“Pull,” Liam called.
The clay launched. Liam tracked it, fired. Miss.
“Bollocks.”
“Again. Slower this time. Don’t rush the trigger.”
“Pull.” Track. Fire. The clay cracked apart, a satisfying explosion of orange against the sky. “YES!” Liam shouted, pumping his fist. “Did you see that? Did you bloody see that?”
“I saw it,” Blake said, grinning. “Nice shot.”
“I’m a natural. A late-blooming natural.”
They shot for two hours, working through several rounds, Blake hitting with a calm, remembered precision that drew admiring glances from the gamekeeper, Liam improving steadily under Blake’s patient instruction. Between rounds, they sat on a wooden bench, drinking tea from a thermos and watching the clouds drift across the Surrey sky.
“Can I ask you something?” Liam said, his voice quieter than usual.
“Sure.”
“When you kissed Andre at the US Open. On the court, in front of everyone. Were you scared?”
Blake considered the question. “Terrified.”
“But you did it anyway.”
“I didn’t think about it. That’s the honest answer. I didn’t plan it. I just looked at him, and I couldn’t pretend anymore.”
Liam nodded slowly, turning his tea cup in his hands. “That’s brave. I know people say that word too easily, but I mean it. That was genuinely brave.”
“It didn’t feel brave. It felt necessary.”
“That’s what bravery is, isn’t it? Doing the necessary thing when every part of you wants to run.”
Blake looked at him — at the earnest, open expression on his pale face, the startling green of his eyes — and felt a sudden, unexpected warmth. He had spent so many years surrounded by people who wanted something fromhim — his father wanting perfection, sponsors wanting marketability, the press wanting scandal. Liam wanted nothing. He was just sitting on a bench in Surrey, drinking tea, asking honest questions.
“You remind me of someone,” Blake said.
“Good someone or bad someone?”
“Good someone. My best friend from home. Tyler.”
“The one who taught you to shoot?”
“His father taught us. But yeah. Tyler.” Blake paused. “We lost touch for a while. Things got complicated.”
Liam didn’t push. He just nodded, took another sip of tea, and said, “Well, you’ve got me now. I’m a terrible shot and I talk too much, but I’m very loyal.”
Blake smiled. “I’ll take it.”
While Blake and Liam were in Surrey, Andre and Talia were in the studio.
Talia had come to see the space for the first time, and she moved through it with the careful, reverent attention of someone who understood what it meant to have a room of one’s own. She studied the canvases stacked against the walls, the jars of brushes, the palette crusted with dried paint, the north-facing window that filled the room with its honest, unforgiving light.
“This is where you make things,” she said, running her fingers along the edge of a half-finished canvas.
“This is where I make messes,” Andre corrected.
“Same thing.” She turned to him, her dark eyes serious.
