Doug nodded, turning to the door. “Match is at two tomorrow. Try to get some sleep.”
When Doug was gone, Blake sat down on the edge of the bed, holding the envelope in his hands. He traced the letters of his name with his finger, feeling the slight indentation of the pen on the heavy paper.
He shouldn’t open it. He knew he shouldn’t open it. It would only bring more pain, more confusion, more of the agonizing grief he was trying so hard to outrun.
But he couldn’t throw it away.
He slid his finger under the flap, tearing the paper, and pulled out a single sheet of folded stationery.
Blake, I do not expect you to forgive me. I do not expect you to ever look at me again. What I did was unforgivable, a betrayal of everything we built together, of everything you mean to me.
I was high. I was stupid. I was weak. But those are excuses, and you deserve better than excuses. You deserve the truth.
The truth is that I love you. I have loved you since the day we met on that back court in Paris. I loved you when we were hiding, and I loved you when we stood in front of the world at the US Open. You are the only thing in my life that has ever made sense.
I destroyed it. I know that. I live with that knowledge every second of every day. The flat is empty without you. The studio is empty. My life is empty.
I am not asking you to come back. I have no right to ask that of you. But I needed you to know that Iam sorry. I am so profoundly, completely sorry. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for the pain I have caused you.
You are the best thing that ever happened to me, Blake. Please, do not let my failure make you doubt that.
Yours, always, Andre.
Blake read the letter three times.
His vision blurred, the elegant script swimming before his eyes. A single tear escaped, tracking hot and fast down his cheek, splashing onto the heavy paper, blurring the ink of Andre’s name.
He folded the letter carefully, his hands trembling, and slipped it back into the envelope. He placed it on the nightstand, next to his phone, and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
But for the first time in weeks, the silence in his head was broken. The cold, hard knot in his chest had cracked, just a fraction, letting the pain and the love bleed through.
He missed him. God, he missed him so much it felt like he was dying.
He closed his eyes, pulling a pillow against his chest, and finally, mercifully, allowed himself to weep.
Chapter eighteen
The Painting
The deadline for the Paris commission was three days away.
Andre’s agent, a sharp, impeccably dressed woman named Clara — formidable in every sense of the word —, had called him four times that morning. The collector, a French billionaire with a reputation for impatience, was expecting three large-scale abstract canvases to be delivered to his gallery in the Marais by Friday.
Andre hadn’t even stretched the canvases.
He was standing in the center of the studio, staring at a massive, six-by-eight-foot canvas that dominated the room. It was the largest piece he had ever attempted, and it had consumed him entirely.
He wasn’t painting abstracts. He wasn’t painting the commission.
He was painting the US Open.
It had started as an attempt to capture a memory, a way to anchor himself to the reality of what he had lost. But as the days bled into nights, the painting had taken on a life of its own. It was no longer just a memory; it was a living, breathing testament to the defining moment of his life.
He painted the stadium first — the vast, sweeping curve of Arthur Ashe, the blinding glare of the floodlights, the sea of faces blurring into a chaotic, impressionistic background. He used thick, heavy strokes of indigo and charcoal to capture the overwhelming scale of the arena, the immense, pressing weight of the world watching them.
Then, he painted the court. The stark, unforgiving blue of the hard court, the sharp white lines that had defined the boundaries of their existence for so long.
And finally, he painted them.
