.

“i am not—” you sit up straight, indignant. “i am not in love with him! i just— i find him fascinating. artistically.”

jack raises an eyebrow. “uh-huh. sure.”

“she has a crush,” she supplies, grinning.

“i do not have a crush!” you exclaim, voice climbing a full octave higher than usual, which, of course, only makes them laugh harder. “it’s not a crush, it’s— it’s academic interest!”

your roommate bites back a grin. “academic interest,” she echoes. “sure. because everyone spends every free afternoon staring lovingly at their academic interests.”

“you don’t understand, it’s— it’s the composition!” you say, gesturing wildly. “the brushwork! the way the light falls on his face, it’s just— god, it’s like he’s breathing. you look at him and you just know the artist couldn’t have painted him without—”

“without wanting to kiss him?” jack mumbles into the pillow.

god, you want to throw your laptop at him. “shut. up.”

he laughs, muffled, half-awake. “i’m just saying, sounds like a crush to me.”

“it’s not—” you insist again, even though both of them are grinning now. “it’s research.”

they both look at you pointedly, like they don’t quite believe it.

eventually, you deflate— shoulders slumping, laptop pressed against your knees. “i just… want to know who he is,” you say quietly. “it feels wrong that someone could’ve loved him that much and left no trace.”

for once, she doesn’t tease. she reaches out and nudges your stomach with her foot. “then find him,” she says softly. “but maybe do it tomorrow, yeah? because right now, you’re keeping my boyfriend from sleeping.”

jack mumbles something in agreement, already sinking back under the blanket.

“you’re no help at all—” you mutter, gathering your laptop, retreating toward the door with as much dignity as you can manage.

“tell alexandre we said hi!” your rommate calls after you, and you don’t dignify that with a response.

thea works the “evening” shift at the gallery, the quiet one between four and midnight. most people would balk at it, say it sounds too creepy, or make a joke about how the paintings come alive at night like that one movie, but she likes it. she likes the stillness, the way the gallery breathes differently after dark. she likes that she can take her time on her rounds, pausing to look at the paintings without the noise of tourists or students.

she’s been here for three years now, a former criminology major who couldn’t finish school when her mom got sick, and the museum job pays steady enough. she knows the sound of every hinge, every flickering light, every whisper of the air conditioning vents. she knows which paintings crackle faintly when the humidity rises and which display lights take an extra second to turn on.

she knows the janitor, mar, who hums while he mops, and pepe, the scholar working his hours at the desk, who leaves exactly at five, no matter what.

she notices you first through the camera monitors, the grainy black-and-white footage of a girl in loose jeans and paint-stained sneakers, always carrying the same bag with a mess of keychains clinking together, breaking the monotony of the quiet halls.

when you start coming so often she knows your schedule better than her own, so much so that she realizes that her rounds where she passes by the second-floor exhibit coincides just as you’re packing up. you always nod politely when she walks by, the type of nod that means i see you, i know you’re just doing your job, thank you.

she likes that. most people don’t look at security guards. most people treat them like furniture.

she doesn’t talk to you until one evening in late july. the gallery is nearly empty, the light turning gold through the big glass windows, the kind of light that makes everything look softer, more temporary. she finds you sitting cross-legged again, pencil moving fast, and she almost doesn’t want to disturb you. but it’s close to seven-thirty, and mar is already waiting by the breaker room to turn the lights off.

“hey, kid,” she says, gently, stepping closer. “closing soon.”

you look up, startled, like she’s pulled you out of a dream. “oh— sorry! i lost track of time again.”

she smiles, shaking her head. “no worries, just letting you know before the lights shut off.”

you grin sheepishly, gathering your things. “i know. i just— i keep thinking i’ll see something new if i stare long enough.”

“and do you?” she asks.

you glance at the painting, at alexandre, “yeah,” you say quietly. “every time.”

something in the way you say it makes her chest ache a little. she’s not an artist, doesn’t pretend to understand that kind of devotion, but she recognizes sincerity when she sees it.

she wishes she’d ever felt that strongly about something that didn’t disappoint her.

as you sling your bag over your shoulder, one of your keychains— a small enamel heart— snaps loose and falls to the floor with a clink. you don’t notice, but she does. she picks it up after you’re gone, tucks it into her pocket, meaning to return it later.

the next day, she waits for you by the front desk. when you arrive, she holds out the keychain between two fingers. “you dropped this yesterday.”

your eyes widen. “oh my god, i thought i lost it. thank you!”

you take it from her gingerly, clipping it on to your bag with the rest of its siblings.  “no problem,” she says. “so, another day of sketching?”

you laugh, and it’s such a bright, unguarded sound that even mar looks up from buffing the floors to smile. “don’t encourage her,” he teases. “she’ll stay here till midnight if you let her.”

“you wouldn’t kick me out now, would you, mar?” you ask, all mock-innocent.

“depends,” he says. “you bring coffee?”

you grin, and to thea’s surprise, the next day, you do. one cup for him, one for her, both still warm, labeled in messy handwriting— for mar and for thea.

“what’s this for?” thea asks, blinking.

“for letting me haunt the place,” you say. “you guys don’t get enough appreciation.”

she stares at you for a second, then shakes her head, a small smile tugging at her lips. “you’re something else, kid.”

“can you tell my adviser that?” you jokingly reply, and then you’re gone again, disappearing up the stairs toward your corner of the world.

after that, the gallery feels different. when she and mar lock up at night, they always check that painting last. mar says it’s habit. thea thinks it’s something else. she swears the air in that corner holds a trace of your presence— a faint hum of graphite dust and headphone music and warm coffee.

“she’s a good kid,” mar says one evening, flipping off the final switch.

“yeah,” thea agrees softly, watching the lights fade across alexandre’s painted face. “she is.”

jack doohan should probably get out of here. 

jack doohan shouldn’t even be ‘here’ at all– ‘here’ being his girlfriend’s dorm suite, with his girlfriend’s roommate (hey, that’s you!) pacing in the living room outside. he knows better by now, knows that the dorm’s got a strict ‘no-boys’ policy, knows that the RA lives two doors down, knows that if he gets caught, he’ll probably be immortalized as a cautionary tale on the building’s group chat. but he can’t help it.

what’s a guy supposed to do when his girlfriend bats her lashes and says just stay over, no one will notice?

it’s fine, usually. was fine, anyway— right up until you started haunting the common area.

… not that jack had any problem with that! obviously not, he’s just a guest here, but up until a few weeks ago, you usually stayed in your own room, playing something from that one girl you liked who wore skeleton pajamas, which meant jack was free to just… come and go as he pleased. no need for the awkward, pre-walk-of-shame small talk.

halfway through debating whether to crawl out the window (which, for the record, is six stories up), he hears your voice.

“if you’re planning on sneaking out, now’s the best time. the RA’s got classes until the afternoon.”

he cracks the door open. “you know your RA’s schedule?”

you grin from your perch by the window, legs crossed, sunlight painting your face in warm shapes. “yeah. we used we to sneak a lot of guys in here back in the day.” you say it so casually that he chokes on air, blinking, until you smirk. “kidding. relax, doohan. you know how it goes— sheshe only has eyes for you, wants to marry you, raise little surfboard babies in some beach house, and—”

“okay! got it!” he cuts you off before the teasing can get worse.

his eyes then focus on the elephant in the room (big, loud address me practically floating in front of it): a rolling whiteboard covered with finished and unfinished sketches of your mystery man, pinned and taped onto every available surface, like a madman trying to connect together a murder, sans the red string.

“what’s this?”

“uh… character study?” you provide, though it’s barely believable.

“this your mystery guy, right?” jack walks closer, studies the subject closer, the slope of his nose, the mole on his neck, right below his left ear. “feels like i know him, like i’ve seen him before.”

“yeah, probably,” you say, sliding off the stool to join him. “he’s based on a painting in the french exhibit at the gallery. that’s probably where.”

“right,” he says, nodding. “yeah, that must be it.” a beat, then: “so, the RA’s gone, yeah?”

“yep,” you say. “you’re safe. go out the boring way, lover boy.”

he salutes halfheartedly, grinning as he slips out. nearly runs into the RA, who apparently had a cancelled lecture, and laughs under his breath all the way down the hall.

he doesn’t think much of it— your sketches, the painting, the strange déjà vu curling in his chest. just one of those things, he tells himself.

later that night, at a friend’s apartment, he meets his former roommate kimi’s new roommate’s (ollie's) friend’s (gabi's) friend. an intricate, unnecessary chain of introductions that lands on one name: isack.

jack stares for a second too long, trying to place him. there’s something naggingly familiar about the guy— something in the slope of his nose, the way the light catches just under his jaw.

after a few beers, he finally mentions it. “you look familiar, mate. have we met before?”

isack just shrugs, “probably. orientation week, maybe? think we were in the same cohort or something.”

“yeah,” jack says, though it doesn’t sit right. it’s close enough, though, and he lets it go.

he doesn’t think about your mystery man again— why would he, when there’s a perfectly logical explanation sitting right in front of him?

the museum manager’s name is claire delacroix, which, ironically, makes her sound like she should’ve been a curator at the louvre instead of managing a midsized university gallery whose biggest claim to fame is that one visiting monet sketch that wasn’t even real. she doesn’t mind the job, though. it’s calm and it’s not like it’s the kind of work that follows her home… most days.

she knows every exhibit rotation, every insurance contract, every shipment that comes in wrapped in bubble foam. she runs on routine and tea and the occasional thrill of catching a student trying to sneak a selfie too close to a sculpture.

what she doesn’t love, though, is being chased down in her office by another eager art major with too much passion and not enough boundaries.

you knock— not even properly, just two hurried taps before you’re already halfway inside— and she knows, immediately, that it’s you. she’s seen your emails, both of them, sent two weeks apart. polite, but insistent, curious to the point of interrogation. she’d almost admired the persistence if it hadn’t been clogging up her inbox at the height of inventory season.

“hi, ms. delacroix,” you start, breathless, clutching your sketchbook to your chest like it’d fly away if you didn’t. “sorry, i know you’re busy, but—”

“you’ve emailed me,” she says, voice sharp.

“right,” you say quickly, nodding. “twice. but i just— i thought maybe it’d be easier to talk in person. it’s about the french exhibit. specifically, the portrait. alexandre.”

claire sighs softly through her nose, gesturing toward the chair across from her desk. “sit.”

you do, all jittery energy and enthusiasm, and claire folds her hands on the table, watching as you flip open your sketchbook, showing her— god, dozens— of studies of the same man’s face. different angles, expressions, lighting. she’s seen art students obsess over paintings before, but rarely like this.

“i can’t find anything about it,” you say, almost pleading now. “nothing online, nothing in the archives, not even in the gallery’s public catalog. i know it’s a loan from some french university, but there’s got to be a record, right? provenance papers, exhibition history, something?”

“it’s part of the musée de montparnasse collection,” claire says, reaching for a folder from the drawer behind her. “they’re notoriously disorganized, i’m afraid. we only got a partial file— no name, approximate date, listed artist unknown. the only thing we have is the inscription.”

“alexandre,” you murmur.

she nods. “yes. but that could refer to anyone— the subject, the painter, even the patron. nineteenth-century records are often vague. sometimes intentionally.”

you frown, the frustration written all over your face. “there must be something,” you insist quietly. “this piece… it feels like it mattered to someone. i just— i want to know why.”

unfortunately for her, claire feels a small pang of sympathy. she used to be like you, earnest, relentless, unwilling to accept that not every story could be recovered. “if it helps, i can ask around,” she offers. “though most of our french works are handled by the curatorial assistants. have you spoken to any of the staff?”

“i’ve talked to the janitor,” you admit, sheepish. “and the security guard.”

claire smiles despite herself. “resourceful. but maybe try one of the docents? our student guide— oh, what’s his name again— ah, isack. yes. he’s been assigned to the exhibit all summer. maybe he’s overheard something useful.”

you perk up immediately. “is he here now?”

she glances at her watch. “he should be. let me check.” she picks up the desk phone, pressing a button for reception. “pepe? can you check if isack hadjar’s free? i have a student who’d like to ask him about the exhibit.”

a pause. muffled static.

“ah,” says pepe finally, “he’s with a group right now. just started a tour. sorry, mate— ma’am. i meant ma’am. sorry.”

claire hums. “all right, thank you.” she hangs up, turns to you with an apologetic smile. “looks like you just missed him. he’ll be done in an hour or so if you want to wait.”

you hesitate, glancing at your watch, at the mess of notes in your lap. “i— i have a consultation with my adviser soon.”

she nods, watching as you leave, the sound of your keychains fading down the hall, the faint click of the gallery door behind you.

a few minutes later, she hears laughter through the window overlooking the second floor, the echo of a dozen children and, faintly, isack’s voice, patient and slightly exasperated as he tries to wrangle them into a line.

claire glances down at the folder still open on her desk. the photocopy of the painting’s record stares back at her: alexandre, c. 1887.

by the time isack finishes his tour and the museum quiets again, you’re long gone.

francis has always thought of himself as a patient man. he has to be— it comes with the job. teaching art history to undergrads and half-dreaming grad students means you get used to questions that lead nowhere, theories that collapse under their own sentimentality, and passion that burns way too bright, way too fast. 

still, when you show up at his office door one afternoon, breathless and clutching a sketchbook that looks like it’s been through a war, he knows this isn’t going to be one of those simple ten-minute consultations.

“professor roberts?” you start, knocking lightly even though the door’s open. “do you have a moment?”

he looks up from the stack of essays on his desk— yet another batch of overconfident takes on impressionism— and smiles. “well, you did ask me to pencil you in for this afternoon.”

you step in, uncertain but determined, like someone who’s already rehearsed this conversation twice in your head. “it’s about my dissertation. or, like— the idea for it. i think i’ve found my subject, but…”

francis gestures to the chair across from him. “but you’re not sure if you’re insane for choosing it?”

you blink, surprised, then laugh. “yeah. that.”

he leans back, folding his arms. “try me.”

so you tell him, about the summer exhibit, about alexandre, about how you’ve been going back almost every day, sketching him, researching him, emailing the manager and getting nowhere. you tell him about the ambiguity of the inscription, the missing records, the lack of documentation. and then, in the smallest, softest voice, you say, “but there’s something about him, professor. it’s like… whoever painted him didn’t just want to capture what he looked like. they wanted to remember what he felt like.”

francis listens quietly. he doesn’t interrupt. he lets you talk until your voice runs out of steam, until all the frantic energy that’s been building inside you for days dissolves into the still air of his office. “you think you’re connecting with the subject,” he says slowly, “but maybe you’re really connecting with the artist.”

you look at him, brow furrowed, thoughtful. “what do you mean?”

“it’s not uncommon,” he continues, “to see yourself in the creator. especially when the work is intimate. you start asking the same questions they must’ve asked. what did they see? why did they stay? why did they leave?” he pauses, just briefly, “sometimes it’s not the art we fall in love with, it’s the feeling that someone once felt the same thing we do. that they couldn’t bear to forget.”

“so you think i’m projecting,” you say after a while, voice slightly defensive.

he smiles, not unkindly. “i think you’re an artist. it’s what we do.”

you exhale, leaning back in your chair, staring at the sketchbook again. “sometimes i feel like i’m in the same position as whoever painted him. like i know what they felt. like i’m supposed to finish what they started.”

that makes him look at you a little closer. “finish?”

“not literally,” you say quickly, cheeks warm. “just— i don’t know. like the painting isn’t done. or maybe i’m not done with it.” you close the sketchbook carefully, almost reverently. “it’s stupid.”

“it’s not stupid,” francis says softly. “it’s the beginning of something. maybe not what you expected, but it’s something.”

“something… like my dissertation?”

the clock on his wall ticks softly. somewhere in the distance, the faint hum of students filters in through the open window, the city alive beyond the safety of academia. francis remembers being your age, staying up in his studio until dawn, chasing a feeling he couldn’t name, painting and repainting the same face until he could admit that he was driving himself mad.

“art isn’t supposed to make sense,” he says finally. “not when you’re in the middle of it. you don’t need to explain the connection. just follow it.”

you nod, slowly, like you’re storing his words away for later. when you stand, he notices how your fingers linger on the edge of your sketchbook. “thank you,” you say quietly. “for not thinking i’m insane.”

he laughs, a low, warm sound. “if i thought every student who fell in love with a painting was insane, i’d have quit years ago.”

“it feels like i know him,” you admit. “like he’s waiting for me to figure something out.”

francis smiles faintly, the kind that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “then maybe that’s where you start.”

“my dissertation?”

“your story,” he corrects. “whatever it is you’re trying to say. don’t force it yet. just… follow it.” he pauses, glancing at his watch. “though if you want a jumpstart, give me a working title by next week. you’ll be ahead of anyone in your year. no pressure.”

you groan softly, leaning back in your chair. “no pressure, he says.”

“one week.” he says, tapping your sketchbook. “figure alexandre out.”

the name on the bartender’s tag reads milo, though most people forget that halfway through their third drink. he’s been tending bar long enough to know that most faces blur together by the end of the night— the lovers, the loners, the students half-broke and overconfident on cheap beer. the place itself isn’t fancy, just the regular-degular off-campus bar that smells too strongly of the lemon cleaner management tells him to use.

tonight’s quiet, even for the summer semester, the air humming with heat and the ceiling fan clicking every few seconds like a metronome for the empty room. the booths are mostly empty except for two graduate students arguing about methodology, and milo’s polishing glasses he’s already polished twice before, just to give himself something to do.

you look like someone who didn’t mean to end up here, like you took a wrong turn and decided to stay anyway. there’s paint under your nails and a sketchbook peeking out of your bag, and you order a gin and tonic like it’s something you do all the time even though you hesitate before saying it.

“slow night,” he says, filling your glass, trying to be friendly.

you smile faintly. “yeah. i needed a change of scenery.”

he nods, slides the drink across the counter. “you from the uni?”

“yeah,” you say, distracted, flipping through your sketchbook.

you don’t notice when the door swings open behind you, when another student walks in— curls flattened from the drizzle outside, ID tag still tucked haphazardly into his pocket, a quick stride that makes him look like he’s always late to something.

he’s been here before, the boy, though not often, milo’s remembered him once or twice, thinks his name starts with an i— isaac, was it? either way, he takes a seat at the far end of the bar, a few stools down from you.

he doesn’t notice you either— not because you’re forgettable, but because the universe seems committed to keeping the both of you orbiting without collision.

“beer?” milo asks him.

“hit me with the cheapest you’ve got.”

milo pours, sets the bottle down, and turns back to the sink. the bar hums quietly, the low murmur of music filling the space between strangers. for a moment, you both exist in the same frame— you sketching, him nursing a beer, both of you looking down instead of sideways.

at one point, milo swears your reflections almost overlap in the mirror behind the bar, just for a second, like two ghosts moving through the same place at slightly different times. he half-expects one of you to turn, to catch the other’s eye, to say something. but you don’t. you never do.

when you turn to glance toward the door, he’s bent over his drink. when he finally looks around the room, you’re sketching again, pen moving fast.

it’s almost cinematic, if milo were the type to notice that kind of thing. but he’s not. he just keeps wiping glasses and refilling drinks, letting the moments pass the way they always do.

the door opens again, the faint jingle echoing through the empty-ish room. the boy looks up, leaves the bar to join his friends in a booth at the back.

a minute later, you finish your drink, leave a few bills and a polite smile, and turn to leave.

milo watches as you pass in front of the boy’s booth, a split second before the boy looks up from his phone, his gaze brushing the space where you’d been sitting moments ago. his friends are laughing, one of them gesturing toward the bar, and he glances that way idly— only to find your empty stool, the ring of condensation still on the counter.

milo notices a piece of paper left behind on the counter, half tucked under your empty glass. he picks it up, meaning to throw it away, but pauses. it’s a sketch— graphite and smudged fingerprints, a face he faintly recognizes. a man with dark curls, a soft mouth, eyes caught in that impossible space between thought and silence.

milo whistles under his breath. “hell of a doodle.”

he sets it aside, intending to pin it to the corkboard behind the bar, the one cluttered with fake IDs and love notes and 1x1 photos of students who have made the bar their home. but then something stops him.

because an hour later, when the boy returns to the counter to pay his tab, milo looks up— and for a second, his brain stutters.

the resemblance is uncanny.

the jawline, the curve of the mouth, the exact slope of the nose. it’s him. the guy in the drawing.

