I wanted to say something practical, to diffuse the quiet weight of the moment. Instead, I heard myself ask, “What are you drawing?”
Cameron flipped the sketchbook around. “Nothing finished. Just… you guys. Rough Harmony. Well, the ones I met in that bar.”
I moved closer before I could stop myself. The page was a blur of charcoal lines and smudges, but enough of a likeness to spot Max, Julian, Oliver, Milo…
Holy shit.
“You did all this from memory? From one night weeks ago?”
Cameron smiled. “Artists need a good visual memory.” He bit his lip. “And you all obviously made an impression.”
I could tell which one was me: the tall figure, head slightly tilted, hands mid-motion, caught halfway between command and chaos.
“It’s good,” I said, my voice low. “You captured us really well.”
Cameron smiled. “Thanks.”
I forced myself to step back, to reclaim some space. “Don’t stay up too late.”
“I won’t.” Cameron’s voice was low. “You should rest too.”
I nodded, retreating toward my bedroom. But as I passed the couch, I felt Cameron’s gaze on me, a warmth between my shoulder blades that refused to fade.
I paused at the doorway. “Goodnight, Cameron.”
“Night, Theo.”
I closed my bedroom door behind me, leaned against it, and shut my eyes.
The flat was too small for this much silence.
Too small for the distance I was pretending to keep.
I dropped my head back against the door with a quiet thud, exhaled, and whispered to the dark:
“What the hell are you doing?”
No answer came, only the soft scratch of pencil on paper from the next room, and the knowledge that I was already in deeper than I meant to be.
Chapter Eight
Cameron
The flat had settledinto the kind of silence that felt as if it was listening.
I lay on the sofa bed, staring at the dark ceiling, one arm under my head. The glow from the streetlight outside threw faint bars of gold across the curtains, and every few minutes, a car passed, its headlights glancing off the walls like moving ghosts.
I’d turned my phone off an hour ago. I’d tried counting backwards from a hundred. None of it helped.
Sleep wouldn’t come.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Theo. The way he’d looked when he came home from rehearsal, hair damp from the rain, shoulders hunched as if whatever he carried on them was too heavy. His voice had been low and rough around the edges. He’d seemed pleased with the rehearsal. That faint, tired smile had even held a touch of pride.
I’d wanted to touch that pride, to hold it, to somehow be part of it.
Instead, all that came out of my mouth had been something inane about coffee and sketching, and then Theo had retreated to his bedroom, closing the door with the same soft, deliberate care he did everything.
Now the flat was too quiet.