The studio door creaked open at 9:03 a.m. the next morning. Isla didn't knock.
Lennox didn't look up.
But his voice greeted her, low and dry, from where he crouched over a blank canvas:
"You're late."
She shrugged off her jacket and hung it by the door, her curls still damp from the quick rinse she'd taken. The air outside had been warmer today, hinting at early spring. The kind of warmth that made the trees sigh and the bricks sweat.
"I brought bribes," she said, holding up a brown paper bag.
"Acceptable."
Inside: two croissants, three sugar packets, and a tiny glass jar of raspberry jam that she may or may not have pilfered from the café's abandoned catering stockpile.
She set it on the corner table, cleared space between sketch pads and a precarious stack of paint tubes. The cat—still nameless—blinked at her from the same blanket throne, tail twitching like it had a personal vendetta.
"Does he bite?" she asked.
Lennox's lips twitched. "Only when judged."
"Well, we're both screwed then."
He finally turned to her, charcoal on his fingertips, smudges on his jaw like accidental war paint. He looked tired, but looser somehow. Like something in him had exhaled overnight.
"Come here," he said.
She froze. "Why?"
"I need your face."
Her eyebrows shot up.
"Not like that," he added quickly, already grabbing a sketchpad. "Your expression. I'm working on the eyes."
"I thought you didn't paint people you knew."
"I also said I don't let people stay," he said, with a wry glance. "Seems like I lie a lot."
She sat down.
He stood a few feet away, pencil tapping lightly against the pad.
"Look at me," he said.
She did.
And something in the room shifted. Stilled. As if even the cat knew better than to interrupt.
"You always look at people like that?" she asked, voice quieter now.
"Like what?"
"Like you're trying to read them. Not hear. Not see. Just… translate."
He didn't answer.
Because she wasn't wrong.
He was reading her.
The slope of her cheek. The weight in her shoulders. The tiny scar just above her left eyebrow that she always covered with highlighter. The kind of details you don't notice unless you're already a little bit in danger.
"You hide behind sarcasm," he said softly, hand moving with slow precision. "But your silence is louder."
She looked away, something flickering in her jaw.
"Don't do that," he said.
"Do what?"
"Hide."
She hesitated.
Then exhaled.
"There's nothing to see," she said. "Just the usual—dead mom, emotionally absent father, too many books, not enough therapy."
His pencil paused mid-line.
"Isla…"
"I'm fine," she said, too quickly. "I mean—I function. I grocery shop. I cry at car commercials sometimes, but doesn't everyone?"
"Only if the dog dies," he muttered.
"Exactly."
She smiled, but it was brittle. Like it had been left out in winter.
Lennox set the sketchpad down.
And for a long moment, neither of them spoke.
The light from the east window spilled in like melted honey, painting Isla's cheekbones gold. The silence wasn't heavy—it was curious. Like it was listening.
Then he moved.
Closer.
Kneeling beside her, not touching, not pressing.
Just... present.
"I don't know what you've been through," he said. "And I won't pretend to. But I do know this—your eyes aren't empty. They're tired. That's not the same."
She didn't look at him.
But her hands curled into fists in her lap.
"You're not broken," he added. "You're bruised. There's a difference."
A breath. A heartbeat. A war.
And then—so quietly it might've broken if spoken any louder:
"No one's ever said that to me."
He didn't say anything else.
He just reached out, slowly, and brushed one of her curls behind her ear. Not possessive. Not suggestive.
Just gentle.
Like a boy who knew that some people flinched even when you whispered kindness.
And for once—she didn't flinch.
---
Later, after tea and too much silence, she stood to leave.
"I should go," she said, reaching for her coat.
Lennox nodded, leaning against the wall, eyes tracing her like he was still memorizing the spaces between her breaths.
"Come back tomorrow?" he asked.
She tilted her head. "I thought you don't do tomorrows."
"I don't."
"But?"
His smile was faint. Sad, maybe. But real.
"But for you," he said, "I'd learn."