“everything all right?” the boy  asks, noticing the stare.

milo blinks, laughs it off, handing him the receipt. “yeah. just… thought you looked familiar, is all.”

isack nods, uninterested, pockets the change, and leaves.

milo watches the door swing shut, the rain swallowing him whole.

when he looks back down at the sketch, he swears the drawn eyes are watching him.

he pins it to the corkboard anyway. just another lost thing.

and the next day, when you return to the bar, you glance at the wall and smile softly, relief flooding your face when you see it hanging there.

“thought i lost that,” you tell him, and he shrugs, moving to unpin it from the board before you wave it off, “nah, i’ve got, like, a million more like it— ‘sides, it’s nice. seeing my work on display.”

and milo, for reasons he can’t explain, feels like he’s just witnessed something that doesn’t belong to this world— like luck, if he believed in that sort of thing, had brushed through the bar for a moment, then vanished.

isack doesn’t usually come back to the bar twice in the same week— let alone two weeks in a row— but it’s thursday again, and pepe had texted him something like “beer? i need to stop thinking about my cat’s vet bill before i cry”, and well, there are worse reasons to go out.

so he comes. it’s raining again, that soft summer rain that sticks to the air, and the bar smells like wet denim and the strong lemon cleaner. milo’s behind the counter, wiping down glasses, looking about as half-asleep as isack feels.

isack takes a stool while pepe orders two beers, already chatting up someone three seats down. he’s halfway tuned out when his eyes drift to the corkboard, to the messy collage of old receipts, photos, doodles, and the hundreds of paper scraps that make the place feel alive. but then he pauses.

there, near the center, pinned with a pushpin and curling slightly at the corners, is a sketch. graphite on cream paper, smudged and deliberate. it’s a face. it’s his face.

he stares at it for a long moment, blinking, certain he’s imagining it. but the resemblance is undeniable. the jawline, the hair— slightly tousled, falling over his forehead just so. the small mole under his left ear. even the faint tension in the eyes.

“what the hell,” he mutters under his breath.

pepe leans over, already laughing. “what?”

he points. “why is there a picture of me on that wall?”

pepe squints, following his gaze. “shit, that really does look like you.”

the bartender — joel, his name tag reads, though isack swears last week it was milo— overhears them and glances over, raising an eyebrow. “what looks like him?”

“that.” pepe gestures toward the corkboard. “you hanging up portraits of customers now?”

milo laughs, walking over to take a closer look. “oh— that? yeah. someone left it here last week.”

isack frowns, incredulous. “someone left it?”

“yeah,” milo says, pulling the paper free and smoothing it out on the counter. “she was sitting where you are now, spent the whole night sketching in this little book. left this behind when she left. i kept it ‘cause it looked… well, i don’t know. familiar, i guess.”

“you’re telling me someone came in and drew me without me even being here?”

“looks that way.”

pepe leans over, squinting. “mon dieu,” he says, in mock awe, imitating isack’s accent. “it does look like you. what, are you posing for mysterious artists now?”

“i’m not,” isack says flatly, still staring at the page.

milo shrugs, half-smile still on his face. “then you’ve got a doppelgänger somewhere who’s very popular with art students.”

isack laughs under his breath, shaking his head, but the sound doesn’t quite reach his eyes. because the longer he looks, the more unsettling it feels. it’s not a caricature, not some random doodle. it’s intimate, almost, like the artist wasn’t drawing a face but him.

“you said she left it?” he asks.

“yeah,” milo— no, joel— no, joel-milo?— says. “came back the next day to get it, though. seemed pretty relieved to see it up there.”

“what did she look like?”

the bartender pauses, trying to remember. “uh, kinda quiet. art kid, you know the type. she had this bag covered in keychains— could hear her coming before i saw her.”

pepe snorts. “so, half the arts department.”

isack doesn’t reply. he just keeps staring at the sketch. there’s something about it that won’t let him go— not just the resemblance, but the way it feels. whoever drew it, they’d spent time on it. cared. maybe too much.

“you want it?” joel-milo asks, seeing his hesitation. “i can make a copy if you want the original. it’s yours, technically.”

isack shakes his head. “no, keep it. she came back for it, right?”

“yeah, but she left again pretty quick. didn’t even finish her drink. said it was nice to see her work up somewhere that wasn’t the studio.”

“then it’s hers,” isack says simply, finishing what’s left of his beer.

he tries to brush it off. he really does. but later, when he’s walking home through the rain, the image won’t leave his head. the eyes, the lines, the way it looked unfinished and yet complete all at once.

and the strangest thing—

when he gets home, he catches his reflection in the hallway mirror, the dim light flickering above him, and for a moment,  just a second, he sees the same expression on his own face.

that quiet, half-familiar softness. like he’s been painted before and just forgot to notice.

how can someone paint someone with such love?

you think about it constantly now, in the bus, in line for coffee, in the empty corners of the library when you should be drafting a proposal outline. it sits behind your eyes, the thought of it, like it’s been tattooed into your eyelids. that painting, him, the way he looked, not just at you, but through you—

no, not through you. through time. through whoever was standing there the moment the brush touched canvas.

you’ve spent weeks trying to understand it. the intimacy of it, the unbearable softness, how someone could take oil and pigment and turn it into devotion.

because it wasn’t just skill. skill could capture resemblance. this… what ever this is— it’s something else. whoever painted alexandre must have loved him so deeply it spilled from their fingers. it’s in the tilt of his mouth, that half-smile that doesn’t know whether to stay or go. in the way the light catches his skin, in the curve of his shoulder, the space left unfinished near his wrist, as if the artist couldn’t bear to paint the rest.

you close your eyes and try to imagine it.

the studio, maybe. a small one, late 1800s, the air thick with turpentine and cigarette smoke. afternoon light slanting in through lace curtains. the sound of someone humming quietly under their breath. the artist, you, maybe, in some strange daydream of reincarnation, standing before an easel, brush trembling, trying to steady your hand.

and him— alexandre, or maybe you’re alexandre, or maybe it’s your benefactor— sitting a few feet away, draped in soft linen, curls falling into his eyes. he’s patient, but not still. his mouth moves as he speaks to you, though you can’t quite hear what he’s saying. he’s laughing, sometimes, when you mess up, when the paint runs, when you curse softly in the old language of the heart. and the entire room smells of him— of sunlight and tobacco and the faintest trace of cologne that will someday stop existing.

you paint him the way you’d memorize someone’s voice. line by line, stroke by stroke, desperate to keep him real just a little longer. the light keeps changing and so does he. at some point, he stops talking, and you both fall into silence. there’s nothing left but the rhythm of your breaths falling into place, of paint against canvas. and you think, if i stop now, he’ll disappear. if i finish, he’ll leave.

so you keep painting. keep loving him through color and shadow and the shape of his hands.

and when you open your eyes again, you’re back in your room, sitting on the floor, sketchbook open across your knees. your pencil hovers midair. you’ve drawn him again, without meaning to. the same face, the same jawline, the same eyes that refuse to look anywhere but at you.

you press your thumb against the paper, smudge the graphite where his cheek should be, and feel an ache rise in your chest.

how can someone paint someone with such love?

the answer, you think, is that maybe they couldn’t help it.

and maybe you can’t either.

ten.

you wake late. sunlight slipping through the blinds, half-burning, half-gentle. the morning feels like it’s already running ahead of you, like time forgot to wait.

today’s the day you promised your adviser your title, a working thread for the dissertation that’s been bleeding through your thoughts for weeks, a jumpstart ahead of those in your year. your sketchbook is a mess— half drawings, half frantic notes. alexandre, intimacy, permanence, memory, devotion. it all loops, over and over, until the words stop sounding like words.

you throw on clothes without thinking and sling your bag over your shoulder. the keychains jangle like your nerves. you don’t have time for breakfast. you only have time to get to the museum. you don’t even know why— you just do. maybe to see him again. the painting, you mean. not him. not anyone else.

nine.

isack’s morning starts slow. slower than usual, maybe because it’s his last day at the gallery. the scholarship hours are up, and he’s counting the minutes until he can hand back his name tag and stop pretending to know the answer to the difference between monet and manet. pepe teases him about being sentimental. he’s not. or he tells himself he’s not.

the air feels strange, though. like something’s about to shift.

“one last tour, eh?” pepe says, tapping his clipboard.

“one last,” isack repeats, not quite smiling.

eight.

you take the long way through campus. the pavement still slick from last night’s rain.

you could’ve gone straight to francis’ office, handed him your paper, said something like, “my working title is about love and loss in portraiture.” but that feels dishonest now, incomplete. because what you’ve been doing isn’t just research anymore, it’s searching. for something you can’t name.

the museum steps are practically like muscle memory to you, you could walk them blindfolded.

you take the stairs two at a time.

seven.

isack finishes his last tour before lunch. a group of teenagers, bored and loud, phones out, barely listening. he doesn’t blame them. he mumbles through the last description and lets them scatter. the echo of their sneakers fades into silence. he breathes.

he thinks about the sketch from the bar again. the one milo said a girl left behind. he hadn’t meant to think about it, but it keeps flashing back— those smudged lines, the eyes that looked like his but weren’t his. sometimes he catches himself thinking about the girl too, even though he doesn’t know her. maybe because she looked at his face without ever seeing him.

six.

you enter the gallery, breathless. the lobby is almost empty— the kind of emptiness that hums. the receptionist, pepe, greets you absently. you smile, distracted, muttering a thanks, already climbing the stairs. your bag bumps against your hip, your keychains clinking, a small echo of your hurry.

you think about francis’ words. no pressure. you think about alexandre, about the artist who painted him, about the love that filled every inch of color until it couldn’t hold anymore. you think maybe that’s your title. maybe that’s what this whole thing has been about.

you just need to see him one more time.

five.

isack’s helping mar stack chairs in the reception area, trying to be useful before he signs off. mar tells him something about how he’ll miss having someone to complain to about the mop handles. he smiles, says, “you’ll find another pessimist,” and mar laughs, low and warm.

then the radio crackles. “hadjar,” pepe’s voice, “one last favor— someone’s asking about the french exhibit, can you check the lights on the second floor?”

he sighs, rolls his eyes, but goes anyway.

four.

you round the corner toward the exhibit, the familiar chill of the air conditioning wrapping around you. it’s quiet, but not silent. somewhere, a floorboard creaks. you adjust the strap of your bag, heart picking up for no good reason.

the light in the U-shaped room glows soft, golden, dust floating like slow snow. you head for the far corner. you could walk this path in your sleep.

three.

isack takes the stairs two at a time.

the light hums overhead. he runs a hand through his hair, the cheap fabric of his polo sticking to his back. he’s not really thinking, just moving, wanting to get this last task over with so he can finally clock out.

two.

you turn the corner.

he turns the corner.

it’s that simple.

your bag swings wide, your foot slips, and you collide chest-first into him. it’s clumsy, the impact that knocking the breath out of both of you. your sketchbook spills from your hand, pages fanning open on the floor like wings.

you blink, startled, stepping back. he bends down automatically, picking it up before you can.

and then—

one.

“shit— sorry—” you start, dropping to your knees to gather your things.

“no, i should’ve— i didn’t see—”

the voices overlap. you look up at the same time he crouches to help, and the world seems to tilt just slightly out of focus.

for a second, neither of you move.

his hand pauses over your sketchbook. your fingers brush his when you both reach for the same page— that page, of course, the one with alexandre’s face.

and then you see him, really see him.

the shape of his mouth, the dark curls that never quite fall right, the mole beneath his left ear.

the air goes thin.

his eyes flicker down to the sketches in his hand before he’s looking at you, too, brow furrowed, confusion and something like recognition flickering across his face.

“that—” you start, your voice catching.

he blinks, “is this supposed to be—”

“it’s you.” you whisper.

he laughs, a breathless, incredulous sound. “it’s me.”

[some time in the future, or maybe later that evening. time has gone soft around the edges, either way.]

the room is quiet except for the hum of the city outside, the faraway rhythm of cars on wet pavement. the moonlight cuts through the curtains in strips, painting the bed in cool silver.

isack is lying on his stomach, one arm slung over the pillow, hair messy and skin still warm from sleep. his breath rises and falls in slow, even waves. you’re sitting up beside him, knees drawn to your chest, sketchbook balanced against your thighs. the pencil moves softly, its sound barely audible over the quiet.

he shifts, mumbling something against the pillow. his voice comes out rough and drowsy. “what’re you doing?”

“nothing,” you whisper, though your pencil betrays you, still scratching quietly across the page.

he groans softly, stretching, turning his head to look at you with one half-lidded eye. “you should sleep.”

“in a bit,” you murmur. “just trying to get this right.”

he smiles lazily, then goes, “you’ve been sketching me for hours.”

you glance down at him, pencil hovering above the page. “not hours.”

“feels like hours,” he says, voice half-drifting into a yawn. “go to bed, mon ange. you can draw me tomorrow.”

“i just want to finish the light,” you protest softly.

he hums, eyes fluttering closed again. “you’ve got the rest of forever for the light.”

you freeze at that. the rest of forever.

you look at him again, the curve of his spine, the dip between his shoulders, the quiet weight of his presence beside you. you press your pencil to the paper and keep going, slower now, tenderly, tracing him like he’s the last thing you’ll ever want to remember.

eventually, your hand stills. you set the sketchbook aside and lie down next to him, tucking yourself into the warmth of his skin, his heartbeat steady against your ear. he shifts slightly, instinctively, arm sliding around your waist.

“forever’s a long time,” you whisper, barely audible.

he smiles without opening his eyes. “good thing we’ve got it, then.”

somewhere in the dark, your pencil lies still, and the moment⸻ this ordinary, infinite moment, paints itself.

p.s.:  almost  a  year  ago  i  lowkey  also  found  myself  fascinated  by  my  own  version  of  alexandre,  which  i  immediately  reported  to  kae,  in  the  screenshot  below.  obviously  mine  was  more  jokey-jokey,  but  i  joke  a  lot  about  ‘visiting  my  husband’  every  time  i  go  to  the  museum  (which  is  now  a  lot  more  frequently  since  i  have  book  club  there!)

you  smooth  your  thumb  over  the  letter  in  your  lap,  the  paper  worn  soft  at  the  creases  from  how  many  times  you  have  folded  and  unfolded  it,  traced  the  elegant  loops  of  lady  albon's  handwriting. my  dearest  girl,  she  had  written, it  is  time  you  came  home.

home.  as  though  you  still  have  one.  as  though  the  townhouse  where  you  spent  the  first  twelve  years  of  your  life  has  not  been  shuttered  and  sold,  as  though  your  mother's  name  is  not  still  whispered  in  drawing  rooms  with  that  particular tone  of  half-scandal  and  half-pity  that  makes  you  want  to  crawl  out  of  your  own  skin.

but  lady  albon  had  written,  and  lady  albon  had  insisted,  and  when  the  dowager  viscountess  of  a  family  as  old  and  respectable  as  the  albons  insists  that  you  will  stay  with  them  for  the  season,  that  you  will  have  your  debut  under  her  sponsorship,  that  she  will  not  hear  a  single  word  of  refusal… well.  you  have  learned,  over  the  years,  that  there  are  some  forces  of  nature  one  simply  does  not  argue  with.

the  carriage  turns  onto  a  familiar  street.  familiar,  though  you  have  not  seen  it  in  over  a  decade,  familiar  because  you  have  dreamed  of  it,  because  the  memory  of  these  townhouses  with  their  white  facades  and  wrought-iron  railings  has  lived  behind  your  eyelids  every  night  since  you  were  torn  away.  your  heart  begins  to  pound  so  violently  you  fear  the  driver  must  hear  it,  fear  that  the  whole  of  london  must  hear  it,  this  traitorous  organ  announcing  your  return  with  all  the  subtlety  of  a  herald's  trumpet.

there.  the  albon  residence.  fourth  house  from  the  corner,  distinguished  by  the  climbing  roses  that  lady  albon  has  always  insisted  upon  keeping  despite  the  gardener's  yearly  protestations  that  the  london  air  is  too  foul  for  such  delicate  blooms.  the  roses  are  in  full  flower  now,  a  riot  of  pink  and  cream  spilling  over  the  iron  fence,  and  the  sight  of  them  makes  your  eyes  sting.

you  are  not  going  to  cry.  you  are  three-and-twenty  years  old,  a  woman  grown,  and  you  are  not  going  to  cry  over roses.

the  carriage  slows.  stops.

and  then—

the  blue  door  flies  open  before  your  footman  has  even  lowered  the  steps,  and  there  is  a  sound  like  a  small  stampede,  a  blur  of  muslin  and  ribbons  and  flying  hair,  and  you  hear  your  name—  your christian  name,  propriety  be  damned—  shrieked  across  the  morning  air  in  three  voices  at  once.

“you're  here!”

you  barely  have  time  to  gather  your  skirts  before  the  carriage  door  is  wrenched  open  and  there  is  zoe,  zoe  who  was  eleven  years  old  and  missing  her  two  front  teeth  when  you  left,  zoe  who  is  now  a  woman  grown  with  her  dark  hair  pinned  up  in  a  style  that  is  only  slightly  askew  from  her  sprint  down  the  front  steps.  she  is  reaching  for  you,  laughing  and  crying  all  at  once,  and  behind  her  alicia  is  bouncing  on  her  heels  with  an  expression  of  barely  contained  joy,  and  behind her  is  chloe—  chloe,  who  was  five  years  old  and  still  in  the  nursery  when  you  were  sent  away,  who  you  know  only  from  letters  and  the  miniature  portrait  zoe  sent  you  three  years  ago.

“let  her breathe,  zoe,”  alicia  says,  though  she  is  already  shouldering  past  her  sister  to  grasp  your  hands  the  moment  your  feet  touch  the  pavement,  squeezing  so  tightly  you  fear  for  your  circulation.  “oh,  look  at  you,  look  at you—  you're  so tall—”

“i  am  precisely  the  same  height  i  was  in  my  last  letter,”  you  manage,  “i  believe  i  even  specified—”

“letters  are not  the  same,”  chloe  interrupts,  but  then  zoe  pulls  you  into  an  embrace  so  fierce  it  nearly  knocks  the  breath  from  your  lungs,  and  you  feel  chloe's  hand  on  your  arm,  and  alicia  is  pressed  against  your  side,  and  you  are  surrounded,  you  are held,  and  oh, oh,  you  had  forgotten  what  this  feels  like,  to  be  wanted  somewhere,  to  have  people  who  are  so  fiercely  glad  you  exist.

