Chapter Thirty-eight: Gentle Currents

The second gathering came a week later, the art walk Mia had promised turning, somewhere along the way, into another lazy afternoon under the same oak tree instead — cheap wine forgotten in favor of iced tea once Ryan pointed out that day-drinking and operating a sketchbook didn't mix as well as advertised. Eve didn't mind the change of plans. The park had already started to feel like something closer to home than the villa ever fully had, for all its rose gardens and gold light.

The late afternoon sun had turned honeyed, leaves overhead gone translucent at the edges. Eve leaned back on her elbows on the blanket, sketchbook open in her lap, half-finished studies of the fountain and a scatter of wildflowers filling the last several pages. For the first time since she'd landed back in this city, the anxiety that lived permanently under her ribs had dulled from a roar to something closer to background noise.

Aria cracked open another iced tea, condensation dripping onto the blanket as she passed one over to Mia. "You've been staring at that sketch for ten minutes with a dreamy look, Evie. Still thinking about the fancy European job? Or the mystery man you never actually talk about?"

Eve flushed, closing the sketchbook with a soft laugh. "Bit of both, maybe. The job taught me things — how the other half lives, private everything, people who command a room just by walking into it. But it showed me how lonely that world gets too. Coming back here, watching Mom smile because we're not drowning in bills anymore — that's what actually keeps me steady."

Mia leaned in, curls bouncing as she stole a strawberry from the shared bowl. "You mentioned a painting studio once. Did you actually get to paint over there? I've been stuck doing commercial work — cute mugs, motivational quotes for coffee brands. Pays fine. Doesn't exactly feed the soul."

Eve's mind slipped, unbidden, to a terrace easel overlooking water gone gold at the edges, a man's profile rendered in quick, loving strokes before she'd caught herself and made herself stop. The memory came with a sharp ache she folded carefully into her answer instead of around it. "I painted more than I expected to. The light there did something I'd never managed to catch before — I learned to layer color differently, trying to get at feeling instead of just the view. One piece was a man standing at the water's edge. Strong, but carrying something invisible underneath it." She shrugged, keeping her voice light. "Felt personal. I'm not sure I could paint it again if I tried."

Ryan stretched his legs out, chip bag crackling as he offered it around. "Sounds intense. I've been buried in the new condo build downtown — decent pay, endless crew drama. One guy keeps showing up late with these wild stories about side gigs nobody believes." He glanced at Eve, warmth plain on his face. "You look good, though. Healthier. Whatever happened over there, it seems like it shook something loose. We were worried when you went dark for so long."

Aria picked up the thread with a story about a luxury car that had come through the shop that week — reckless owner, worse driving habits — shooting Eve a private, knowing look as she kept the real comparison to herself. "Some rich types think the rules just don't apply. Good thing a wrench levels the field eventually."

Mia produced a fresh sketchpad with a grin. "Group challenge. Everyone draws the person on their left, five minutes, no judging. Ryan's going to lose, obviously."

"I build things. I don't draw them." He picked up the pencil anyway, already smirking. "Prepare to be amazed regardless."

The next half hour dissolved into giggling chaos — Mia's rendering of Aria's jaw was unnervingly accurate; Aria's version of Ryan turned him into a cartoon superhero wielding a hammer; Ryan's attempt at Eve came out so wildly out of proportion that she laughed until her ribs hurt. When they compared results, the mood softened into something more reflective.

"I've been thinking about going back to school," Mia admitted, leaning back on her hands. "Part-time, graphic design. Life gets away from you — one year you've got ideas, the next you're just grinding to keep the lights on." She glanced at Eve. "What about you? Big plans now that you're settled?"

Eve considered it, gaze drifting toward the fountain where a handful of kids chased each other through the spray. "Keep painting. Maybe grow the classes at the community center a little. Nothing huge — just enough to share what I picked up and keep making things. Mom's doing better every week. The nurse, the new treatments — it's like I can actually breathe again."

Ryan's easy grin faded into something more serious. "That's huge, Eve. We all saw how hard it was before. Furniture, studio setup, whatever — I'm there. No questions."

The sincerity of it settled somewhere warm in her chest. These people weren't tangled up in anyone's empire, weren't performing devotion for an audience of staff and society friends. They just showed up. Aria, sensing the mood tipping toward too much feeling for one afternoon, called for cards, imaginary stakes on the line — loser buys the next picnic — and the laughter carried out across the grass as the sun kept sinking.

They ate simply — sandwiches, fruit, cookies Mia had made herself and slightly burned on one side, which she defended fiercely. Conversation wandered through favorite films and neighborhood gossip, Ryan's retelling of a construction disaster leaving everyone doubled over. Eve offered up carefully edited stories of Italian markets and lakeside sunsets, enough color to satisfy curiosity without inviting questions she couldn't safely answer.

As twilight painted the sky in soft purple and orange, they packed up slower than they needed to, none of them quite ready to let the day end. Ryan walked beside her on the path home, cooler under one arm. "If anything ever feels off again — like those shady types Aria mentioned — don't wait to say something. I've got people who can help with security. We look out for each other."

Eve squeezed his arm. "I know. Thank you. It means more than you probably realize."

Back at the apartment, after everyone had scattered with promises to do this again soon, Eve checked in with Elena over video call, and something in the older woman's face — more color, more life than Eve had seen in months — settled a little of the day's warmth permanently into place. "You look happy, sweetheart. Those friends of yours are good medicine."

"They are," Eve agreed, smiling. "I'll bring some of Mia's cookies next time. Don't mention the burnt part."

Later, alone on the narrow balcony with tea gone lukewarm in her hands, Eve let herself do the thing she usually didn't allow past dusk — she let herself actually miss him.

Not the villa. Not the money, or the staff, or the particular ease of never worrying about a single bill again. Just him. She closed her eyes and let the memory come all the way in for once, instead of shoving it back down the second it surfaced: the weight of his hand at the small of her back in a crowded room, like he needed the contact more than he needed to look at her to know she was still there. The way he used to listen to her — actually listen, like whatever she was saying mattered more than the four calls he was ignoring to hear it. The low, rough way he'd said her stolen name against her skin, like a vow rather than a habit, and how she'd let herself believe, for months, that the vow could somehow survive being built on a lie.

She thought about the last morning she'd woken up beside him, before she'd known it was the last one — sunlight through lace curtains, his arm heavy and warm across her waist, no idea yet that the ground was about to open up under both of them. She wondered, sitting here with a cooling park a world away from that terrace, whether he still reached for her side of the bed out of habit before he remembered. Whether he'd started to notice, yet, that the woman sleeping there now wasn't quite the one he thought he'd gotten back.

The ache didn't fade the way the fear usually did. It just sat there, familiar now, like a scar she'd stopped trying to hide from herself. Aria, Mia, Ryan — they were rebuilding something real underneath her, something that didn't need a false name to survive. But some nights, missing him didn't feel like a betrayal of that. It just felt like the truth she hadn't quite finished grieving yet.

She picked her sketchbook back up before the ache could get any bigger than the balcony could hold, and started a new page — not the lake this time, not his profile at the water's edge. Just the fountain, the kids in the spray, Aria's stubborn grin caught mid-laugh. Real things. Present things. She let the rest of it wait for tomorrow, the way she'd learned, slowly, that she had to.