Page 105 of Gap Control

“Fair.” She sized me up in one long, unhurried glance. “So, this must be the artist.”

Wait.

Jameson.

Elena Vasquez knew TJ. Not just vaguely. Not in a “once met at a party” kind of way. She sounded far more chummy than a fan at a meet and greet. She’d called him by name. Teased him.

I looked from her to him. Suddenly, everything made sense.

The call.

The mysterious discovery of my work.

How she’d known my name.

I didn’t say anything. My expression didn’t change.

He hadn’t told me.

He’d taken one of my sketches—without asking—and shown it to her. And she’d liked it. And I was here.

I swallowed hard.

Elena, oblivious, gestured toward the front room. “We’ll start in the small gallery. Light’s better in the afternoon.”

I followed her, feet moving on autopilot.

TJ brushed my shoulder lightly as he passed, a whisper of contact. He didn’t say anything.

Good.

Because I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done if he had.

***

After we returned to my apartment, TJ tried to make spaghetti.

He always did that when he didn’t know what to say—puttered in the kitchen like a man on a cooking show calledAvoiding Eye Contact with Emotional Stakes.I sat on the couch and let him fumble with the garlic.

The sketch folder was in my lap again. Same pages, same hands, but they looked different now. Not worse—exposed. Like someone had snuck into the darkroom of my brain and developed something I hadn’t agreed to share.

“So,” TJ called from the stove, “Elena liked your stuff.”

“She did.”

“She said the shading was deliciously uncomfortable. I'm thinking that's a huge compliment.”

“It is.”

He turned the burner off. “You’re mad.”

“I’m not.”

He turned around slowly. “You’re definitely mad.”

“I’m not mad,” I stood and crossed the room to him, “but I do think you owe me an explanation. And maybe… a little restitution.”

“Restitution?”

---