“mama  is  going  to  be  furious  that  we  did  not  wait  for  you  in  the  drawing  room  like  civilized  ladies,”  zoe  says  into  your  shoulder,  not  sounding  the  least  bit  concerned  about  her  mother's  fury.  “but  i  told  her—  i  said, mama,  i  have  not  seen  her  in  eleven  years,  i  am  not  going  to  stand  about  making  small  talk  when  she  is  right  there—”

“you  wretched  thing!”  alicia’s  voice  overlaps  her  sister’s,  finally  pulling  back  to  look  at  you  properly.  her  eyes  are  bright,  her  cheeks  flushed,  and  she  looks  so  much  like  the  girl  you  remember,  “making  us  wait  so  long,  do  you  have  any  idea  how  many  letters  i  had  mama  write  to  your  grandfather?  the  man  is  utterly  impossible,  i  cannot  believe  he  kept  you  from  us  for  so  many  years—“

“it  was  not  entirely  his  fault,”  you  begin,  but  alicia  waves  a  dismissive  hand.

“i  don't  care  whose  fault  it  was.  you're  here  now,  that's  all  that  matters.”

“oh,  well,”  you  say,  “in  that  case,  i  don't  know  what  all  the  fuss  is  about.”

zoe  laughs,  the  sound  bright  and  startling  and  exactly  the  same  as  you  remember,  and  she  links  her  arm  through  yours,  steering  you  toward  the  house  as  though  you  might  try  to  escape.

“come,”  she  says,  “come  inside,  mama  has  had  cook  prepare  all  your  favorites—  do  you  still  like  lemon  biscuits?  i  told  her  you  did  but  it  has  been so  long  and  people's  tastes change,  apparently,  though  i  cannot  imagine  giving  up  lemon  biscuits  personally—”

“i  still  like  lemon  biscuits,”  you  confirm,  and  you  let  yourself  be  pulled  up  the  steps,  alicia  on  your  other  side,  chloe  trailing  behind.

the  townhouse  is  exactly  as  you  remember  and  not  at  all  the  same—  the  wallpaper  in  the  entrance  hall  is  new,  a  soft  green  that  catches  the  light,  and  there  are  fresh  flowers  on  the  side  table,  and  the  smell  of  beeswax  and  lavender  wraps  around  you  like  an  embrace.  you  stand  there  for  a  moment,  breathing  it  in.

“we  put  you  in  the  room  next  to  mine,”  zoe  is  saying,  already  halfway  up  the  stairs,  “and  chloe  is  across  the  hall,  and  alicia  is—  well,  alicia  is  in  the  attic,  practically—”

“i  am not  in  the  attic,”  alicia  protests,  “i  am  on  the  third  floor,  which  is perfectly  respectable—”

“mama  says  she  will  see  you  for  tea  once  you've  freshened  up,”  chloe  adds.

you  smile  at  her,  and  you  hope  it  does  not  look  as  tremulous  as  it  feels.  “i  look  forward  to  it,”  you  say,  and  you  mean  every  word  of  it.

the room they have given you is lovely, pale blue walls and white linens and a window that overlooks the garden, and there is a pitcher of fresh water on the washstand and a small vase of forget-me-nots on the bedside table.

the maid lady albon has assigned to you— a cheerful, round-faced girl named martha who chatters amiably as she unpacks your trunks— helps you change out of your traveling clothes and into something more suitable for tea. the gown is one of your better ones, a soft blue muslin that your grandfather's housekeeper had insisted you commission before your departure, and you smooth your hands over the fabric as martha arranges your hair, twisting it into something more fashionable than the simple knot you had worn for the journey.

“there now,” martha says, with evident satisfaction, meeting your eyes in the mirror. “right pretty, you are. the young ladies will be so pleased.”

you manage a smile, though your stomach is tight with nerves that have nothing to do with your appearance.

the thing you have not allowed yourself to dwell upon, the thing you have carefully not mentioned in any of your letters, is that the albons have had their own share of scandal in the years since your departure.

you learned of it through zoe's correspondence, though she had been characteristically circumspect in her telling. something regarding money, she had written, something regarding mama and an investment that went rather badly wrong. you know how these things are. papa has retreated to the countryside to manage his health, and alex has taken over the estate matters. we are quite alright, truly. please do not worry.

do not worry, she had said, as though you could do anything else.

the details had come to you in fragments over the following months, both from gossip and from the girls’ letters. the albons, it had seemed, had come across certain financial decisions… investments that had seemed sound at the time but had ultimately proven disastrous. the loss had not been ruinous, not quite, but it had been significant enough to cause a stir among the ton, significant enough that lord albon had retreated to their northern estate in what everyone understood to be shame, unable to bear the whispers and the knowing looks.

he had passed there, three years later, without ever returning to london.

and lady albon, beautiful, gracious lady albon, who had welcomed you into her home when your own mother was too busy with her affairs to notice you existed, had been left to raise her children alone, her reputation tarnished, her husband gone, her eldest son forced to shoulder the burden of the estate at an age when he should have been enjoying his youth.

perhaps that is why she wrote to you. perhaps that is why she has opened her home to you now, when so many others would have turned you away. she understands, in a way that few others can, what it means to be marked by scandal.

you descend the stairs with your heart in your throat, following the sound of the girls’ laughter to the parlour, and when you step through the doorway, lady albon looks up from her seat with a smile that makes your eyes sting all over again.

“my dear girl,” she says, setting aside her embroidery and rising to take your hands in hers, and her grip is firm and warm and exactly as you remember, the hands of a woman who has weathered storms and come out the other side still standing. “let me look at you. oh, let me look at you. you have your mother's eyes— did you know that? i always told her so, though she never believed me—”

“lady albon—” you begin, but she cuts you off with a sound of pure exasperation.

“it is minky to you,” she says, squeezing your hands once before releasing them, “as it has always been, as it will always be, at least in the privacy of our own home. i did not help your mother plan her wedding and hold you as an infant and watch you grow into this remarkable young woman only to have you lady albon me in my own parlour. sit, sit—zoe, stop hovering and pour the tea—”

you sit, because there is nothing else to do when minky albon gives an order, and zoe rolls her eyes, but does as her mother says anyway.

“you look well,” minky muses, “the country air has agreed with you. though i suspect you are glad to be away from it, yes?”

“i am glad to be here,” you say, and you mean it so fiercely the words come out rough-edged. “i cannot thank you enough— the invitation, the sponsorship, all of it—”

minky waves a hand, “nonsense. you are practically family, and it is high time you were given the season you deserve. besides—” and here her eyes glint with something that might be mischief, “— i have three daughters to marry off, and i find the prospect far less tedious with the addition of a fourth.”

“mama,” zoe protests, but she is grinning as she passes you a cup of tea, “you make it sound as though we are horses at auction.”

“the marriage mart is hardly more dignified,” alicia observes, “but at least we are not expected to trot.”

“give it time,” chloe murmurs, and you nearly choke on your tea.

“you are not even out yet, young lady, so i will thank you to keep your cynicism to yourself.” minky turns back to you, and her expression softens. “now. we must discuss the practicalities. the season is already underway, but we have managed to secure you a presentation— lady norris has been kind enough to host a ball tomorrow evening, and the queen herself will be in attendance. it is not a formal drawing room presentation, but it will serve well enough to introduce you to society properly.”

“the norris ball!” alicia exclaims, “oh, it will be such fun— their eldest, oliver, is terribly serious and thinks himself very important because he is heir to an duchy—”

"he is heir to an duchy,” zoe points out.

“—yes, but he does not have to be so boring about it,” alicia continues, undeterred. "and their second son, lando, is an absolute menace. charming, of course, devastatingly so, but absolutely impossible! he flirts with everyone— everyone!— and never seems to mean a word of it, and he and alex are thick as thieves, which means we are constantly subjected to his presence at family dinners, and—”

“he is one of alex's closest friends,” zoe clarifies, noting your confusion. “they met at eton, i believe. lando is... well. you shall see for yourself tomorrow.”

“oh, speaking of alex!” alicia exclaims, sitting up so suddenly that her tea sloshes dangerously in its cup. “is he not due back from the mercer estate tomorrow? i thought he was meant to arrive just in time for the ball.”

“you will finally meet him,” chloe notes, watching you those wide eyes. “is that not strange? that you have known us so long and never met our brother?”

“i have thought of it,” you admit, because there is no point in pretending otherwise. “he was always— elsewhere. school, i believe. so i have not had the pleasure.”

the pleasure. as though you have not spent years constructing an image of him in your mind from the fragments the girls have shared. as though you did not, as a child of eleven, develop a most embarrassing fascination with the portrait of the young heir that hung in the upstairs hallway, a boy of fifteen in that painting, a slight smile on his lips despite the solemness of the painting. as though you did not write his name in the margins of your journal, once, twice, a hundred times, before tearing out the pages in a fit of mortified practicality.

it had seemed so silly, even then. a childhood infatuation with a boy you had never met, constructed entirely from a painted image and the adoring words of his sisters. you had been eleven years old and desperately lonely, and he had been the romantic hero of every novel you had ever read, distant and mysterious and perfect in the way that only imaginary figures can be.

“he is very good at being elsewhere,” alicia says, “but he is also very good at being present, when he chooses to be. you will like him, i think. everyone does.”

“alicia is biased,” chloe says, “because alex taught her to ride and let her borrow his books and generally spoiled her terribly when we were small—”

“as opposed to you, who he also taught to ride and let borrow his books and generally spoiled terribly?”

“i am not biased,” alicia protests, with tremendous dignity. “i am simply stating facts. alex is— alex. you will see.”

“tomorrow, then,” you say, and from the opposite sofa, zoe grins at you, bright and knowing.

“tomorrow,” she agrees. “and oh, it is going to be wonderful.”

the norris estate blazes with light, every window glowing gold against the darkening sky, and you can hear the music spilling out onto the gravel drive before the carriage has even come to a full stop. by the time you actually do step out of the carriage, your heart is already beating too fast, fluttering against your ribs like a caged bird, and you press your gloved hand flat against your stomach as though you might physically still the tremor of your nerves.

“breathe!” alicia whispers, leaning close enough that her breath tickles your ear. “you look positively green, and green does not complement that gown at all.”

"i am not green," you whisper back, though you cannot say with any certainty that this is true. "i am merely... contemplative."

“she is terrified,” zoe observes from your other side, though not unkindly. “which is perfectly reasonable. alicia was sick in the garden before her first ball. twice.”

​​”that was the oysters!” alicia protests.

“it was nerves. the oysters were merely… contributory.”

lady albon, resplendent in deep blue silk, fixes all three of you with a look that somehow manages to convey both fondness and warning. “if the three of you are quite finished,” she says, “we do have a queen to greet and a young lady to present. compose yourselves.”

chloe had been left at home, of course, protesting loudly that it was entirely unfair that she should miss your debut when she had been waiting to meet you for practically her whole life. but she was not yet out, and rules were rules, no matter how one might rail against them. you had promised to tell her everything, every last detail, and she had made you swear on your own dowry (which, admittedly, is not much) that you would not leave out a single dance or gown or whispered gossip.

the ballroom, when you finally enter, is a whirlwind of bodies and candlelight and colour: ladies in silks of every shade imaginable, gentlemen in dark coats and crisp cravats, the glitter of jewels at throats and wrists and ears. the queen herself is holding court at the far end of the room, surrounded by a small constellation of ladies-in-waiting, and even from this distance you can see the knowing tilt of her chin, the way the crowd constantly fixes their eyes on her, despite their total unsublety.

your presentation passes in a blur of curtsies and murmured pleasantries, the queen's sharp eyes assessing you for one endless moment before she nods, and you are released, dismissed, folded into the swirl of the evening like a single drop of water into an ocean. you remember very little of what was said. you think you did not embarrass yourself. that will have to be enough.

“well done,” lady albon says quietly, her hand briefly warm on your elbow. “now, enjoy yourself. that is an order.”

and then she is swept away into conversation with a group of ladies her own age, and you are left with zoe and alicia, who immediately steer you toward a relatively quiet corner where you can observe the proceedings without being directly in the fray.

“right,” zoe starts, “allow me to bring you up to speed on the season's developments, as you have missed the first three weeks and quite a lot has happened.”

“is this strictly necessary?” you ask, but you are smiling, still.

“absolutely essential,” alicia confirms.

“very well.” you acquiesce, moving to lean against the wall, “tell me everything.”

zoe takes a breath. "lord acosta’s daughter— you remember the acostas, yes? the house with the pretty garden? well, she has set her cap for the lord hamilton’s eldest ward, which is ambitious to say the least, given that he has shown absolutely no interest in anyone this season and seems to actively flee whenever a young lady approaches him with that particular gleam in her eye."

“the gleam of matrimonial intent!” alicia supplies with glee.

“precisely! meanwhile, the beaumont twins have both decided they are in love with the same gentleman— a mister chen, who is very handsome, very wealthy, very oblivious— and their mother is at her absolute wit's end trying to keep them from coming to blows over who saw him first.”

“this is absurd!” you exclaim, but you are laughing, your eyes following theirs, “are there no straightforward attachments this season? no simple, uncomplicated courtships?”

zoe and alicia exchange a look.

“no!” they say in unison, and zoe adds, “where would be the entertainment in that?”

the music shifts, the first dance of the evening beginning to form, and you watch as couples take their places on the floor. zoe is claimed almost immediately by a gentleman you do not recognize, and alicia is not far behind, swept onto the floor by a friend of the family whose name you have already forgotten.

and you— well, you remain where you are, pressed against the wall, watching.

it is not unexpected. you are new, unknown, the subject of whispers that have followed you since you walked through the door— that is the one, is it not? her mother's daughter, back from wherever they sent her, the albons have taken her in, how very charitable of them. the ton has a long memory, and your family's scandal is not so old that it has been forgotten. perhaps you will be asked to dance later, once curiosity overcomes caution. perhaps you will not. you have prepared yourself for this possibility, have armored yourself with low expectations.

and yet… it still stings, watching your friends laugh and turn in the arms of partners who sought them out, while you stand alone with your punch and your carefully neutral expression.

you let your gaze drift across the room, cataloging faces, looking for… something, though you are not certain what. a friendly countenance, perhaps. someone who might be willing to speak with you, to break the strange isolation that has settled around you.

and then you see him.

he is standing near one of the tall windows, half-turned away from the room as though he would rather be looking at the gardens than the glittering crowd.he is tall, dark-haired, and handsome, incredibly so, with a face that seems made for smiling even though he is not smiling now. his coat is well-cut and clearly expensive, his cravat tied with a kind of careless precision that suggests either great skill or a very good valet, and he is—

he is looking at you.

your breath catches.

he looks away immediately, almost guiltily, fixing his gaze on some point in the middle distance, but you saw. you saw him watching you across the crowded room, saw the flicker of something in his expression before he schooled it into neutrality, and the thing is—

the thing is you know him.

not personally, no. you have never been in the same room with him before this very moment, but, you know the set of his shoulders from years of studying a portrait that hung in the albons' drawing room, know the shape of his jaw from the miniature zoe sent you three christmases ago.

lord alexander albon.

a silly childhood crush, you had called it then, and you had told yourself you had outgrown it, had left it behind with all the other childish things you had been forced to abandon when your world collapsed. you are a woman now, not a girl, and you do not form attachments to men you have never met based on portraits and secondhand stories and a few kind words in fading ink.

and yet.

and yet.

he glances at you again, quick and furtive, and this time when your eyes meet he does not look away immediately— he holds your gaze for one endless, breathless moment, and you see colour rise in his cheeks, see the way his throat moves as he swallows, and something reckless seizes hold of you, something that feels like the girl you used to be.

you set down your glass of punch, smooth your skirts, swallow the heavy feeling in your throat, and you walk across the ballroom floor toward him, weaving through the crowd with a confidence you believe is entirely fabricated, your heart pounding so loudly you are certain the entire room must be able to hear it.

he watches you approach. he does not flee, though he looks for a moment as though he is considering it, his hand tightening briefly on the glass he is holding before he seems to consciously relax his grip. up close he is even more handsome than he was at a distance, and you notice that there is a warmth to him, a softness around his eyes that the portrait never captured, and when you stop before him you can see the rapid pulse at the base of his throat, can see the way his lips part slightly as though he means to speak and then thinks better of it.

“lord albon.” you say, giving a brief curtsy, “i believe we have never been formally introduced, though i feel i know you quite well through your sisters' correspondence. i am—”

“i know who you are,” he interrupts, and then immediately looks mortified, colour flooding his face all the way to the tips of his ears. “that is— i meant— my sisters have spoken of you. frequently. at length. i feel as though i have known you for—” he stops, takes a breath, visibly collects himself. “forgive me. it is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. a genuine pleasure. i have heard— that is to say—”

he is flustered. this man, who for all intents and purposes is a viscount, this figure who has loomed so large in your imagination for so long, is flustered, and he is standing before you blushing and stammering like a schoolboy. you are incredibly endeared.

“your sisters told me you would be here tonight,” you say, taking pity on him, offering him an easier thread to grasp, “they were beginning to wonder if you had forgotten the way to london.”

he laughs, and some of the tension leaves his shoulders. “the tenants' drainage issues were rather more complicated than anticipated,” he admits, “though i confess the journey back was… motivated.” he seems to realize what he has said and immediately looks as though he wishes the floor would swallow him whole. “by the season. by the start of the season. my sisters— they would not have forgiven me if i missed—”

the orchestra begins a new piece. around you, couples are pairing off again, moving toward the dance floor, and you watch his gaze flicker to the swirl of silk and candlelight before returning to your face, and you see the question there, the hesitation, the way he opens his mouth and then closes it again as though he cannot find the words.

eleven years, you think. eleven years of waiting, of wondering, of holding the idea of him like a pressed flower between the pages of your heart.

“lord albon,” you say, and you smile, “are you going to ask me to dance?”

his eyes widen. the flush on his cheeks deepens impossibly further. “i was working up to it,” he admits, “i have been working up to it for—” he stops, shakes his head, and when he meets your eyes again there is a steadiness there that was not present before, “would you do me the honor of this dance, my lady?”

he extends his hand, and you take it. his hand is warm through the thin fabric of your gloves, warm and solid and real, and you let him lead you onto the floor with your heart hammering against your ribs like it is trying to escape the confines of your chest. 

the other dancers are a mere blur around you, a swirl of colour and movement at the edges of your vision, all because you find you cannot look away from his face, at he way his eyes keep darting to yours and then away again.

“you are very quiet,” you observe, after a full eight bars of the dance have passed in silence. “your sisters led me to believe you were rather more talkative.”

he huffs a laugh, soft and surprised, and some of the tension in his shoulders eases. “my sisters,” he says, “have a great deal to answer for. i dread to think what else they have told you.”

"only good things," you assure him,and you cannot help the smile that curves your lips, “well… mostly good things. your sisters are... very thorough in their correspondence.”

something sparks in his eyes, and the tension in his shoulders eases slightly. “they are, aren't they? i shudder to think what they have told you about me. all lies, i assure you.”

“all of it?”

“well.” his mouth twitches, “perhaps not all. but certainly the most embarrassing parts.”

you laugh, “ah, so all of them, then.”

he chuckles, shakes his head, “you are not so inclined towards wit in your letters.”

you raise a brow, “you have read my letters? to your sisters?”

the question slips out before you can stop it, and you watch the colour rise in his cheeks again, that telltale flush that seems to give away every thought in his head.

“not— not all of them,” he says, and he sounds almost defensive now, “only… sometimes they would read passages aloud. at dinner. and i could not exactly leave—”

“of course not,” you nod, fighting to keep your expression serious. “that would be rude.”

“exactly. it would be unconscionably rude to abandon one's family at the dinner table simply because one's sisters have decided to narrate their entire correspondence in excruciating detail—”

“excruciating!” you exclaim, and you let your eyebrows rise, let a hint of teasing creep into your voice. “how flattering, my lord. i had no idea my letters were such a trial to endure.”

“that is not what i—” he starts, and then he sees your expression and stops, “you are enjoying this.”

