“Are you going to do it?”
Andre looked at him, his dark eyes steady in the candlelight. “I want to. I am ready to paint again. But I will not do it if it means spending fourteen hours a day in the studio while you are playing Wimbledon. I will not disappear again.”
Blake reached across the table, his hand covering Andre’s. He felt the familiar, comforting warmth of Andre’s skin, the slight roughness of the calluses on his fingers.
“You won’t disappear,” Blake said softly. “You know how to balance it now. And I know how to pull you back if you go too far.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.” Blake smiled. “Take the commission, Andre. Paint.”
Andre was quiet for a moment. "The collector wants me to come to Paris for the installation. I’ve been thinking… it might be good to spend more time there. For the work. The light is different. The energy is different."
"Then go," Blake said simply. "Go as often as you need."
"You wouldn’t mind?" "Andre."
Blake squeezed his hand. "You spent three years watching me fly to every continent. Go paint in Paris."
Andre smiled — a small, private smile that Blake recognized as the one he wore when something had settled into place inside him.
The next morning, the rhythm of their life resumed its familiar, comforting cadence.
Blake woke up at six, the sky outside the window still pale and gray. He slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Andre, and went into the kitchen to make coffee. He drank it standing by the window, watching the city wake up, feeling the quiet, steady hum of contentment in his chest. He left for the National Tennis Centre at seven, his racket bag slung over his shoulder.
At nine, Andre woke up. He made his own coffee, ate a croissant from the bakery downstairs, and walked to the studio on The Cut.
He unlocked the heavy wooden door, the familiar smell of oil paint and raw canvas washing over him. The studio was clean, the floors swept, the empty canvases stacked neatly against the wall. He walked to the center of the room and pulled the largest canvas onto the easel. The heavy, airless pressure of the spring was gone. So was the need to prove himself. He was calm. Centered.
He picked up a brush, dipped it into a pool of ultramarine, and touched it to the canvas. The stroke was smooth, confident, and precise.
He painted for six hours, the colors flowing from his mind to his hand to the canvas with an effortless, joyful ease. He painted the light on the Seine, the deep, shadowed greens of the Tuileries, the vibrant, chaotic energy of the city that had shaped him.
For the first time, he found himself wishing the studio were in Paris itself — closer to the light he was trying to capture, closer to the streets that fed his imagination. He pushed the thought aside. London was home. But the thought lingered.
At three o’clock, his phone buzzed.
It was a text from Blake.
Blake (15:00): Practice is done. Doug is making me do an ice bath. Save me.
Andre smiled, wiping his hands on a rag. He picked up his phone and typed a reply.
Andre (15:02): Be brave. I am making coq au vin fordinner. Come home.
He hit send, set the phone down, and looked at the canvas. It was a good start. It was a very good start.
He cleaned his brushes, turned off the lights, and locked the studio door behind him.
He walked out onto The Cut, the late afternoon sun warm on his face, and headed toward the Underground station.
He was going home.
That evening, they cooked together.
It was a ritual they had reclaimed in the weeks since Blake’s return — standing side by side in the kitchen, a playlist drifting softly from the speaker on the windowsill, a bottle of wine open on the counter. Blake handled the proteins, his knife work precise and efficient. Andre handled the sauces and the vegetables, his movements more intuitive, more improvisational.
Tonight, it was coq au vin. Blake was browning the chicken thighs in a heavy cast-iron pan, the kitchen filling with the rich, savory smell of rendered fat and thyme. Andre was peeling shallots, his fingers stained with their papery skin.
