I hummed as I pulled weeds from the beds, a new arrangement in my head. It had been so long since I’d tried to compose anything original. But I’d begun to feel the pull of that outlet in the past couple of weeks. Maybe it was simply because enough time had passed, and I was finally ready to try again. Maybe it was because every stolen moment with Brody felt like a note in a song we were crafting together.

They built on one another, those notes. A steady crescendo. At some point, we’d reach the top of the peak. But I wasn’t sure what might happen there. The most delicious spiral down? Or a complete collapse?

I pushed the thoughts from my mind. I couldn’t worry about it now. I could only keep moving forward. Enjoying our friendship and reminding myself that platonic was where this relationship needed to stay.

“Shay? You in here?” Brody called as if I had just willed him into being with my thoughts alone.

“Back right corner.”

He appeared in a flash, hair a little wind-blown, or perhaps simply ruffled from him running his fingers through it. “I need to talk to you.”

His tone had me straightening from my crouch, and my heart giving an extra hard thud in my chest. “What’s wrong?”

He started pacing back and forth in the small space. “I, uh…hell. I fucked up.”

I reached out and grabbed his arm, stopping his movement. “Then we’ll fix it.”

His face held a war of emotions: hope, pain, fear. “I’ve been doing some paintings of you. It was wrong of me. I should’ve asked. You told me you wouldn’t sit for me, but the images kept playing in my head, and I just had to get them on a canvas—”

My fingers tightened on his arm. “It’s fine. Sure, you should’ve asked, but it’s fine. As long as you’re not planning to have some big art show with them. I know you’ve been struggling to find your footing with your work again, and if painting me helps, go ahead.”

Brody grimaced, and my hand fell away from his arm. I took in his expression again, the worry making itself at home. “Brody…tell me there’s no show.”

“There’s no show. But when Lara was here, she took some of my paintings of you. She wasn’t supposed to. I told her only landscapes, but she’s sneaky, and she loved the ones of you. She took them after you and I left. One of them was announced for auction today. A bunch of art sites have photos of it. I don’t think it has made it past that, but I can’t know for sure. I’m so sorry, Shay. You’ll never know how much. You gave me this gift, your friendship, your truth, and I…I betrayed that.”