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Before I can respond to that, before I can figure out whether it's a compliment or an accusation, he lifts his coffee cup in a small salute and continues down the promenade.

I watch him go.

Then look back down at the card in my paint-smeared fingers.

Galerie Amaury.

I tuck it into my satchel and go back to the canvas.

My hands are steadier now.

The sea keeps stretching out in front of me, ridiculous and blue and impossibly alive, and for the first time in three years I let myself sit inside the feeling of making something without deciding in advance whether it's allowed to matter.

By the time I finally pack up, the sun has shifted lower and the world feels honey-warm and suspended.

The painting isn't finished. Barely half-done, really. But it exists. It's real. Wet paint on canvas that I put there with my own hands after years of telling myself I couldn't.

When I get back to the villa, the paper bag and canvas feel heavier than they should.

Not physically.

Emotionally.

Like I'm carrying proof of something I haven't admitted out loud yet.

The house is quiet when I come through the kitchen doors, but not empty.

Everett is exactly where I knew he'd be.

Behind the glass doors.

Inside the office.

I can see him before he even looks up—sleeves rolled, phone pressed to his ear, one hand braced on the desk as he stares down at something on the screen with all the intensity of a man trying to outrun himself through productivity.

For one second, I just stand there.

Looking at him through the glass.

At how close he is.

At how entirely sealed off he still manages to be.

Then he glances up.

Even through the panes, his eyes go first to the canvas tucked under my arm.

Then the bag.

Then my face.

He says something quickly into the phone, ends the call, and opens one of the doors halfway.

"What's that?"

Not hi.

Not how was your day.