“oh, immensely.” you confirm, and you do not bother to hide your smile. “you turn the most remarkable shade of red when you are embarrassed, did you know that? it is quite fetching.”

“i–” he begins, but then the music ends. around you, couples are separating, bowing and curtsying, drifting apart to find new partners or refreshments or the relative safety of the room's edges. you should step back. you should curtsy and thank him for the dance and allow him to return you to his sisters like a proper gentleman escorting a proper lady.

you do not move, and neither does he.

“lord albon,” you say, and your voice comes out softer than you intend to, “i find i am rather glad we have finally met.”

“as am i, my lady,” he says, eyes still trained on yours as he bends down to press a kiss to your gloved hand, “as am i.”

the days that follow the norris ball pass in a blur of morning calls and afternoon teas and evening entertainments, a whirlwind of social obligations that leaves you breathless and exhausted and strangely, achingly alive in a way you had forgotten you could feel.

you attend musicales where young ladies of varying talent perform for politely captive audiences, promenades through hyde park where the ton parades itself in all its finery and pretends not to notice who is walking with whom. you smile until your cheeks ache. you make conversation until your voice grows hoarse. you dance with gentlemen whose names you forget almost as soon as they release your hand.

you tell yourself that this is what you came here for, that this is the purpose of the season, this is your one chance to secure a future that does not involve returning to your grandfather's estate, or becoming a governess to a pack of what you assume would be spoiled brats, waiting for the lessons to end so they may cajole around in the sun.

one fact remains, though: alexander albon makes himself scarce.

you see him at breakfast, sometimes, already halfway through his coffee and the morning papers when you come down, and he will look up and nod politely and inquire after your sleep with the distant courtesy of a man addressing a houseguest he barely knows.

you see him in the hallways, passing like ships in the night, and he will murmur good afternoon or pardon me and continue on his way without breaking stride. you see him leaving for the gentlemen’s club or arriving home from some business meeting or another, always in motion, always just out of reach, and you tell yourself it does not matter, you tell yourself you are being foolish, you tell yourself that one dance does not make a courtship and one conversation does not make a connection and you have no claim on his time or his attention or the warmth that had flickered in his eyes when he held you in his arms and told you he was glad to have met you.

very well then. you cannot simply sit around and wait for a man to notice you, no matter how long your infatuation for him might have been. there is a deadline for you, a ticking clock in the back of your head, and you cannot afford to wait. that is the truth of it.

you will just have to be practical.

it  is  a quiet tuesday  afternoon,  which  should  be  noted  as  a  rare  occasion,  given  the  revolving  wheel  of  suitors  and  callers  that  seemingly  appear  at  the  albons’  front  door,  and  you  are  in  the  parlour  with  zoe  and  alicia  and  chloe,  all  four  of  you  crammed  onto  one  settee  in  a  way  that  is  entirely  improper  and  entirely  comfortable,  passing  the  latest  society  papers  back  and  forth  and  reading  the  most  ridiculous  passages  aloud  in  increasingly  dramatic  voices.

“the  society  papers  report  that  a  certain  young  baron  was  seen  leaving  the  beaumont  residence  at  an  hour  most  unbecoming  of  a  gentleman  caller,”  zoe  reads  from  over  your  shoulder,  as  you  are  holding  the  papers  at  the  moment,  her  voice  dripping  with  affected  scandal,  “one  can  only  speculate  as  to  the  nature  of  his  business,  though  this  author  suspects  it  had  rather  more  to  do  with  matters  of  the  heart  than  matters  of  finance.”

“the  beaumont  residence!”  alicia  gasps,  her  eyes  going  wide.  “that  is  where  the  twins  live.  clara  and  catherine!  the  ones  fighting  over  mister  chen.”

“do  you  think  he  has  made  his  choice?”  chloe  asks,  leaning  forward,  trying  to  get  a  glimpse  of  the  papers.

“if  he  has  any  sense,  he  will  flee  the  country,”  you  say,  and  the  girls  dissolve  into  giggles,  a  bright  cascade  of  sound  that  fills  the  parlour  like  sunshine.

then,  the  laughter  cuts  abruptly,  ​​and  you  turn  to  see  lord  albon  standing  in  the  doorway,  frozen  mid-step  as  though  he  had  not  expected  to  find  the  parlour  occupied.

“alex,”  zoe  says,  her  voice  bright  with  false  innocence,  “how  lovely  of  you  to  join  us.  we  were  just  catching  up  on  the  latest  gossip.”

he  clears  his  throat.  shifts  his  weight.  he  does  not  quite  meet  your  eyes.  “so  i’ve  heard,”  he  says,  voice  careful,  “i  did  not  mean  to  interrupt.”

“you  are  not  interrupting,”  alicia  says  sweetly,  “we  were  merely  reading  the  society  papers.  nothing  of  consequence.”

“nothing  of  consequence.”  he  repeats.  “i  was  not  aware  that  the  gossip  column  qualified  as  essential  reading.”

“it  is entertaining  reading,”  zoe  corrects.  “there  is  a  difference.”

“is  there?”  he  asks,  moving  into  the  room  properly  now,  crossing  to  the  settee  opposite  yours  his  eyes  flicker  to  you,  once,  quickly,  and  then  away  again,  fixing  on  some  point  on  the  far  wall  as  though  it  contains  information  of  vital  importance.

you  lower  the  paper  just  enough  to  peer  over  its  edge,  meeting  his  gaze,  “surely,”  you  say,  and  you  let  your  voice  curl  around  the  words  like  silk,  “it  is  not  a sin  to  indulge  in  the  society  papers,  my  lord?”

his  cheeks  flood  with  colour,  and  his  mouth  opens  and  closes  twice  before  any  sound  emerges,  and  when  it  does  it  is  not  words  so  much  as  a  strangled  sort  of  noise  that  might  be  protest  or  might  be  surrender  or  might  be  something  else  entirely.

“i— that  is  not—  i  did  not  say  it  was  a sin,”  he  manages,  and  his  voice  has  gone  slightly  higher  than  usual,  slightly  breathless.  “i  merely—  i  only  meant—”

"he  is  flustered!"  chloe  exclaims,  “look,  his  ears  have  gone  red!”

“they  have  not!”  he  protests.

“they  absolutely  have,”  alicia  confirms,  grinning.  “they  always  do  when  he  is  flustered.  it  is  one  of  his  tells.”

“i  do  not  have tells—”

“you  have  many  tells,”  zoe  shrugs,  “you  are,  in  fact,  the  least  subtle  person  in  this  family,  which  is  saying  something  given  that  chloe  once  tried  to  hide  a  squirrel  in  her  wardrobe  for  three  weeks.”

“the  squirrel  was  very  quiet!”  chloe  protests.

“the  squirrel  ate  mother's  favorite  gloves!”

“that  was  never  proven—”

“i  believe  we  were  discussing  lord  albon's  tells,”  you  interrupt,  grinning  at  him  with  a  glint  of  mischief  in  your  eyes,  “please,  do  continue.  i  find  myself  fascinated.”

alexander  drops  his  head  into  his  hands  in  a  gesture  of  defeat.   “you  are  all  impossible,”  he  says,  but  there  is  no  heat  in  it,  no  real  frustration,  only  warmth,  only  the  exasperated  affection  of  a  man  who  loves  his  family  even  when  they  are  determined  to  torment  him,  “every  last  one  of  you.”

“and  yet  you  keep  us!”   zoe  says,  reaching  across  the  space  between  the  settees  to  pat  his  knee  in  a  gesture  that  is  more  mocking  than  comforting.

“i  keep  you,”  he  agrees,  raising  his  head  to  meet  her  eyes,  “because  i  have  no  choice  in  the  matter.  you  are,  unfortunately,  blood  relations.”

“and  her?”  alicia  asks,  nodding  toward  you  with  a  sly  expression  that  makes  your  cheeks  warm.  “she  is  not  a  blood  relation.  will  you  keep  her  too?”

the  parlour  goes  quiet.

“i—”  he  starts,  and  then  stops,  and  then  looks  at  his  sisters  with  an  expression  of  profound  betrayal.  “you  are  all impossible!”

“you  already  said  that,”  chloe  points  out.

“it  bears repeating.”

“but  you  did  not  answer  the  question,”  zoe  presses,  and  she  is  relentless,  she  has  always  been  relentless,  and  you  want  to  kiss  her  and  strangle  her  in  equal  measure,  “will  you  keep  her?  we  have  already  decided  that  we  shall,  so  really  it  is  only  a  matter  of  whether  you  are  in  agreement—”

“zoe.”

“what?  it  is  a  simple  question—”

“nothing  about  this  is  simple,”  he  says,  and  his  voice  is  quieter  now,  more  serious,  and  when  he  looks  at  you  again  there  is  something  in  his  expression  that  makes  you  acutely  aware  of  every  breath  you  take  and  every  beat  of  your  heart.

“we  like  her,”  alicia  adds  softly,  and  the  teasing  has  gone  out  of  her  voice,  “we  have  always  liked  her,  alex.  and  she  is here  now,  finally,  after  all  these  years.  does  that  not  count  for  something?”

he  does  not  answer,  at  least  not  with  words,  but  his  eyes  stay  on  yours.

“i  should—”  he  clears  his  throat,  rises  from  the  settee  with  a  jerky,  graceless  motion,  “i  have  business  to  attend  to.  if  you  will  excuse  me.”

and  then  he  is  gone,  the  door  closing  behind  him  with  a  soft  click,  and  you  are  left  staring  at  the  space  where  he  was  with  your  heart  pounding  and  your  mind  racing  and  the  echo  of  his  almost-answer  ringing  in  your  ears.

one of the things you have come to learn about the albons, in the weeks since your arrival, is that they are not so much a family who keeps pets as they are a family who has been slowly, persistently taken over by animals.

it had started with frooky, or so zoe had explained during your first bewildering morning when you had come down to breakfast and found a large, frowning cat sitting in the center of the dining table like a furry centerpiece, calmly grooming himself while the family ate around him as though this were perfectly normal behavior.

“once you have one cat,” alicia had said, “you somehow end up with eleven. it is simply the way of things.”

"eleven?" you had repeated, certain you had misheard.

“eleven,” chloe had confirmed, ticking them off on her fingers. "frooky, moomoo, hippo, gigi, blue bear, stan, horsey…” and then she had continued to list them off, all with endearingly ridiculous names.

there are also, you have since learned, a dog and two ponies at the family's countryside estate, a fact that chloe had shared with tremendous enthusiasm and alex had confirmed with the weary resignation of a man who has accepted his fate.

you have met most of the cats by now, though you confess you cannot always tell them apart, and you know there are several grey ones who blur together in your memory, but you have grown fond of them regardless, these soft warm bodies that appear on your bed at night and wind around your ankles at meals and generally make themselves at home in every corner of your borrowed life here in london.

this afternoon, you are in the library.

it is a rare moment of solitude; zoe and alicia have gone calling with their mother, and chloe is practicing her pianoforte under the supervision of her governess. you had intended to spend the time reading, had been eyeing the albons' collection for days, and when you had finally found yourself alone you had made your way here with something approaching reverence.

the library is beautiful, all dark wood and tall windows, and the shelves stretch floor to ceiling, stuffed with volumes in no apparent order: philosophical treatises shelved beside gothic novels, scientific journals mixed in with poetry collections, everything jumbled together in a way that suggests the albons read widely and eclectically and do not much care for organization.

the book you want is on the top shelf. of course it is.

you eye the ladder that leans against the far wall, consider fetching it, and then decide that the step stool tucked into the corner will suffice. after all, the book is not that high, and you are not that short, and surely you can manage without going to the trouble of maneuvering a full ladder across the room.

this, as it turns out, is a miscalculation.

you position the step stool beneath the relevant section of shelving, gather your skirts in one hand to keep them from tangling around your feet, and ascend the two steps with what you feel is a feat of admirable grace. the book, a collection of essays on natural philosophy that you have been longing to read since you spotted it three days ago, is just within reach, your fingertips brushing the spine, and you stretch up onto your toes to get a better grip—

—and something moves in the shadows of the upper shelf.

you have approximately half a second to register a pair of gleaming eyes and a flash of grey fur before the cat launches itself directly at your face.

what follows is not, strictly speaking, dignified.

there is a yowl— from the cat or from you, you genuinely cannot say— and a flailing of limbs, and a desperate grab for the shelf that only succeeds in dislodging approximately a dozen books from their places. the step stool tips, and your balance abandons you entirely. and then you are falling, books raining down around you as you you hit the floor with a thump that knocks the breath from your lungs and sends a sharp bolt of pain through your hip and elbow.

for a moment you simply lie there, stunned, staring up at the ceiling while dust swirls in the afternoon light and somewhere above you a cat makes a sound of profound indignation, as though you are the one who has behaved unreasonably.

“what in god’s name—!”

the voice comes from the doorway, and you turn your head to see alexander albon standing frozen at the threshold with an expression of pure horror on his face, his eyes darting from you to the scattered books to the step stool lying on its side.

“‘m fine,” you say, which is perhaps optimistic given that you have not yet attempted to move, but it seems like the right thing to say, “i'm— there was a cat—”

he is across the room before you finish the sentence, dropping to his knees beside you with a complete disregard for his trousers, his hands hovering over you as though he wants to touch but is not certain he is allowed.

“are you hurt?” he demands, “can you move? should i send for a doctor? what happened—”

“a cat,” you repeat, and despite everything, despite the ache in your hip and the embarrassment burning in your cheeks and the fact that you are lying on the floor of his library surrounded by fallen books like some sort of disaster, you find yourself laughing, “a cat jumped at me. from the shelf. i think— i think it might have been moomoo—”

you both look toward the window at the same moment.

moomoo is sitting on the windowsill, one leg extended toward the ceiling as he attends to his… personal grooming with the focused dedication of a creature who has never done anything wrong in his entire life.

“moomoo,” alexander says, and there is a wealth of exasperation in that single word, a lifetime of similar incidents condensed into two syllables, “of course it was moomoo.”

“he came out of nowhere,” you say, and you are still laughing, you cannot seem to stop, the absurdity of the situation finally catching up with you, “i was just— i wanted a book—”

“let me help you up,” he says, and before you can protest his hand is closing around yours, warm even through both your gloves, and his other hand is at your elbow, steadying you as you struggle into a sitting position, “slowly, now. does anything feel broken? sprained?”

you take a moment to assess, wiggling your fingers and toes, rotating your wrists and ankles. everything seems to be in working order, though you suspect you will have some spectacular bruises by dinner, “i am intact,” you report, “merely… dented.”

“dented,” he echoes, and when you look at him his lips are twitching, almost into a smile, “that is one word for it.”

“i prefer to maintain my dignity wherever possible,” you say, with as much primness as you can muster, “even in circumstances that actively conspire against me.”

“here,” he says, reaching a hand out, “let me—”

you take his hand, let him pull you upright. when you stand, you are unsteady for a moment, and he reaches out, places a hand on your waist to balance you. for a moment you are standing very close to him, close enough to see the individual threads of his cravat, close enough to see the way his throat moves when he swallows, the way his eyes flicker down to your mouth and then away again. the hand on your waist sears through like a burn.

“the books,” you say, stepping away from him, from his grasp, because you have to say something, because the silence is becoming unbearable. “we should— i should—”

“yes,” he agrees, and his voice sounds strange, rougher than usual, “yes, we should—”

you both bend down at the same moment, and your fingers close around the spine of a fallen volume at the exact instant his do.

you freeze. he freezes. and then you are both crouched on the library floor with your hands overlapping on a copy of the mysteries of udolpho, your gloved fingers tangled together, your faces inches apart.

“oh,” you breathe.

his eyes meet yours. hold. and you see something flicker behind them, before a shutter seems to fall, some invisible wall slamming into place between one heartbeat and the next.

he pulls his hand back as though burned.

“forgive me,” he says, and his voice has gone strange again, “i should not have— that was—”

“lord albon,” you start, but he is already rising to his feet, already stepping back, already putting distance between you. “lord albon,” you try again, “please, if i have done something to offend—”

“you have done nothing,” he says, though you do not feel any sort of reassurance, “you have been— you are—”

he stops. shakes his head. 

“i should go,” he says, more definitively now, “i have— there is business i must attend to. please excuse me.”

“my lord—”

but he is already gone, the library door closing behind him with a soft click that sounds, in the silence that follows, very much like a period at the end of a sentence.

you stand there for a long moment, and you try very hard not to feel as though something precious has just slipped through your fingers.

from the windowsill, moomoo yawns elaborately and resettles himself in his sunbeam.

the  day  after  next  dawns  bright  and  clear,  and  lady  albon  declares  at  breakfast  that  the  entire  family  will  be  taking  a  turn  about  hyde  park  after  luncheon,  no  exceptions,  no  excuses,  and  she  does  not  want  to  hear  a  single  word  of  protest  from  anyone  at  this  table.

she  is  looking  very  pointedly  at  her  son  when  she  says  this.

alexander,  to  his  credit,  does  not  protest.  he  merely  inclines  his  head  in  acknowledgment  and  returns  his  attention  to  his  coffee  with  the  studied  nonchalance  of  a  man  who  is  very  carefully  not  looking  at  anyone  else  at  the  table,  and  you  tell  yourself  that  the  twist  in  your  chest  is  indigestion,  nothing  more.

the  walk  itself  is  pleasant  enough.  the  weather  holds,  though  it  is  a  bit  crowded;  it  is  easy  to  disappear  with  the  amount  of  people,  easier  to  slide  beneath  the  rush  of  the  crowd.

lady  albon  leads  the  brigade,  with  zoe  and  alicia  are  linked  in  arms,  chattering,  while  you  and  chloe  enjoy  companiable  silence  behind  them.  alexander  is  a  half-step  behind  with  his  hands  clasped  behind  his  back  and  his  gaze  fixed  on  some  middle  distance  that  seems  to  exist  only  for  him.

you  steal  glances  at  him  when  you  think  he  is  not  looking,  cataloging  the  line  of  his  jaw,  the  set  of  his  shoulders,  the  way  the  sunlight  catches  in  his  dark  hair.  he  is  beautiful  in  a  way  that  feels  almost  unfair,  and  you  wish  that  beauty  were  enough.  that  wanting  were  enough.  that  you  could  simply  reach  out  and  touch  him  without  the  whole  complicated  machinery  of  society  grinding  into  motion  around  you.

but  you  cannot.  and  so  you  walk,  and  you  do  not  touch,  and  you  try  to  content  yourself  with  proximity.

ahead  of  you,  zoe  lets  out  a  small  shriek  of  delight.

“lottie!”  she  calls,  dropping  alicia's  arm  and  gathering  her  skirts  to  hurry  toward  a  cluster  of  young  ladies  near  the  serpentine.  “charlotte  liao,  is  that  you?  i  did  not  know  you  were  back  from  bath—”

and  then  all  three  albon  sisters  are  gone,  swept  up  in  the  unexpected  reunion,  and  you  are  left  standing  on  the  path  with  alexander,  watching  them  embrace  and  exclaim  and  generally  behave  as  though  they  have  not  seen  each  other  in  years  rather  than  weeks.

“are  you  not  going  to  join  them?”  alexander  asks,  after  a  moment.

“no,”  you  say,  curtly,  “i  think  not.”

“may  i  ask  why?”

“i  am  wrought  with  scandal  enough,”  you  say  simply.  “miss  liao’s  family  is  well-respected,  well-connected.  the  last  thing  she  needs  is  to  be  seen  associating  with  the  daughter  of—”  you  stop,  swallow.  “well.  you  know  what  they  say  about  my  mother.”

he  is  quiet  for  a  long  moment.  when  you  glance  at  him,  his  expression  is  unreadable.

