Gallery Sparks (Ethan POV)

I was still thinking about him the next morning.

The tall guy with the ice-blue eyes and the leather jacket. The one who’d looked at me like I was either a problem or a puzzle he didn’t want to solve. I’d replayed the moment in my head about fifty times while brushing my teeth, while making instant coffee in our tiny kitchenette, while Bella was still snoring dramatically under her mountain of throw pillows.

I mean, come on. It was just a stare. A really intense stare. Nothing more.

But it had stuck.

Bella finally emerged around eleven, hair a wild halo, wearing an oversized NYU hoodie and the tiniest sleep shorts known to humankind. She took one look at my face and went straight into best-friend interrogation mode.

“Okay, spill,” she said, hopping onto the counter and stealing my coffee mug right out of my hand. “You’ve got that dreamy-horny-confused look again. Who is he?”

I laughed despite myself. “There is no ‘he.’ Not really.”

“Bullshit. You texted me last night about a mysterious stranger in the park. That’s literally the plot of every rom-com I’ve ever forced you to watch.”

I leaned back against the fridge, arms crossed. “It was literally two seconds. He bumped into me while I was sketching, looked at me like I’d personally offended his entire bloodline, and then walked away. That’s it.”

Bella’s eyebrows shot up. “And you’re still thinking about him twelve hours later because…?”

“Because he was…” I searched for the right word. “Striking? Annoying? Both?”

She grinned like she’d won something. “Hot and mean. Classic Ethan catnip.”

“I do not have a type,” I protested, even though we both knew that was a lie.

“Uh-huh. Remember Mathieu? The brooding poet who wrote you six-line breakup texts in iambic pentameter?”

“That was one time.”

“And Julien,” she added softly.

I winced.

Julien was the reason I’d spent most of my last year in Paris rebuilding myself piece by piece. The reason I still sometimes flinched when someone raised their voice too fast. The reason I was very, very careful about who I let close.

Bella saw my face change and immediately softened. “Hey. I’m just teasing. You’re allowed to look at pretty boys in parks. You’re twenty-two and in New York. That’s basically the law.”

I managed a small smile. “Merci.”

She hopped down and threw her arms around me in one of her sudden, fierce hugs. “Tonight. Gallery opening. You, me, free wine, pretentious people talking about brushstrokes like they’re solving world hunger. You’re coming. No excuses.”

“I have reading—”

“Reading can wait. Your tragic French heart cannot.”

She was impossible to argue with when she got like this.

So that’s how I ended up in a sleek little gallery in Chelsea at eight o’clock that night, wearing my nicest button-down (the pale blue one that Bella said made my eyes pop) and trying not to feel like an impostor.

The place was packed. Black walls, white lights, paintings that looked like someone had thrown paint at canvas and called it genius. Everyone was holding wine glasses and speaking in that low, serious tone people use when they want to sound important.

Bella was in her element—chatting up strangers, laughing too loud, flirting with at least three different people at once. I loved watching her work a room. She made everything look effortless.

I wandered toward the back, where the crowd thinned out a little. There was a smaller room with just three large canvases—huge abstracts in deep blues and violent reds. They felt angry. Alive. I liked them immediately.

I was standing there, head tilted, trying to figure out what emotion the artist had been trying to strangle onto the canvas, when I felt it.

That prickle on the back of my neck.

I turned.

And there he was.

Leather jacket guy.

He was standing near the doorway, half in shadow, arms crossed, watching the room like he was waiting for someone to do something stupid so he could end them. Same sharp jaw, same messy dark hair, same eyes that seemed to cut straight through people.

My stomach flipped so hard I almost dropped my plastic cup of cheap rosé.

He hadn’t seen me yet.

Or maybe he had. Maybe that was why he looked so tense.

I should have walked away. Turned around, found Bella, left. But my feet had other ideas.

I took three steps closer.

He noticed.

His gaze snapped to me like a magnet finding metal. For a second his expression flickered—surprise, maybe? Recognition, definitely. Then it shuttered again, back to that cold, unreadable mask.

I lifted my hand in a small, awkward wave. “Hi.”

He didn’t wave back.

But he also didn’t walk away.

I closed the distance, stopping a safe few feet from him. “You’re following me now?” I said, trying to keep my voice light. Playful. Like this was normal.

One dark eyebrow lifted slightly. “You think I’m following you?”

“I mean… second time in two days. Same city, same me. The odds are statistically suspicious.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “It’s a small island.”

“New York? Small?” I laughed. “You’re joking.”

He didn’t smile, but something in his eyes softened. Just a fraction.

I tilted my head toward the paintings. “What do you think of these?”

He glanced at the canvases like he was seeing them for the first time. “They’re loud.”

“Loud,” I repeated, grinning. “That’s a good word for it. I think they’re screaming.”

He looked back at me. “You like that?”

“Sometimes. When it’s honest.”

He studied me for a long beat. Like he was trying to decide if I was real or just some performance piece.

Then, quietly: “You talk about art like it matters.”

“It does,” I said simply. “At least to me.”

He didn’t reply right away. Just kept looking.

I felt my cheeks heat up. “I’m Ethan, by the way.”

A pause.

Then, so low I almost missed it: “Dmitri.”

Dmitri.

The name fit him. Heavy. Sharp. A little dangerous.

I opened my mouth to say something else—probably something stupid and flirty—when his phone buzzed.

He glanced at the screen and his whole body changed. Went rigid. The softness vanished like it had never been there.

“I have to go,” he said abruptly.

“Wait—”

But he was already turning, already moving toward the exit with that same predatory stride I’d seen in the park.

I stood there, heart hammering, wine forgotten in my hand.

He didn’t look back.

Not once.

Bella found me a minute later, cheeks flushed from wine and flirting. “There you are! I was about to send out a search party. Who was that guy you were talking to? He looked like he murders people for a living.”

I forced a laugh. It sounded thin even to me.

“Just… some guy.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I lied. “Totally fine.”

But I wasn’t.

Because I’d seen it.

The exact moment he shut down. The moment whatever tiny crack had opened between us slammed closed again.

And I hated how much it hurt.

Like I’d lost something I didn’t even know I wanted.

I finished my wine in one long swallow and let Bella drag me back into the crowd.

But the rest of the night, I kept glancing toward the door.

Half hoping he’d come back.

Half terrified that he would.