Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc

Ten years. She’d counted, not obsessively, just the way you counted certain things — the years since a particular song was released, the age you’d been when something changed you. Ten years since the night on the fire escape when he’d said ‘I can’t ask you to wait‘ and she’d said ‘I know‘ and they’d both been so terribly grown-up about it while quietly breaking in half.

And now he was standing in her gallery at the private view of her first solo exhibition, looking at her work with his hands in his pockets and his face doing something she recognised.

She’d painted him, once. Not his face — she wasn’t that obvious. But the quality of him. The particular light. Five of the twenty-two pieces in this room held something of him and she hadn’t told anyone and she didn’t intend to.

“These are extraordinary,” he said.

She’d walked up beside him without announcing herself. He hadn’t startled.

“You always could tell when I was nearby,” she said.

“I was hoping you would be.” He turned. God. Ten years. “Congratulations, Isla. This is— I’ve been standing here for thirty minutes.”

“I know. I saw you come in.”

His mouth curved. “And you made me wait.”

“I was being professional.”

“You were absolutely not.”

They stood in front of the largest canvas — indigo and amber, a window at night, the quality of almost-touching. She knew what it was about. She had never named it truthfully in any interview.

“This one,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Isla.”

“Adam.”

There was a whole conversation in the pause — ten years of it, compressed and still warm somehow, the way certain fires didn’t go out so much as go underground.

“I should find the champagne,” she said.

“Or,” he said, “you could tell me what you’re doing after this.”

She looked at him steadily. She was not twenty-four anymore. She knew her own mind in a way she hadn’t then, and her mind was currently doing something very inconvenient.

“Adam.”

“Just dinner. We could eat. Like civilised people.”

“Is that what we are?”

“We could try.”

She reached out and touched the sleeve of his jacket — briefly, barely — and felt him go still beneath it.

“I have to stay until ten,” she said.

“I’ll be here at ten.”

“It might go later.”

“Then I’ll be here later.”

She looked at the painting. At him. At the painting again.

“There’s a piece I haven’t shown anyone,” she said. “It’s in the back room. Come find me at ten and I’ll show it to you.”

He understood her, which was the gift and the danger of him. He understood that she meant: *I’m not ready to say the rest out loud yet. But I’m asking you to stay.*

“Ten o’clock,” he said.

She went back to her guests. She didn’t look at him again for the rest of the night, not once, and she was aware of exactly where he was in the room at every moment.

At ten-fifteen she found him still there, champagne finished, waiting.

She took his hand and led him to the back room.

The painting on the easel was small and dark and undeniable.

He stood in front of it for a long time.

Then he turned to her, and she was already there.

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So you made it to the end… which probably means you’re the kind of person who enjoys a little romance with their coffee. If you’re in the mood for more stories about messy feelings, stubborn attraction, and women who absolutely refuse to settle for boring love, you can find all my books here.

Fair warning though. One story tends to lead to another. I’ve seen it happen. Repeatedly.