“the  ton  has  a  long  memory,”  he  says  finally,  “they  remember  what  they  wish  to  remember,  and  they  forget  what  is  convenient  to  forget.”

“your  family's  troubles  seem  to  have  faded  more  quickly  than  mine,”  you  observe,  and  there  is  no  accusation  in  it,  only  a  simple  statement  of  fact,  “your  sisters  are  received  everywhere.  your  mother  is  welcomed  in  the  finest  drawing  rooms.  your  own  prospects  are—”

“my  own  prospects  are  complicated,”  he  interrupts,  not  unkindly,  “our  debts  are  paid,  yes,  and  the  worst  of  the  whispers  have  died  down,  but  the  ton  does  not  truly  forget.  they  simply…  wait.”  his  mouth  twists  into  something  that  is  not  quite  a  smile.  “the  albons  have  survived,  but  survival  is  not  the  same  as  acceptance.  my  sisters  will  make  good  matches  because  they  are  charming  and  beautiful  and will not carry the albon name in marriage, and  my  mother  has  worked  tirelessly  to  repair  our  reputation,  but  there  will  always  be  those  who  remember.”

“at  least  they  whisper  quietly,”  you  say,  and  you  cannot  quite  keep  the  bitterness  from  your  voice,  “my  family's  scandal  is  still  spoken  of  openly.  my  mother's  choices,  my  father's—”  you  break  off,  shaking  your  head,  “it  does  not  matter.  i  did  not  come  to  london  expecting  to  be  embraced  by  society.  i  came  because  your  mother  was  kind  enough  to  offer  me  a  chance,  and  i  intend  to  make  the  most  of  it,  whatever  that  looks  like.”

“and  what  does  that  look  like?”  he  asks.  “to  you?”

you  consider  the  question.  it  is  not  one  you  have  allowed  yourself  to  examine  too  closely,   the  boundaries  of  your  expectations.

“a  respectable  match,”  you  say  eventually,  "a  home  of  my  own.  children,  perhaps.  a  life  that  is…  quiet.  stable,  at  least.  free  from  the  constant  reminder  of  where  i  came  from  and  what  my  parents  did.”  you  pause,  and  then,  “i  do  not  expect  love.  i  am  not  foolish  enough  to  hope  for  it.  but  i  would  like…  contentment.  someone  who  does  not  flinch  when  they  hear  my  family  name.”

he  is  quiet  for  so  long  that  you  begin  to  think  he  will  not  respond  at  all.  when  you  look  at  him,  his  jaw  is  tight,  his  hands  still  clasped  behind  his  back,  his  gaze  fixed  on  the  distant  figures  of  his  sisters.

“that  seems  a  modest  ambition,”  he  says  finally,  and  his  voice  is  strange,  as  though  something  is  caught  in  his  throat,  “for  someone  who  deserves  so  much  more.”

you  have  to  look  away  for  a  moment  to  collect  yourself,  to  press  down  the  sudden  surge  of  emotion  that  threatens  to  spill  over.  “perhaps,”  you  say,  when  you  trust  your  voice  again,  “but  i  have  learned  that  deserving  and  receiving  are  rarely  the  same  thing.  i  will  take  what  i  can  get  and  be  grateful  for  it.”

“you  should  not  have  to—”  he  starts,  and  then  stops,  shaking  his  head  sharply.  “forgive  me.  it  is  not  my  place.”

“no,”  you  agree  softly,  “it  is  not.”

“my  sisters  are  returning,”  he  says,  and  his  voice  is  neutral  again,  “we  should  continue  our  walk.”

you  nod,  because  there  is  nothing  else  to  do,  and  when  zoe  bounds  up  to  take  your  arm  and  demand  to  know  what  you  and  alexander  have  been  discussing  in  such  serious  tones,  you  smile  and  tell  her  nothing  of  consequence,  nothing  at  all.

but  later  that  night,  lying  in  your  bed  with  frooky  curled  warm  and  heavy  on  your  feet,  you  stare  at  the  ceiling  and  think  about  the  look  on  his  face  when  he  said you  deserve  so  much  more,  and  you  allow  yourself,  just  for  a  moment,  just  in  the  privacy  of  your  own  mind,  to  imagine  a  world  in  which deserving  and receiving  might,  somehow,  impossibly,  be  the  same.

and  then  you  close  your  eyes  and  put  the  thought  away,  fold  it  up  small  and  tuck  it  into  the  same  corner  of  your  heart  where  you  keep  all  the  other  things  you  cannot  have,  and  you  tell  yourself  that  friendship  is  enough.  that  if  alexander  albon  cannot  be  a  suitor,  then  you  will  be  content  with  him  as  a  friend.  that  wanting  more  is  foolish  and  futile  and  will  only  lead  to  heartbreak.

you  tell  yourself  many  things.

you  believe  almost  none  of  them.

“you  are  going  to  fall.”

alex's  voice  drifts  up  from  somewhere  below  you,  tinged  with  concern  and  what  might  be  amusement.  you  do  not  look  down—you  are  balanced  on  a  narrow  ledge  of  the  garden  wall,  reaching  for  a  climbing  rose  that  has  wound  itself  around  the  upper  branches  of  a  nearby  trellis,  and  looking  down  seems  like  a  poor  strategic  choice.

“i  am  not  going  to  fall,”  you  say,  with  more  confidence  than  you  feel.  “i  have  excellent  balance.”

“you  have  reckless  balance.  there  is  a  difference.”

“the  rose  is  right  there.  if  i  can  just—”  you  stretch  further,  fingertips  brushing  the  stem,  and  feel  the  ledge  shift  slightly  beneath  your  feet.

“for  god's  sake—”

and  then  his  hands  are  at  your  waist,  steadying  you,  warm  and  solid  through  the  thin  fabric  of  your  dress,  and  you  are  suddenly  very  aware  of  how  close  he  is  standing,  how  easily  he  could  pull  you  down  from  this  ridiculous  perch,  how  your  heart  has  begun  to  beat  in  an  entirely  undignified  rhythm.

“i  had  it  under  control,”  you  say,  slightly  breathless.

“you  were  about  to  plummet  into  the  rose  bushes.”  his  voice  is  dry,  but  his  hands  remain  at  your  waist,  and  he  has  not  stepped  back.  “which  would  have  been  difficult  to  explain  to  my  mother. sorry,  lady  albon,  your  houseguest  has  impaled  herself  on  your  prize-winning  floribundas.”

“it  would  have  made  for  excellent  gossip,  at  least.”

“a  small  comfort  when  you  are  being  extracted  from  shrubbery  by  the  gardening  staff.”  he  pauses.  “why,  exactly,  are  you  attempting  to  scale  the  garden  wall?”

you  point  to  the  rose,  a  perfect  bloom,  deep  crimson,  just  out  of  reach.  “for  chloe.  she  mentioned  at  breakfast  that  red  roses  are  her  favorite,  and  i  noticed  this  one  blooming  earlier.  i  thought—”  you  shrug,  suddenly  self-conscious,  “i  thought  it  might  make  her  smile.  she  has  been  melancholy  lately.  missing  her  friend  who  left  for  the  country.”

his  hands  tighten  almost  imperceptibly  at  your  waist.

“you  noticed  that,”  he  says  quietly,  “that  she  has  been  melancholy.”

“it  is  not  difficult  to  notice,  when  you  pay  attention,”  you  risk  a  glance  down  at  him  and  find  his  expression  soft,  almost  wondering,  “she  tries  to  hide  it,  but  she  has  not  been  herself.  i  know  what  it  is  like  to  miss  someone.  to  feel  left  behind.”

for  a  moment  he  simply  looks  at  you,  and  there  is  something  in  his  eyes  that  makes  your  breath  catch,  something  that  looks  almost  like  recognition,  like  seeing.

“come  down,”  he  says  finally, finally  withdrawing  his  hands  from  your  waist,  “i  will  get  the  rose  for  you.”

“you?”

“i  am  taller.  and  i  am  significantly  less  likely  to  end  up  impaled  on  shrubbery.”  he  holds  out  his  hand,  waiting.  “trust  me?”

you  look  at  his  outstretched  palm,  at  the  steady  certainty  in  his  eyes,  and  you  make  a  decision.

“yes,”  you  say,  and  you  let  him  help  you  down.

he  retrieves  the  rose  with  considerably  more  grace  than  you  would  have  managed—  a  simple  reach,  a  careful  twist  to  avoid  the  thorns,  and  then  the  bloom  is  in  his  hand,  perfect  and  unblemished.

“for  you,”  he  says,  presenting  it  with  a  small  bow,  “to  give  to  chloe.”

“thank  you,”  you  take  it  carefully,  mindful  of  the  thorns,  “though  you  have  now  robbed  me  of  my  dramatic  garden-scaling  narrative.  i  was  planning  to  tell  her  i  risked  life  and  limb.”

“you  can  still  tell  her  that.  i  will  corroborate  your  story.”  his  eyes  crinkle,  “i  will  even  add  embellishments.  a  treacherous  wind.  a  near-death  experience.  perhaps  a  small  fire.”

“a  fire  seems  excessive!”  you  exclaim,  but  when  you  turn  to  look  at  him,  he  is  holding  back  a  laugh.

he  falls  into  step  beside  you  as  you  make  your  way  back  toward  the  house,  and  the  silence  between  you  is  comfortable  in  a  way  that  surprises  you.  “you  are  good  with  them,  you  know.  my  sisters.  they  adore  you.”

“they  are  easy  to  adore  in  return.”

“they  are  terrors,”  he  corrects,  but  there  is  nothing  but  fondness  in  his  voice,  “well-meaning  terrors,  but  terrors  nonetheless.  the  fact  that  you  have  survived  all  these  weeks  in  their  company  without  fleeing  speaks  highly  of  your  fortitude.”

“i  have  practice  with  terrors,  you  do  not  know  what  horrors  i’ve  endured  in  the  countryside.”

“horrors!”

“oh,  yes,”  you  respond,  nodding  solemnly,  though  you  cannot  hide  the  smile  on  your  face,  “the  ghosts,  the  phantoms—”

“you  have  too  much  fun  jesting  at  my  expense—”  he  cuts  himself  off,  almost  saying  your  name,  but  he  clears  his  throat,  corrects  himself,  “my  lady.”

you  glance  at  him,  “well,  i  do  not  jest  entirely.  you  could  say  there  were  other  horrors—  i  mean,  it  was  always  lonely,  and  the  draft  always  did  cause  a  chill,  even  in  the  summer  months.  and  my grandfather—  oh,  when  he  gets  in  a  mood,  he  could  have  such  a  temper!  not  that—  i  mean,  he  is  kind,  on  most  days.”

“he  sounds…  complicated.”

“he  was. is.”  you  consider  how  much  to  share,  “he  took  me  in  when  no  one  else  would.  raised  me,  after  everything  that  happened  with  my  parents.  i  know  he  loves  me,  in  his  way.  but  it  is  a—”  you  search  for  the  word,  “—a  distant  love.  the  kind  that  provides  shelter  and  education  and  expects  gratitude  in  return.  not  the  kind  that—”

you  stop,  embarrassed  by  how  much  you  have  revealed.

“not  the  kind  that  your  sisters  have,”  you  finish  quietly.  “the  easy  kind.  the  kind  that  asks  for  nothing.”

he  is  silent  for  a  long  moment.  when  he  speaks,  his  voice  is  careful.

"my  father's  love  was  not  the  easy  kind  either,"  he  says.  “before  the  scandal,  i  thought  it  was…  i  thought  we  were  close.  but  when  things  fell  apart,  i  realized  that  what  i  had  mistaken  for  closeness  was  actually—”  he  pauses,  “—transaction.  he  loved  me  as  long  as  i  reflected  well  on  him.  as  long  as  i  was  the  son  he  wanted,  rather  than  the  son  i  was.”

you  look  at  him,  and  you  see  something  you  had  not  noticed  before:  a  sadness  beneath  the  composure,  a  loneliness  that  mirrors  your  own.

“what  kind  of  son  were  you?”  you  ask  softly,  “the  son  you  were,  rather  than  the  one  he  wanted?”

“i  do  not  know.”  he  sounds  almost  surprised  by  his  own  answer,  “i  never  had  the  chance  to  find  out.  by  the  time  i  was  old  enough  to  question  it,  he  was  gone.  and  then  i  had  to  become… this.  the  responsible  one.  the  reliable  one.”

“that  sounds  exhausting.”

“it  is.”  he  laughs,  a  little  ruefully,  “but  it  is  also  necessary.  someone  has  to  do  it.  and  i  am  the  eldest.  it  falls  to  me.”

“just  because  something  falls  to  you  does  not  mean  you  have  to  carry  it  alone.”

he  stops  walking.  turns  to  look  at  you.

“no  one  has  ever  said  that  to  me  before,"”he  says  quietly,  “that  i  do  not  have  to  carry  it  alone.”

“then  the  people  around  you  have  not  been  paying  attention,”  you  hold  his  gaze,  refusing  to  look  away,  “you  are  not  atlas,  albon.  the  world  will  not  collapse  if  you  set  down  your  burden  for  a  moment.  and  even  atlas…  even he  had  help,  in  the  end.  hercules  held  the  sky  for  him,  if  only  for  a  little  while.”

“are  you  offering  to  be  my  hercules?”

“i  am  offering  to  be  your friend,”  you  say.  “if  you  will  have  me.”

the  smile  that  spreads  across  his  face  is  slow  and  wondering,  like  sunrise  creeping  over  the  horizon.  “yes,”  he  says.  “i  think  i  would  like  that  very  much.”

mr.  logan  sargeant  arrives  in  your  life  on  a  wednesday,  during  a  musicale  at  the  bearman  residence  that  you  had  been  dreading  for  the  better  part  of  a  week.

you  notice  him  first  because  he  is  standing  alone  near  the  refreshment  table  with  the  particular  expression  of  a  man  who  has  found  himself  at  a  party  where  he  knows  absolutely  no  one  and  is  beginning  to  question  every  decision  that  led  him  to  this  moment.  it  is  an  expression  you  recognize  intimately,  having  worn  it  yourself  at  nearly  every  social  function  since  your  arrival  in  london,  and  perhaps  that  is  why  you  find  yourself  watching  him  instead  of  the  young  lady  currently  murdering  a  sonata  at  the  pianoforte.

he  is  handsome,  clean-cut,  fair-haired  and  blue-eyed,  with  the  kind  of  face  that  looks  like  it  smiles  easily  and  often.  his  coat  is  well-tailored  but  not  egregious,  and  there  is  something  about  the  way  he  holds  himself  that  seems  fundamentally different  from  the  english  gentlemen  around  him,  though  you  cannot  quite  put  your  finger  on  what.

“that,”  zoe  whispers,  leaning  close  enough  that  her  breath  tickles  your  ear,  “is  mr.  logan  sargeant.  from the  americas.”

she  says  the  words the  americas  the  way  one  might  say the  moon,  with  a  mixture  of  fascination  and  disbelief,  as  though  she  cannot  quite  credit  that  such  a  place  exists,  let  alone  that  someone  from  there  might  find  themselves  standing  in  lady  bearman’s  drawing  room  looking  lost  and  slightly  overwhelmed.

“from  the  americas?”  you  repeat,  keeping  your  voice  equally  low,  “what  on  earth  is  he  doing  here?”

“inheriting  a  barony,  apparently,”  alicia  murmurs  from  your  other  side.  “it  is  the  most  delicious  scandal.  well,  not scandal,  precisely,  more  of  a  curiosity.  he  is  some  sort  of  distant  cousin  to  the  late  baron  of  westbrook,  and  when  the  old  man  died  without  a  direct  heir,  the  title  passed  to  mister  sargeant's  branch  of  the  family.  he  arrived  in  england  three  months  ago  to  claim  the  estate  and  has  been  trying  to  establish  himself  in  society  ever  since.”

“with  limited  success,”  zoe  adds,  “the  ton  does  not  quite  know  what  to  make  of  him.  he  is  a  baron  now,  technically,  which  means  he  should  be  of  similar  rank  to  half  the  men  in  this  room,  but  he  is  also american,  which  means—”

“which  means  they  will  never  let  him  forget  it,”  you  finish,  understanding  settling  over  you  like  a  familiar  weight,  “he  is  an  outsider.  no  matter  how  legitimate  his  claim,  he  will  always  be  the  american  who  stumbled  into  a  title  he  was  never  meant  to  have.”

the  sonata  ends,  thankfully,  and  the  room  breaks  into  polite  applause  that  is  perhaps  more  enthusiastic  than  the  performance  warranted,  and  in  the  general  shuffle  that  follows  you  lose  sight  of  mr.  sargeant  among  the  crowd.  you  think  nothing  more  of  it  until  later,  when  you  are  standing  near  the  window  trying  to  catch  a  breath  of  fresh  air  and  a  voice  at  your  side  says:

“forgive  me–  i  do  not  mean  to  intrude,  but  you  looked  as  though  you  might  be  as  desperate  to  escape  as  i  am,  and  i  thought  perhaps  we  could  be  desperate  together.”

you  turn  to  find  mister  sargeant  standing  beside  you,  his  expression  apologetic,  but  also  hopeful.

“that  is  a  rather  forward  introduction.”  you  observe,  but  you  are  smiling  despite  yourself.

“i  apologize,”  he  says,  and  he  does  sound  genuinely  contrite.  “i  am  still  learning  the  rules  here.  in  america,  if  you  see  someone  who  looks  like  they  might  be  a  kindred  spirit,  you  simply  walk  up  and  say  hello.  i  am  beginning  to  understand  that  things  are  more complicated  in  england.”

“everything  is  more  complicated  in  england,”  you  agree,  nodding,  “it  is  something  of  a  national  pastime.”

there  is  no  calculation  in  him,  you  realize.  no  careful  assessment  of  your  worth  and  standing,  no  subtle  cataloging  of  your  family  connections  and  marital  prospects.  he  is  simply  a  man  at  a  party,  talking  to  a  woman  he  hoped  might  be  friendly,  and  the  straightforwardness  of  it  is  so  refreshing  you  almost  do  not  know  how  to  respond.

“logan  sargeant,”  he  says,  offering  a  small  bow.  “baron  of  westbrook,  apparently,  though  i  confess  the  title  still  sounds  strange  when  applied  to  myself.  and  you  are—?”

you  give  him  your  name,  and  you  watch  his  face  carefully  for  the  flicker  of  recognition,  the  slight  tightening  around  the  eyes  that  usually  accompanies  the  realization  of  exactly whose  daughter  you  are.  but  there  is  nothing,  only  polite  interest  and  that  open,  easy  smile.

“a  pleasure  to  meet  you,”  he  says,  and  he  sounds  as  though  he  means  it.

mr. sargeant calls on you the following afternoon.

and the afternoon after that.

and the afternoon after that, until lady albon begins setting an extra place at tea as a matter of course and the servants stop announcing him because everyone already knows who is at the door.

“he likes you,” zoe declares one evening, sprawled across your bed while you attempt to decide between two dinner gowns for the russell ball. “he really likes you. he looks at you like you hung the moon and he cannot quite believe his good fortune in being allowed to stand beneath it.”

“he looks at me like i am the only person in the room who does not make him feel like a complete outsider,” you correct, holding the blue silk up against yourself and frowning at your reflection. “which is not the same thing.”

“it is adjacent to the same thing,” alicia argues from her position by the window. “proximity to the same thing. close enough that the distinction hardly matters.”

“the distinction always matters.”

“does it?” chloe asks, “he makes you laugh. he treats you kindly. he does not care about your family's scandal because he does not know about your family's scandal, and by the time someone bothers to tell him, he will already have formed his own opinion of your character. is that not valuable?”

“it is—” you start, and then stop, because you do not know how to finish the sentence. it is valuable. it is more than i expected. it is not what i want.

but what you want is standing on the other side of a door he refuses to open, and you have spent enough years of your life wanting impossible things. perhaps it is time to accept what is actually being offered.

“mama thinks he would be a good match,” zoe says, more gently now, moving to stand beside you, holding the red dress against your shoulders, “she mentioned it to me this morning. she said that mr. sargeant is new to the ton, which means he needs a wife who understands how society works, how to navigate the complexities of the peerage. and you—”

“and i need a husband who will not hold my family's disgrace against me.” you finish flatly. “yes, i understand the logic.”

“it is not only logic,” alicia protests. “he genuinely seems to enjoy your company. and you seem to enjoy his. would it be so terrible, to build a life with someone who makes you smile?”

no, you think. it would not be terrible. it would be safe, and comfortable, and probably even happy, in its way. it would just not be—

you cut the thought off before it can complete itself.

“the blue,” you say instead, turning back to the mirror. “i will wear the blue.”

you do not mean to discuss mr. sargeant with lord albon. it simply… happens.

you are in the drawing room, reviewing the invitations that have arrived for the coming week, and he is there as well, reading a book though you have not seen him turn a page in the better part of an hour. the fire crackles in the grate. outside, rain streaks the windows in long grey trails. and somehow, in the quiet domesticity of the moment, you find yourself saying:

“your mother believes mister sargeant intends to make an offer.”

the book in alexander's hands goes very still.

“does she…” he says, and his voice is carefully neutral, so carefully neutral that it circles back around to being obvious.

“she thinks it would be a good match,” you continue, watching his profile, trying to read something, anything, in the set of his jaw, the terse line of his shoulders, “he needs someone who understands english society. i need someone who—”

“who what?” alexander interrupts, and there is an edge to his voice now, “who does not know your history? who can be kept ignorant of the truth until it is too late for him to extricate himself?”

the words land like a slap, and you feel the colour drain from your face. “that is unfair,” you say quietly, “and you are being unkind.”

“you are right,” he says. “forgive me, i should not have said that.”

“no,” you agree, your lips pursing into a thin line, “you should not have.”

“mr. sargeant seems a decent man,” he says finally, and each word sounds as though it is being dragged out of him by force, “i am sure he would make you—” he stops, swallows. “i am sure you would be—”

“happy?” you supply, when he does not continue.

“content. i am sure you would be content.”

content. there is that word again, the ceiling of your ambitions, the highest rung of the ladder you are permitted to climb. you remember saying it yourself, that day in the park. i do not expect love. i would settle for contentment. but hearing it from his mouth, in that hollow voice, with that bleak expression… it sounds different. it sounds like a door closing.

“my lord—” you start, but he is already rising to his feet, already setting aside his unread book, already retreating with that familiar efficiency that you have come to recognize as his primary defense mechanism.

“forgive me. i had forgotten i was to meet mr. russell— george— at the gentleman’s club today,” he says, and he does not meet your eyes. “please excuse me.”

and then he is gone, and you are left alone with the fire and the rain and the growing certainty that something is very, very wrong, something you cannot name and he will not explain and neither of you seems capable of addressing directly.

it is raining again.

london, you have come to understand, exists in a perpetual state of dampness, the sky a low grey ceiling that presses down upon the city like a hand, the cobblestones eternally slick, the air carrying that particular smell of wet stone and coal smoke and something green struggling to grow beneath it all. you have been here long enough now that the rain no longer surprises you, no longer sends you rushing for shelter with the desperate urgency of your first weeks. you have learned to move through it, around it, to accept it as simply another facet of this strange new, temporary life.

this afternoon, the rain has driven everyone indoors, and you have retreated to the small conservatory at the back of the house, a glass-walled room filled with potted ferns and trailing ivy and the particular humid warmth of growing things. it is your favorite space in the albon residence, this little pocket of green amid the grey, and you come here often when you need to think, need to breathe, need to remember that there are living things in the world that do not care about scandal or propriety or the elaborate machinery of the marriage mart.

you are repotting a small orchid, one of of the lady albon’s, slightly neglected, its roots outgrowing their current home, when you hear the door open behind you. you do not turn around.

“i did not realize anyone was in here.” alexander says, and there is a hesitation in his voice, a question beneath the statement: should i leave? do you want me to go?

"”he rain.” you say, by way of explanation, still focused on the orchid, “i find it peaceful, watching it from in here. like being inside a terrarium.”

“a terrarium,” he echoes, and you hear him move further into the room, hear the soft click of the door closing behind him, “i had not thought of it that way.”

“your mother's orchid needed repotting,” you add, “i hope she does not mind. i found it looking rather sad on the windowsill in the morning room, and i thought—”

“she will not mind,” he says. “she will be pleased, actually. she loves that orchid but can never remember to care for it properly. she calls it her 'beautiful failure.'”

“that seems an unkind thing to call a living creature.”

“she means it affectionately. or so she claims.”

you smile despite yourself, and you hear him move close enough now that you can see him from the corner of your eye, leaning against one of the plant stands with his arms crossed over his chest. he is in shirtsleeves, you notice, his coat and waistcoat abandoned somewhere, and the informality of it sends a small shock through your system.

“you are good at that,” he observes, watching your hands work the soil, “the plants. you have a gentle touch.”

“my grandfather's estate had extensive gardens,” you find yourself saying, “i spent a great deal of time in them, growing up. it was—” you pause, considering how much to share, “it was the only place that felt truly mine. the house belonged to my grandfather, and the library belonged to my tutors, and even my own room felt borrowed somehow. but the gardens did not care who my parents were or what they had done. they only cared whether i watered them and gave them enough light.”

“that sounds lonely,” he says quietly.

“it was,” you admit. “but it was also peaceful. i knew what the plants needed from me, and i could provide it, and in return they grew and bloomed and asked nothing more.” you lift one shoulder in a small shrug. “there is something to be said for relationships with clear expectations.”

“i am sorry,” he says, “that you had to learn that lesson so young.”

“we all learn our lessons,” you reply softly, “some of us simply learn them earlier than others.”

you return your attention to the orchid, tamping down the fresh soil around its roots, and for a few minutes there is only the sound of the rain against the glass and the quiet rhythm of your work. 

“there,” you say finally, stepping back to survey your work, “she should be much happier now. another few weeks and she may even bloom.”

you reach for the small watering can you had set aside earlier, but your hands are covered in soil, dark earth caught beneath your fingernails and smudged across your palms, and you make a small sound of frustration.

“here,” alex says, and he is beside you suddenly, and he is offering you a handkerchief, plain white cotton, slightly rumpled.

“thank you.” you murmur, and you reach for it without thinking, and your fingers brush against his.

the touch is electric.

you feel it everywhere, sparking up your arm, blooming in your chest. his hand is warm, so warm, and you realize with a start that neither of you are wearing gloves, that this is skin against skin, your soil-stained fingers pressed against his bare palm, and the intimacy of it makes your breath hitch.

you look up. find his eyes already on you.

he is frozen, still as a statue, his lips slightly parted and his pupils blown wide, and you can see the pulse jumping at the base of his throat, can see the way his chest rises and falls with quickened breath. the handkerchief is caught between you, forgotten, and neither of you moves to complete the exchange.

“i—” you start, but you do not know how to finish the sentence, do not know what words could possibly be adequate for this moment.

his thumb moves. just slightly. A barely-there brush against the inside of your wrist, tracing the delicate skin where your pulse beats rapid and frantic, and the sensation is so overwhelming that you actually gasp, a small, soft sound that seems to echo in the humid air of the conservatory.

“forgive me,” he breathes, and his voice is a wreck, raw, barely above a whisper. “i should not— we should not—”

but he does not pull away. and neither do you. you stand there, and you think: this is madness. this is impossible. this is everything i have been trying so hard not to want.

and then a door slams somewhere in the house. voices echo down the corridor, the general commotion of the albon sisters returning from wherever they had been. the spell shatters like glass, reality rushing back in to fill the space between you, and you jerk backward so quickly you nearly knock the freshly potted orchid from its stand.

“i should—” your voice comes out strangled, “i need to— the soil, i should wash—”

“yes,” alex says, and he sounds as shattered as you feel, his hand still extended as though he has forgotten how to lower it. “yes, of course, you should—”

“excuse me,” you manage, and you do not wait for a response, do not look back, simply flee (because there is no other word for it) out of the conservatory and up the stairs and into your room, where you close the door behind you and press your back against it and try very, very hard to remember how to breathe.

your hand is shaking.

you lift it, examine it in the grey afternoon light, the soil still caught beneath your nails, the faint redness where his skin touched yours. you can still feel the ghost of that touch, the warmth of it lingering.

we should not, he had said.

but he had not said i do not want to.

and therein, you think, lies all the difference.

the hamilton ball is a crush.

this is, you have learned, considered a compliment. a crush means the event is successful, well-attended, the sort of gathering that people will speak of for weeks afterward with tones of satisfaction or envy depending on whether they managed to secure an invitation.

you have been at the ball for perhaps an hour, navigating the crowd with zoe and alicia as your guides, making polite conversation with mamas and debutantes, carefully avoiding any corner of the room where alexander might be standing, when mr. sargeant appears at your elbow.

“you look,” he says, and then stops, “forgive me. i had a compliment prepared, something properly poetic, and it has completely fled my mind now that i am actually standing in front of you.”

“that might be the nicest compliment i have ever received,” you tell him honestly, “far better than poetry.”

“then i shall endeavor to remain tongue-tied in your presence,” he says, “may i have the honor of this dance?”

you should hesitate, consider. you should think about what it means, to dance with a man who has been calling on you daily, whose intentions have been made increasingly clear, whose proposal you can feel approaching like a storm on the horizon.

but the music is swelling and his hand is extended and somewhere across the room you can feel alexander's eyes on you like a physical weight, and so you say yes.

you say yes, and you let him lead you onto the floor, and you dance.

and then the dance ends. you curtsy. he bows. and then he looks at you with those clear blue eyes and says: “i know it is forward, and i know it is perhaps more than i should ask, but would you do me the honor of a second dance?”

a second dance?

in the language of the ton, a second dance is not quite a proposal, but close. a second dance says i am serious about you. a second dance says i want everyone in this room to know that my intentions are honorable. 

you should refuse. you should demur, claim fatigue, suggest that he partner someone else lest the gossips begin to talk.

“yes,” you say instead, offering your wrist, as he signs your dance card, “i would be honored.”

and so you dance again.

when it ends, he escorts you from the floor with visible reluctance, fetches you a glass of lemonade, and excuses himself to pay his respects to some acquaintance or another with the promise that he will find you again before the evening is out.

you watch him go, and you think: he is going to propose. soon. perhaps even tonight. you do not know how to feel about that.

“that was quite a display.”

the voice comes from behind you, and you do not need to turn around to know who it belongs to.

"lord albon," you say. "i did not see you there."

“evidently not.” alexander says, moving to stand beside you. his jaw is set, his shoulders rigid, and when you glance at him his eyes are fixed on the point in the crowd where mister sargeant has disappeared. “you seemed rather… occupied.”

“i was dancing,” you retort, “that is generally the purpose of a ball.”

“twice.”

very well, then.

“yes,” you agree, because there is no point in pretending otherwise. “twice.”

he is silent for a long moment. when he speaks again, his voice has lost some of its edge, replaced by something that sounds almost like defeat.

“the next dance is a waltz,” he starts, “would you—” he stops, swallows, forces himself to continue. “would you do me the honor?”

you should refuse, should claim that three dances in a row would be too much, claim anything that would allow you to escape this impossible situation without making it worse.

but it seems you have never been good at refusing alexander albon anything.

“yes,” you say softly, “i would.”

the waltz is nothing like your first dance with him, all those weeks ago at the norris ball—  this dance is something else entirely, his hand pressing warm and firm against your waist, your bodies closer than they should be, closer than propriety allows.

he does not speak. neither do you. there are no words that would be adequate for this moment, no conversation that could possibly address the tangled mess of wanting and denial and impossible longing that stretches between you like a living thing. so you simply move, let him guide you through the steps, let yourself exist in this single stolen moment where you can pretend that wanting is enough.

his thumb traces a small circle against the curve of your waist, and you feel your breath catch, feel the colour rise in your cheeks.

and then the dance ends, and the world rushes back in, and you are left standing in the middle of the hamiltons’ ballroom with your heart pounding and your hands trembling and the absolute certainty that you are in far, far deeper than you ever intended to be.

mr. sargeant calls the next afternoon.

you know, from the moment you see his face, what he has come to say. 

the drawing room feels smaller than usual when he enters, as though the walls have contracted to accommodate the magnitude of what is about to happen. lady albon is seated in her usual chair, her embroidery abandoned in her lap, and the girls are arrayed around the room in various attitudes of forced casualness— zoe by the window, alicia on the settee, chloe curled in the armchair with a book she is very obviously not reading.

alexander is standing by the fireplace.

you do not look at him. you cannot look at him. if you look at him you will lose your nerve entirely, and you cannot afford to lose your nerve right now.

“lady albon,” mr. sargeant says, and his voice is steady despite the slight tremor in his hands,  “ladies. lord albon.” he pauses, takes a breath, visibly steels himself, “i wonder if i might have a moment alone with—” he gestures toward you.

the room goes very still.

“of course,” lady albon says, after a moment, “girls, i believe you were planning to review the menus for the house party. alexander, perhaps you could—”

“yes,” alex says, and his voice sounds hollow, scraped clean of emotion, “yes, of course.”

he does not look at you as he leaves.

you do not watch him go.

and then the door closes, and you are alone with mr. sargeant (although lady albon stands as chaperone), and the weight of what is about to happen comes crashing down on you.

“mr. sargeant—”

“logan.” he corrects gently. “please. i think we have moved past formality, you and i.”

you swallow. you nod. “logan.”

“i am asking you to marry me,” logan says, and his voice is steady, certain, the voice of a man who has rehearsed these words a hundred times and means every one of them. “i know i am not what you expected— an american, an outsider, a man still learning what it means to bear a title he never asked for. but i have heard the whispers about your family, and i find that i do not care. i care about you. your kindness, the way you make me feel like i might actually belong in this impossible, impossible country.”

here is everything you should want. and yet…

“mr. sa— logan.” you say, and your voice catches on his name,  “i am— i am honored, truly. more than i can say. but i—” you stop, take a breath, try to find words that will not wound him. you glance at lady albon, who has a wary expression on her face, “might i have a few days to consider? this is a significant decision, and i want to be certain that my answer is the right one. for both of us.”

“of course,” he says, “of course you should take time. i would not want you to feel rushed, or pressured. this should be your choice, freely made.”

“thank you for understanding,” you whisper.

“might i ask—” he hesitates, then presses on. “might i ask when i might expect an answer? only so i know whether to hope or—” he attempts a smile, though it does not quite reach his eyes, “or begin preparing my heart for disappointment.”

“the albon ball,” you say. "at mercer hall, in a fortnight. i will give you my answer then.”

his face brightens, “the albon ball,” he repeats, “that is— yes. that is perfect. i will be there. i will be waiting.”

“logan—”

"until mercer hall, then," he says.

"until mercer hall," you agree.

and when you are alone in the drawing room with nothing but your thoughts and the crackle of the fire, you sink onto the settee and press your palms against your eyes and try very, very hard not to think about the other man who left this room without looking at you.

the man whose face you cannot seem to stop seeing, no matter how tightly you close your eyes.

the man who has given you no promises, no declarations, no reason to hope, and yet somehow manages to make every other option feel like settling.

the albon ball, you think.

you have a fortnight to decide the rest of your life.

the first few days in mercer hall pass in a blur of activity.

the ball is to be the event of the season, or so the albon girls have declared. every room in the house is being aired and polished, furniture rearranged, flowers ordered from farther out into the countryside, menus planned and replanned until cook threatens to quit in protest. the girls throw themselves into the preparations with enthusiasm, debating colour schemes and seating arrangements and whether the musicians should be placed in the gallery or the alcove, and you try to help where you can, but—

but they do not necessarily need you. not really. you are a guest here, not a daughter of the house, and there are limits to how much you can contribute to an event that is not yours to host.

so you find yourself with time on your hands, long stretches of afternoon where lady albon and the girls are occupied, and you are left to wander the grounds alone, exploring the gardens and the folly and the library that is indeed three times the size of the one in london.

you are not, strictly speaking, alone.

alexander is everywhere.

or perhaps it only feels that way, perhaps you have simply become so attuned to his presence that you notice him the way sailors notice the north star.

he is in the library when you go to select a book, standing by the window with the light catching in his hair. he is in the garden when you walk the paths, picking rose petals with the focused attention of a man who needs something to do with his hands.

he is at breakfast before you come down and at dinner when you retire, and every time your eyes meet across the table something electric passes between you.

you try to avoid him. you truly do.

but mercer hall is not london, and there are only so many rooms in even a house this size, and somehow you keep finding yourselves in the same spaces at the same times, drawn together by some gravity you cannot name and cannot resist.

you are not prepared for the strawberries.

it is an ordinary tuesday morning, the breakfast room flooded with pale sunlight, the sideboard laden with the usual offerings of eggs and toast and fresh fruit from the hothouse. the girls are bickering amiably about something inconsequential, lady albon is reviewing correspondence, and you are attempting to eat your breakfast like a civilized person.

and then alexander reaches for the bowl of strawberries.

it should not be remarkable. it is not remarkable— just a man selecting fruit from a dish, an action performed by thousands of people every morning across england without incident or comment.

but you watch him lift a strawberry to his lips, and you forget how to breathe.

his fingers are long and elegant, dusted with fine dark hair at the knuckles, and they cradle the fruit with a carefulness that seems almost reverent. he bites into it, and juice glistens on his lower lip, red and obscene against the soft pink of his mouth.

lick it, you think wildly. please, god, lick it—

his tongue darts out to catch the droplet.

you make a sound. a small, strangled noise that you disguise hastily as a cough, reaching for your tea with hands that tremble slightly.

“are you quite all right?” zoe asks, concerned, “you have gone rather flushed.”

“i’m fine!” you manage to choke out, “just… swallowed wrong.”

alexander looks up at you across the table, and for a moment your eyes meet. his expression is innocent, but there is something in the depths of his gaze that makes heat pool low in your belly, something that suggests he knows exactly what effect he is having on you.

he cannot possibly know, you tell yourself. you are being ridiculous. he is simply eating breakfast.

he selects another strawberry. brings it to his lips. bites.

you watch the movement of his jaw as he chews, the way his throat works when he swallows. you watch his tongue sweep across his lower lip, collecting the last traces of sweetness. you watch his fingers— oh god, those long, capable fingers— reach for another piece of fruit, and you imagine them touching other things. touching you.

“the strawberries are excellent this morning,” he says, and his voice is perfectly conversational, perfectly innocent, “would you like one?”

he holds one out toward you across the table.

your hand moves before your brain can intervene, reaching out to accept his offering. your fingers brush against his as you take the fruit (and it is the briefest contact, barely a whisper of skin against skin) but the sensation shoots through you like lightning, making your breath catch audibly.

“thank you,” you manage.

“of course,” his voice is mild, but his eyes are intent on your face, “what are friends for?”

you bite into the strawberry. the sweetness bursts across your tongue, and you are acutely aware of his gaze on your mouth, tracking the movement of your lips, watching you the same way you were watching him moments ago.

friends, you remind yourself desperately. we are friends. this is normal. this is fine.

the strawberry tastes like sin itself.

you find him in the library at midnight.

you had not been able to sleep, and you had crept downstairs in search of a book, something dull enough to bore you into unconsciousness. you had not expected to find the library already occupied, a single lamp burning low in the corner and alexander sprawled in one of the leather armchairs with a glass of something amber in his hand and a look of exhaustion on his face.

“oh,” you say, freezing in the doorway. “i did not realize— i can go—”

“stay.” the word is soft, almost slurred with tiredness, “please. i could use the company.”

you hesitate. it is improper, being alone with him at this hour, in this setting. if anyone found you, the gossip would be catastrophic. but he looks so tired. and there is something in his voice… a loneliness that calls to your own.

“one hour,” you say, moving into the room, “and if anyone asks, i was never here.”

“agreed.” he gestures to the chair across from him. "would you like a drink? the brandy is mediocre, but it does the job."

“i should not.”

“neither should i. and yet—” he raises his glass in a small salute. “desperate times.”

you settle into the offered chair, tucking your feet beneath you, “what has driven you to desperate measures at midnight?”

“estate business. tenant disputes. a letter from my father's former solicitor informing me that there may be additional debts we were not previously aware of,” he takes a long sip of his brandy. “the usual.”

“that sounds overwhelming.”

“it is. but i am learning to manage it,” he sets down his glass, runs a hand through his hair, already disheveled, as though he has been doing this repeatedly, “the worst part is not the problems themselves. it is the constant… aloneness of it. knowing that every decision rests on my shoulders, that there is no one i can turn to for advice or reassurance or even just—” he stops, shakes his head. “forgive me. i should not burden you with this.”

"you are not burdening me." you lean forward slightly. "i asked. i wanted to know."

"why?"

"because i care about you." the words slip out before you can stop them, more honest than you intended. "because you are my friend, and friends do not let friends drink mediocre brandy alone at midnight."

he stares at you for a long moment. then, slowly, a smile spreads across his face—small and tired but genuine.

“friends,” he repeats softly, “yes. i suppose we are.”

“you say that as though it surprises you.”

"it does, a little. i do not—" he pauses, considering. "i do not have many friends. well, i have george and lando, but they are the second sons, they do not… understand. the loneliness of it all. but friends— genuine friends, who understand who i am, who just… know—” he shakes his head. “those are rare.”

“that seems very lonely.”

“it is.” he says it simply, without self-pity. “but i am used to it. i have been alone for a long time, in one way or another.”

“you have your sisters, and luca.”

“i do. and i love them fiercely, desperately. but they are also—” he searches for the word. “—my responsibility. i cannot burden them with my worries. they have already carried enough because of our parents’ choices. i will not add to that weight.”

“so you carry it alone instead.”

“someone has to.”

“that is the second time you have said that. and i am going to tell you again—” you hold his gaze steadily, “—that it is not true. you do not have to carry everything alone. that is not strength, lord albon. that is just stubbornness.”

he laughs, surprised. “did you just call me stubborn?”

“if the shoe fits.”

“it fits,” he admits, “rather well, actually.” he is quiet for a moment, swirling the remaining brandy in his glass, “can i tell you something? something i have never told anyone?”

“of course.”

“sometimes—” he pauses, swallows. “sometimes i am so tired of being the responsible one that i fantasize about simply… walking away. leaving everything behind. getting on a ship and sailing somewhere no one knows my name or my family's history or expects anything of me." another pause. “is that terrible?”

“no,” you say softly. “that is human.”

“it feels like failure, even thinking it.”

“it is not failure to want a different life than the one you were given. it is not failure to feel tired, or overwhelmed, or desperate for something more,” you lean forward, willing him to understand. “my lord, you have spent years holding everything together for other people. you are allowed to want something for yourself.”

"and what would that be?" he asks, and there is something raw in his voice now, something unguarded. “what am i allowed to want?”

you think about the question. really think about it.

“i do not know,” you admit. “but i think—” you pause, choosing your words carefully. “i think you are allowed to want to be seen. not as the heir, or the caretaker, or the man holding everything together. just as yourself. whoever that is.”

he sets down his glass. looks at you with an expression you cannot quite read.

“you see me,” he says quietly. "you are the only person who has ever—” he stops, shakes his head. “i do not know how you do it. how you look at me and see past all the– the duty, the weight of expectation. but you do. you see me. and i—” he stops again. swallows hard. “i do not know how to thank you for that,” he finishes, barely above a whisper.

“you do not have to thank me,”  your voice is gentle, “you just have to let me keep doing it.”

the silence between you is different now, and it feels a little like understanding. you should leave. you know you should leave. but you cannot seem to make yourself move.

“tell me something,” he says suddenly, “something about you. something no one else knows.”

you consider. there are so many things you keep hidden: fears and hopes and secret shames that you have never shared with anyone. but here, in the dim light of the library, with this man who has just shown you his own hidden places, it feels safe to offer one of your own. “i am afraid,” you say slowly, “that i am fundamentally unlovable.”

his breath catches.

“not in a dramatic way,” you continue quickly. “not in a– a tragic heroine sort of way. but i think—” you pause, forcing yourself to continue, “i think that everyone who has ever been supposed to love me has found me… lacking, somehow. my parents left me. my grandfather tolerates me. and i have spent so long being the girl with the scandal, the girl who is not quite acceptable, the girl who must be grateful for whatever scraps of affection are thrown her way—” your voice breaks slightly, “i do not know how to believe that anyone could love me for myself. without reservation. without condition.”

“that is—” he stops, shakes his head. “that is the saddest thing i have ever heard.”

“it is not sad. it is just,”  you huff, “true.”

“it is not true.” his voice is fierce, suddenly. “it is a lie you have been told so many times you have started to believe it. but it is not true.”

“how would you know?”

“because i see you,” he says simply, “and what i see is not unlovable. what i see is brave and kind and funny and stubborn and so desperately deserving of love that it makes my chest hurt to think you have never had it.”

you stare at him. the tears are pricking at your eyes now, hot and unwelcome.

“i– my lord—”

“i am not saying this to– to make a declaration, or to complicate things,” he says quickly. “i am just saying. you asked what i see, when i look past the armor. and i am telling you. i see someone extraordinary. someone who has survived things that would have broken most people, and come out the other side still capable of kindness, still capable of hope.” he holds your gaze. “you are not unlovable. you never were.”

the tears spill over. you cannot stop them. “i should go,” you manage, rising from your chair, “it is late, and i—”

"of course." he rises too, concern flickering across his face. “i did not mean to upset you—”

“you did not upset me.” you wipe at your cheeks, embarrassed, “you just.. well, no one has ever said anything like that to me before. and i do not know how to—”

“you do not have to do anything.” his voice is gentle,  “just… remember it. when the voices in your head tell you otherwise. remember that someone sees you. someone thinks you are extraordinary.”

you nod, not trusting yourself to speak.

and when you slip out of the library and make your way back to your room, you carry his words with you like a chant— brave and kind and funny and stubborn and so desperately deserving of love— and for the first time in longer than you can remember, you allow yourself to wonder if they might be true.

it comes to a head the night before the ball.

the whitmores, a family of considerable wealth and considerably less pedigree with a girl around the same age as alicia, had extended an invitation to dinner that the lady albon could not politely refuse. the girls had been delighted, eager for any distraction from the endless preparations that had consumed the household for weeks, and even chloe had been permitted to attend under the watchful eye of her governess, a rare treat that had sent her into raptures of excitement about gowns and hairstyles and whether she might be allowed to stay for the dancing.

you had begged off.

the headache you claimed was not entirely fabricated; your temples had been throbbing for days, a dull persistent ache that you suspected had less to do with physical ailment and more to do with the impossible choice that loomed before you like a cliff edge. tomorrow night, logan sargeant would be waiting for your answer. tomorrow night, you would have to say yes or no, would have to commit yourself to a path that would determine the entire shape of your future.

and you still did not know what to say.

so when zoe had come to your room to help you dress, you had pressed a hand to your forehead and claimed a headache, and she had tutted sympathetically and promised to make your excuses, and you had watched from your window as the carriage pulled away.

the house is quiet now. emptied of its usual chaos, its constant motion.

you cannot bear it any longer.

you rise from your bed, pull a wrapper over your nightgown, and make your way through the darkened corridors toward minky’s chambers. you need to speak with her, need her counsel, her wisdom, her practical perspective on the choice before you. she has been where you are, after all. she married for position and security and built a life from those foundations, and if anyone can tell you whether such a life can also contain happiness, it is her.

you do not realize your mistake until you have already knocked on the door.

the door you knock upon is not the lady albon’s. standing before you, is alexander.

in a robe. and, from what you can tell, very little else.

his hair is damp and disheveled as though he has recently bathed, and you can see the hollow of his throat where the robe gapes open at the chest, the shadow of collarbone, of the old scar there he had said he had gotten on an incident with george on horseback, the suggestion of skin that you have never seen and should not be seeing now.

you make a sound. you are not certain what sound, though you assume it is something between a gasp and a squeak, something deeply undignified that you will be embarrassed about later when you have the capacity for embarrassment, which you currently do not because all of your faculties have been consumed by the sight of alexander albon in a state of undress that you should absolutely not be witnessing.

“i—” you manage, “this is not— i thought this was—”

“my mother's room is two doors down,” he says, and his voice is strangled, “on the other side of the corridor.”

“i was looking for her,” you say lamely, “i needed—” you shake your head, trying to force your thoughts into some semblance of order. “forgive me. i will go—”

“she is not here.”

you pause, halfway through the motion of retreat. “what?”

"my mother. she had decided last minute on chaperoning the girls at the whitmore dinner. she left with them several hours ago."

the implication settles over you slowly. “so there is no one,” you say carefully. “in the house. except—”

“except the servants,” he confirms. “who have retired for the evening. and you. and me.”

you should leave. every instinct you possess, every lesson you have ever been taught about propriety and self-preservation and the dangers that lurk in dark rooms with handsome men, is screaming at you to shut the door in his face and return to your room and pretend this never happened.

you do not leave.

"i could not sleep," you hear yourself say instead, and the words feel distant, as though someone else is speaking them. "i have been— there is something i must decide. tomorrow. and i cannot seem to—"

“sargeant,” alex says, and it is not a question.

you swallow. “he is expecting an answer at the ball. i told him i would give him one.”

“and what answer will you give?”

“yes.” you say, not quite believing yourself, and you watch his expression shatter, “i am going to tell him yes.”

“he is a good man,” you continue, more so trying to convince yourself than anything else, “he will be kind to me. he will give me a home, a life free from—” your voice catches, “free from all of this. the wanting. the not having. the endless, unbearable hoping for something that will never—”

“don’t.” he says.

“don’t what?” you ask, and your own voice sounds foreign to you, thin and trembling.

“don’t marry him,” alexander takes another step toward you, close enough now that you can see the rapid rise and fall of his chest beneath the silk, close enough that you can smell him, clean soap and something else, something that makes your head spin, or maybe it’s just him, “do not— you cannot—”

“give me a reason,” you say, and it comes out like like a desperate plea, like the last throw of a gambler who has already lost everything. “give me one reason why i should not accept the only man who has offered me a future. give me anything, my lord, because i am so tired of—”

“because i am in love with you.”

you stare at him. he stares back. somewhere outside an owl calls into the darkness, and the world narrows down to just this: this hallway, this moment, this man standing before you with his heart laid bare and his eyes reflecting the flames.

“what?” you whisper.

“i love you.” he says it again, stronger this time, as though now that the dam has broken he cannot stop the flood, “i have loved you since— god, i do not even know when it started. since that first dance, perhaps. since you looked at me across that ballroom and asked me if i was going to ask you to dance. since every moment after, every conversation, every accidental touch that was not accidental at all—”

“you have been avoiding me,” you say, and your voice is shaking, “you have been— you left, every time we were alone, you—”

“because i am a coward.” he laughs, but it holds no humor, “because i was afraid that if i stayed, i would do exactly this. i would tell you the truth and ruin everything— your prospects, your reputation, any chance you have at the respectable life you deserve—”

you do not know who moves first.

perhaps it is him, closing the final distance, his hands coming up to cradle your face with a desperation that steals your breath.

perhaps it is you, surging forward to meet him, your fingers fisting in the silk of his robe as though you might drown if you let go.

perhaps you both move at once, drawn together by the same irresistible gravity that has been pulling at you since that first dance, that first touch, that first moment when you looked across a crowded ballroom and saw him looking back.

it does not matter.

what matters is that his mouth finds yours, and the world ends.

the kiss is not gentle.

it is hungry and urgent and consuming, his mouth slanting over yours with a ferocity that steals your breath and replaces it with fire. he tastes like want, his tongue sliding against yours in a rhythm that makes your knees buckle, and when you make a sound— some desperate whimpering noise that you would be mortified by if you had any capacity left for mortification— he swallows it down and gives you back a groan that vibrates through your entire body.

his hands are everywhere. in your hair, scattering pins across the carpet. at your waist, pulling you against him so tightly you can feel every line of his body through the thin silk of his robe. sliding down to grip your hips, your thighs, lifting you as though you weigh nothing at all.

you wrap your legs around his waist instinctively, clinging to him as he walks you further into the hallway, your back hitting the narrow console table that stands against the wall between two portraits of disapproving ancestors. the wood is cold through your wrapper, a sharp contrast to the heat of him pressed against your front, and when he steps between your thighs and pins you there with his body you hear yourself moan, loud and shameless in the empty corridor.

this is not the alexander you thought you knew. the flustered, awkward, blushing man who could barely meet your eyes across the breakfast table has vanished entirely, replaced by someone confident and utterly without hesitation. he kisses you like he is trying to memorize the taste of you, his teeth catching your lower lip, his tongue tracing the seam of your mouth, his breath coming in harsh pants against your skin when he breaks away to trail his lips down your throat.

“alex,” you gasp, and his hips jerk against yours at the sound of his name, a reflexive motion that drags a groan from both of you.

“say it again,” he murmurs against the pulse point beneath your jaw, “god, please, say it again—”

“alex—”

his hand finds the hem of your nightgown. slides beneath it. the touch of his palm against your bare calf makes you shudder, makes your fingers clench in the fabric of his robe, makes you forget every reason why this is madness and remember only the wanting, the endless desperate wanting that has been building in you for months.

his hand drifts higher. past your knee, along the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, and you feel him hesitate there, feel the tremor in his fingers, the sudden tension in his body. he is waiting, you realize. he is waiting for you to stop him, to come to your senses.

you reach down and find his hand where it rests against your thigh.

and you guide it higher.

his breath catches. his forehead drops to rest against yours, his eyes squeezing shut, and when you shift your hips to press yourself more firmly into his touch, arch forward against his fingers, he makes a sound that is as desperate as a sob, the same time another moan is drawn out from your lips.

“please,” you whimper, and you do not entirely know what you are asking for, only that you need more, need him, need this moment to never end—

the front door opens.

voices flood the entrance hall below, the general commotion of arrival and the removal of wraps and the exchange of evening pleasantries. they are back. they are back early, hours before they should be, and you are sitting on a table in the hallway with alexander's hand under your nightgown and his mouth on your throat and absolutely no way to explain any of this.

alex pulls away from you like he has been burned.

he staggers back, nearly tripping over his own feet, and when you see his face in the dim light of the wall sconces his expression is absolutely horrified.

“forgive me,” he says, and his voice is wrecked, shattered into pieces. “god, forgive me, i should not have— i am a gentleman, i should never have—”

“alex—” you start, sliding off the table on legs that shake so badly you have to grip the edge of it for support.

“this was unconscionable!” he is backing away from you, one hand raised as though to ward you off, his robe askew and his hair wild and his chest heaving with uneven breaths. “you are a guest in my home. under my family's protection. and i— i took advantage—”

“you did not take advantage of anything!” you say fiercely, taking a step toward him. “alex, i wanted—”

“it does not matter what you wanted.” his voice cracks on the words. “it matters what i should have done. what i failed to do. a gentleman does not—” he stops, shakes his head violently. “i am sorry. i am so sorry. this was— there is no excuse. none.”

“will you stop apologizing and listen to me—”

“i cannot.” he has reached his door now, his hand fumbling for the handle behind him. “i cannot— if i stay here, if i listen to you, i will—” another violent shake of his head. “i am sorry. forgive me. please, just forgive me.”

“alex.”

"goodnight," he says with finality, and the door closes between you.

the ballroom is magnificent.

the albons have outdone themselves. the room glows with the light of a thousand candles, flowers cascading from every surface, their perfume mixing with the scent of champagne and celebration. the orchestra plays from the gallery above. by all intents and purposes, it is a crush of a ball.

you stand at the edge of it all and feel nothing.

or perhaps you feel too much. so much so that it has circled back around to numbness. you smile when you are supposed to smile, you make conversation when conversation is required. and—

and you watch alexander across the room, handsome in dark evening clothes, his expression carefully pleasant and his posture carefully relaxed, and you note the way his eyes slide past you without ever quite landing, the way he angles his body away whenever you draw near, the way he has constructed a fortress of social obligation around himself that you could not breach even if you tried.

you do not try.

logan sargeant arrives halfway through the evening, his face bright with anticipation, his eyes finding you across the crowd, eager and hopeful. he makes his way toward where you and lady albon are standing, weaving through the press of bodies, and when he reaches your side his smile is so hopeful, so earnest, so completely unaware of what you are about to do to him that you have to look away.

“lady albon,” he says, his voice carefully steady. “might i request a private audience? i believe there is a sitting room nearby—”

“of course.” lady albon nods, her expression composed, eyes knowing, “this way, mr. sargeant.”

the sitting room is small and quiet, the noise of the ball muffled by thick walls and closed doors. lady albon positions herself near the window, and logan stands before you with his hands clasped behind his back and his jaw set and his eyes still, somehow, full of hope.

“i promised you an answer,” you say, because someone has to speak first, because the silence is unbearable.

“you did.” he swallows. “and i promised i would accept it, whatever it was. i meant that. i still mean it.”

you look at him, look at this good man, this kind man, this man who has offered you everything you once thought you wanted, and you feel your heart break for him, for the hope you are about to crush, for the future you might have had if you were capable of wanting what was wise instead of what was impossible.

“i cannot marry you,” you say.

the entire room stills.

logan does not move. does not speak. simply stands there, absorbing the blow, and you watch the hope drain from his eyes, watch it replaced by confusion, by hurt, by the desperate grasping of a man trying to understand where he went wrong.

“may i ask why?” his voice shakes, “if there is something i have done, something i have failed to do—”

“you have done nothing wrong!” the words come out thick, clogged with the tears you are fighting to hold back, “you have been— god, you have been perfect. kind and patient and everything i should want. but i—” your voice breaks, “i cannot give you what you deserve. i cannot give you a wife whose heart is wholly yours. and you deserve that, logan. you deserve someone who loves you, not someone who is settling for safety because she is too afraid to—” you stop. you cannot finish that sentence. you cannot admit, even now, even to him, what you are too afraid to reach for.

“there is someone else.” he says quietly, and it is not a question.

you do not answer. you do not need to.

“i see.” he is silent for a long moment, his gaze fixed on some point past your shoulder. then he takes a breath, squares his shoulders, “then i hope he knows how fortunate he is. and i hope”  his voice wavers, “i hope he deserves you. because you deserve the world, and i would hate to think you gave up something good for someone who cannot see that.”

“logan— mr. sargeant—”

“no, please.” he holds up a hand, “do not apologize. you have done nothing wrong. you were honest with me, and that is— that is all i could ask.” he bows, “i wish you every happiness. truly.”

he leaves.

the door closes behind him, and you stand in the silence of the sitting room with your hands shaking and your eyes burning and the weight of what you have done pressing down on your chest like it’s a physical thing.

“my dear,” lady says softly, crossing to your side, “are you—”

“i need a moment,” you manage. “please. i just need— i need air, i need to—”

you do not wait for her response. you turn and flee out of the sitting room and down the corridor, away from the light and noise of the ballroom, toward the quiet darkness of the residential wing where you might find a moment's peace to fall apart.

you make it perhaps twenty steps before you collide with someone.

the impact sends you stumbling backward, and hands come up to catch your arms, to steady you, and you look up into alexander's face and feel something inside you simply snap.

“let go of me!” you say, and your voice comes out sharp.

“are you—” he starts, and then his eyes find the tears tracking down your cheeks and his expression shifts, “what happened? what is wrong?”

“what is wrong?” you repeat, incredulous, and the laugh that escapes you is jagged and bitter. “what is wrong? you are asking me what is wrong? you?”

“i do not understand—”

“i just refused the only man who was willing to marry me!” you spit, wrenching your arms from his grip, “i just destroyed my only prospect, my only chance at a respectable future, because i was foolish enough to think—” you stop, shake your head violently. “and you dare ask me what is wrong?”

understanding dawns in his eyes, “sargeant. you told him no.”

“yes, i told him no!” your voice is rising, you cannot seem to control it, “i told him no because of you, because you kissed me and told me you loved me and then you left, you apologized and retreated and today you could not even look at me—”

“was trying to give you space,” he reasons,  “i was trying to make it easier for you to—”

“to what? to accept another man's proposal with the taste of you still on my lips?” the tears are falling freely now, hot and angry on your cheeks, “you are a coward, alexander albon. you tell me you love me and then you run away. you kiss me like i am the only thing that matters and then you apologize for it like it was a mistake, like i was a mistake—”

“you were never a mistake,” he says fiercely, “never, not for a single moment—”

“then why?” you demand, “why do you not want to marry me? if you love me as you claim, if i am not a mistake, then why—”

“because i have never intended to marry!” the words seem to tear themselves from his throat against his will, “i cannot marry, do you not understand? there is too much scandal attached to my name, and even if the whispers have quieted, even if the debts have been paid, there is still too much— i am the heir to a family in disgrace, and anyone i marry will inherit that disgrace alongside me. i could not ask that of anyone. i will not ask it of you.”

you stare at him.

“scandal.” you repeat flatly. “you will not marry me because of scandal?”

“it is not that simple—”

“i have scandal too!” the words explode from you, “does that not register to you? my mother ran off with my father's business partner and left me to bear the weight of her shame. i do not– i do not even know where my father is, or if he is even alive! i was sent away at twelve years old, hidden in the countryside like something shameful, and i have spent the last eleven years being whispered about and pitied and judge, and you stand there and tell me that your scandal is too great to overcome?”

"it is different—”

“it is not different!” you are shouting now, you cannot stop yourself, “it is exactly the same. we are both carrying weights we did not choose, both paying for sins we did not commit, and the only difference is that i was willing to take a chance on something more and you are too frightened to even try.”

he flinches as though you have struck him.

“you are a coward," you say, quieter now, the anger draining out of you and leaving only exhaustion in its wake, “a coward, alexander albon. and i was a fool to think you might be brave enough to—”

you stop. shake your head. there is nothing left to say.

“please,” he says, and he reaches for you, his hand hovering near your face like he wants to wipe away your tears, “please, just let me—”

you pull away before he can touch you.

“goodnight, lord albon,” you say, and your voice sounds dead, hollow, “i hope you find peace with your choices. i am sure i will eventually find peace with mine.”

you leave him standing in the corridor and you do not look back.

you wake the next morning with a fever.

at first you think it is simply the aftermath of too much crying, too little sleep, the accumulated stress of the season finally taking its toll. but when you try to rise from your bed your head spins violently, and when zoe comes to check on you she takes one look at your face and immediately calls for the physician.

what follows is a blur of cold compresses and bitter tonics and the concerned faces of the albon sisters swimming in and out of focus above you. you are vaguely aware of hushed conversations happening just outside your door (“she is very ill, the fever will not break, we must send for—”) but you cannot summon the energy to care. the fever wraps around you like a shroud, hot and suffocating, and you drift in and out of consciousness without any clear sense of how much time is passing.

the albon sisters take turns sitting with you, reading to you, pressing a wet rag to your forehead to alleviate the spinning in your head.

they know, you realize dimly. they know about the proposal, about your refusal. they do not know the whole truth, but they know enough. they know that their brother has done something, or failed to do something, and they know that you are paying the price.

they do not speak of it directly. but you hear it in the careful way they avoid mentioning alexander's name, in the pointed silences that fall whenever he is discussed, in the way zoe's jaw tightens and alicia's eyes go hard and even sweet chloe develops a furrow between her brows that speaks to anger suppressed for the sake of your recovery.

days pass. perhaps a week. perhaps more. time loses meaning when you are trapped in the fog of fever, and you stop trying to track it.

when you finally emerge, pale and shaky and thin in a way that makes the girls cluck with concern, the season is about to end.

the families are beginning to retreat from london, or the early ones at least, those who have already done what they were supposed to do, returning to their country estates or departing for the continent, and the social whirl that consumed your life for the past months is winding down to a quiet close. you have missed balls and dinners and the final flurries of matchmaking, have been absent for the announcements of engagements and the whispered gossip about who succeeded and who failed in the great marriage mart of the season.

you have failed. this is clear without anyone needing to say it.

one season. that was all you had. one chance to secure your future, to find a husband who would give you stability and respectability and a life beyond the confines of your grandfather's countryside estate or a governess position. and you squandered it. refused the one man who offered, and for what? for a declaration of love that came with no proposal attached. for a kiss in a hallway that ended in apology and retreat. for a man who could not even bring himself to fight for you.

the girls are gentle with you, in those final days at mercer hall. they do not press you to talk about what happened, do not ask questions you have no answers for. they simply are present and warm in their support, and you love them for it even as you hate yourself for becoming a burden on their family.

“what will you do?” zoe asks quietly, the night before you are all to depart for london, “after the season ends. where will you go?”

the question you have been dreading.

“my grandfather's estate, i suppose,” you say, and your voice sounds hollow even to your own ears,  “for a time. but i cannot stay there forever. i will need to find a position. a governess, perhaps, for some merchant family who does not care about my family's scandal so long as i can teach their children french and etiquette.”

zoe's face crumples. “no,” she says fiercely, “no, you cannot— there must be another way, there must be something—”

“there is nothing.” you take her hand, squeeze it gently, “oh, my darling girl, i had my chance. i made my choice. now i must live with the consequences.”

“the consequences of my brother being a fool—”

“the consequences of my own heart being foolish,” you correct, “i do not blame him, alexander. not entirely. he told me the truth about himself, and i chose to hope for something different. that is not his fault. it is simply—” you pause, searching for the word, “it is simply tragedy.”

zoe pulls you into an embrace so tight it borders on painful, and you let her hold you, let yourself be held, and you try not to think about how few of these moments you have left.

the return to london is subdued.

the carriage ride passes in near-silence, the girls too aware of your fragile state to fill the hours with their usual chatter. you watch the countryside roll past the window, the green fields giving way to the grey sprawl of the city, and you think about endings. about doors closing. about the person you were when you arrived in london all those weeks ago, full of tentative hope and desperate longing, and the person you have become in the aftermath of everything that followed.

you are stronger, perhaps. harder. less willing to believe in fairy tales and happy endings.

you are not sure this is an improvement.

the townhouse feels different now. smaller, somehow, as though it has contracted during your absence to accommodate the diminished scope of your future. you go through the motions of settling back in, unpacking your things, resuming the rhythms of daily life, but everything feels muted, faded.

and you avoid alexander.

this is easier than you expected, because he seems to be avoiding you too. you catch glimpses of him sometimes, a figure disappearing around a corner, a voice in the next room that falls silent when you approach, but you do not seek him out, and he does not seek you. the vast machinery of the albon household continues to turn, and you and he are parallel lines, careful to never collide.

the girls notice. of course they notice. but they do not comment, perhaps sensing that whatever fragile peace you have constructed would shatter at the first pointed question.

the season ends. the announcements are made. and you begin, quietly, to prepare for the life that awaits you— the letters to governesses' agencies, the inquiries about positions, the slow dimming of every dream you once allowed yourself to hold.

this is how it ends, you think.

not with love, but with the memory of love. fading, like everything else, into the grey.

the morning light filters through the glass walls of the conservatory in pale golden streams, catching the dust that drift lazily through the humid air, and you pause in the doorway to breathe it in, the green smell of growing things, the warmth that wraps around you like an embrace, the stillness of it all.

you had not expected to find anyone here.

you had not expected to find him.

alexander stands with his back to you, a watering can in hand, his attention fixed on the orchid that sits on the small table by the window— your orchid, the one you rescued from neglect all those weeks ago, the one whose roots you carefully untangled and repotted and coaxed back toward health. he is pouring water into the pot with a steadiness that might be admirable if it were not so thoroughly, catastrophically wrong.

“stop,” you say, before you can think better of it, “stop, you are drowning it.”

he startles badly enough that water sloshes over the rim of the watering can, and when he turns to face you his expression cycles rapidly through surprise, guilt, and something that looks almost like relief.

“i did not hear you come in,” he says.

“the orchid.” you move into the room despite yourself, despite the voice in your head screaming at you to leave, “you are overwatering it. orchids do not like wet feet. you need to let the soil dry out completely between waterings, or the roots will rot.”

he looks down at the pot, at the water pooling on the surface, and his expression shifts to something almost comically dismayed. “i did not– i was trying to—” he stops, sets down the watering can with exaggerated care, “my mother asked me to tend to the plants while she was out. i thought i was helping.”

“you thought wrong.” you cross to the orchid, assess the damage. it is not too bad, the soil is waterlogged but not yet sour, and if you tip the pot to let the excess drain the roots should survive. “here. tip it gently and let the water run out. then do not touch it again for at least a week.”

he does as instructed, his movements careful, almost reverent, and you watch his hands— those hands that have touched you, held you, mapped the geography of your skin in the darkness of a hallway— and you force yourself to feel nothing.

you have become very good at feeling nothing.

“there,” you say, when the last of the excess water has drained, “it should survive, as long as no one attempts to water it again for at least a week. possibly two.”

“i will inform the household staff,” he says, “perhaps post a sign. do not water the orchid upon pain of death.”

“that seems excessive.”

“you just called me a plant murderer. i feel the punishment should fit the crime.”

something flickers at the corner of your mouth, and it is not quite a smile, but close. you suppress it ruthlessly.

“i should go,” you say, straightening, “i have letters to write.”

“letters?”

“to the governesses' agency,” you say it matter-of-factly, “they have requested references and a list of my accomplishments. apparently there is a merchant family in bristol looking for someone to teach their daughters. the pay is reasonable and the position comes with room and board.”

the silence that follows is so complete you can hear the faint drip of water from the orchid's saucer, the distant tick of a clock somewhere in the house, the soft rustle of leaves in the artificial breeze created by the warmth of the glass walls.

“a governess.” alexander says finally.

“it is respectable work.” you keep your tone light, “and i am not without qualifications. my french is excellent, my italian passable, and i can play the pianoforte well enough to teach the basics. it is not what i imagined for myself, perhaps, but—” you shrug, “one must be practical. the season is ending, and i have no other prospects.”

“because of me.”

“because of circumstances.” you meet his eyes, finally, and you are proud of how steady your gaze remains, “i made my choices, alexander. i do not regret them. i only—” you pause, “i am ready to move forward. that is all. i have made my peace with what happened, and now i would like to begin whatever comes next.”

“and what comes next is… bristol? teaching merchant's daughters to play mozart on the pianoforte?”

“if they will have me. there are other positions, if that one does not work out. i am told there is always demand for governesses with good references.” you smile, and it feels almost natural, “your mother has agreed to write me a letter. she has been very kind throughout all of this. your whole family has been kind.”

“kind.” he repeats.

“yes. kind. generous. more than i had any right to expect, given—” you gesture vaguely, encompassing the conservatory, the house, everything that has passed between you, “given everything.”

another silence. longer this time, weighted with something you cannot name.

“i should go,” you say again, and you turn toward the door.

“wait.” his hand catches your elbow. you go still. “please,” he says, and his voice has changed, become something raw and urgent, “please, just… give me a moment. there is something i need to say, and i have been trying to find the words for days, and if you leave now i am afraid i will never—”

he stops. swallows. his hand falls away from your arm, and when you turn to face him he looks—

he looks wrecked.

there is no other word for it. the careful composure he has worn like armor since mercer hall has cracked, fallen away, leaving something exposed and vulnerable underneath. his eyes are bright, and his hands are trembling slightly at his sides, and he looks at you like you are something irreplaceable, something he is terrified of losing.

“i have been a coward,” he says quietly. “you told me so, the night of the ball, and you were right. i have been a coward my entire life, hiding behind duty and responsibility and the convenient excuse of my family's scandal to avoid ever taking a real risk, ever reaching for something i truly wanted.”

“alexander—”

“let me finish. please.” he pleads, takes a breath, steadies himself, “my father was a coward too. that is the thing i never told you, the thing i have never told anyone. he ran. when things became difficult, when the consequences of bad choices started closing in, he ran to the country and left my mother to face the creditors, the whispers he told himself he was protecting us by staying away, but he was only protecting himself. from shame. from failure. from having to look at the wreckage he had created.”

his voice cracks slightly on the last words, and you see him struggle to compose himself before continuing: “i swore i would never be like him. i swore i would be better, that i would stronger, more reliable, the kind of man who faces his problems instead of fleeing from them. and for years i thought i had succeeded. i managed the estates. i paid the debts. i held our family together through sheer force of will. but then you arrived, and i realized—”

he stops. laughs, a small broken sound, “i realized i had only been brave about things that did not truly matter to me. the estates, the debts, our reputation, those were problems to be solved, challenges to be overcome. i could be strong about them because losing them would not have destroyed me. but you—” his eyes find yours, “the thought of loving you and losing you. the thought of reaching for happiness and watching it slip through my fingers. that terrified me in a way nothing else ever has.”

“so you pushed me away,” you say softly.

“so i pushed you away.” he nods, a jerky motion, “i told myself i was protecting you. from the scandal, from being dragged down into the mess of my life. but i was only protecting myself. from the possibility of not being enough. from the certainty that i would eventually disappoint you, fail you, become the thing you regretted instead of the thing you chose.”

“alex—”

“i watched you dance with sargeant,” he continues, “at the balls. i watched him hold you, look at you, offer you everything i was too frightened to offer myself. and i told myself it was for the best. i told myself you would be happier with him, that he could give you the uncomplicated life you deserved,” his jaw tightens, “and then you refused him. you refused him, and i knew— i knew— it was because of me. because i had made you hope for something i was too cowardly to give.”

“i refused him because i did not love him,” you say quietly, “that is not your fault. that is simply—”

“it is my fault,” he interrupts fiercely, “because if i had been braver, if i had spoken sooner, you would not have had to choose between a man you did not love and a future alone. you would have had a third option.”

“and now?” you ask, “what are you offering now, alex? because i have spent weeks thinking about this. about you, about us, about what might have been, and i cannot do it anymore! i cannot keep hoping for something that you are too afraid to give me!”

“i know,” he moves toward you, “i know, and i am sorry. i am so sorry for every moment of confusion and pain i have caused you. but i am here now, and i am trying to tell you—” he stops, close enough to touch but not touching, “i am trying to tell you that i do not want to be afraid anymore.”

your heart is beating so hard you can feel it in your throat. “what does that mean?”

“it means—” he takes a breath “it means that i have spent the last week thinking about my life without you in it. about watching you leave for bristol, knowing that i let you go because i was too frightened to ask you to stay. about growing old in this house, surrounded by my family's ghosts, always wondering what might have been if i had just been brave enough—”

his voice breaks. he closes his eyes for a moment, composing himself, and when he opens them again they are bright with unshed tears.

“i cannot do it,” he says simply, “i cannot let you go. i have tried to talk myself into it, tried to convince myself that it would be better for you, easier for you, that i would only drag you down— but i cannot. because being without you these past days has been—” he shakes his head. “it has been like living in a world without color. like breathing air that does not quite fill my lungs. like being only half alive and not understanding why until i remember that you are not there.”

"alex—"

“i believe i am my best self when i am with you.” the words come out in a rush, tumbling over each other, “my truest self. the person i always hoped i might become but never quite managed to be on my own. you make me want to be better, to be braver, kinder, more open. you make me want to stop hiding behind walls and actually live. and i know i have given you no reason to believe me, i know i have done everything wrong, but if you could just— if you could give me one more chance—”

“what are you saying?” you whisper, and your voice trembles despite your best efforts. “alex, what does this mean?”

he holds your gaze for a long moment. and then, slowly, deliberately, he sinks to one knee. the breath leaves your body in a rush.

“i am asking you to marry me,” he says, and his voice is steady now, clear and certain, “i do not have a ring— i should have a ring, i know that, this should be done properly with flowers and moonlight and all the romantic trappings, but i cannot wait another moment, i cannot let you walk out that door thinking that you are destined for bristol and merchant's daughters when you could be… when you should be—”

he stops. takes a breath. “i am asking you to be my wife,” he says simply. “i am going down on one knee, in this ridiculous conservatory, surrounded by plants i nearly murdered, and i am asking you properly. because i love you. because i have loved you since the first moment i saw you across that ballroom. because i do not want to be afraid anymore, and being with you makes me feel like i might finally be brave enough to reach for what i want.”

the tears are streaming down your face. you cannot seem to stop them. “this is absurd,” you manage, half-laughing, half-sobbing. “you are absurd. this entire situation is—”

“absurd, yes,” he agrees, and there is a hint of his old humor in his voice, that dry self-deprecating wit that you have come to love. “also terrifying. also the most important thing i have ever done.” he reaches up, takes your hand in his, and his fingers are trembling slightly but his grip is sure, “say yes. please. say yes and let me spend the rest of my life trying to deserve you.”

you look down at him, at this man who has caused you so much pain and so much joy, who has pushed you away and pulled you close, who has been the source of your greatest hope and your deepest despair. you look at his face, open and vulnerable and desperately, achingly hopeful, and you think about all the reasons you should refuse. the scandal, the uncertainty, the months of heartache that led to this moment…

… and then you think about the alternative. bristol. merchants’ daughters. a life of quiet respectability, safe and stable and utterly devoid of this— this feeling that burns in your chest whenever he is near, this sense that you are finally, finally exactly where you are meant to be.

“yes,” you say, and your voice breaks on the word, “yes, you impossible, infuriating, wonderful man. yes, i will marry you.”

the smile that breaks across his face is like sunrise, it bright and warm and so full of joy that it takes your breath away. he rises in a single fluid motion, pulling you into his arms, and when his mouth finds yours it is not like the desperate, hungry kisses of before. it is soft and tender, the kiss of a man who finally has everything he wants and cannot quite believe his good fortune.

“i love you,” he murmurs against your lips. “i have loved you for so long, and i was too afraid to say it, and i am so sorry.”

“say it again,” you demand, pulling back just far enough to see his face, “say it again, and keep saying it, until i believe you mean it.”

“i love you,” he says obediently. “i love you, i love you, i love you—”

and he keeps saying it, between kisses and laughter and the joyful tears that neither of you can seem to stop shedding, until the words blur together and lose their meaning and become simply a sound, a vibration, a truth that hums beneath your skin like music.

in the corner, the orchid stands silent witness to it all— still damp, still slightly waterlogged, but alive. surviving. reaching toward the light.

just like you.