Page 41 of Never Quite Gone

He turned slightly, and suddenly we were too close, the space between us charged with everything unsaid. The paint smudge on his cheek begged for my touch. His eyes held questions he wasn't ready to ask.

“I should go,” I said reluctantly, though everything in me wanted to stay. “It's getting late.”

“Tomorrow?” he asked, like he did every evening, though we both knew I'd come regardless.

“Tomorrow,” I promised. Always tomorrow, always another chance to be near him, to watch him create beauty with those perfect hands.

The streets of Florence embraced me as I left. Above, his studio windows still glowed with lamplight while outside all the lamplights were dimmer.

Tomorrow I would bring him more pigments, more excuses to stay, more chances to fall in love with the way he saw the world. And maybe, eventually, he would understand why his hands shook when our fingers brushed, why his heart recognized mine across a crowded room, why every angel in his paintings wore my face.

For now, it was enough to watch him work, to be near him, to see him falling in love with art the way he had once loved healing. Everything else would come in its own time.

Florence's night air carried the scent of jasmine and possibility. Somewhere in the city, bells tolled the hour, their bronze song marking another day of finding him, watching him, loving him from whatever distance he allowed.

Tomorrow. There would always be tomorrow.

Florence turned to liquid gold in the hour before sunset, painting everything in light that made miracles seem possible. I found Elia where I always did – in his studio, hands stained with pigments, completely lost in his work. But today was different. Today the massive canvas was finally complete, and the story it told took my breath away.

Every angel wore my face. Every saint held his hands. Our love story written in sacred imagery, hidden in plain sight for anyone with eyes to see.

“It's finished,” he said softly, not turning as I approached. “Though I don't know if I'll ever understand why I painted it this way.”

I moved closer, drawn by the paint smudge on his cheek that I'd ached to touch for months. “It's perfect,” I whispered. “It's us.”

He turned then, those beloved eyes wide with something between recognition and revelation. “Alessandro,” he breathed, and my name on his lips was both prayer and permission.

I cupped his face between my hands, thumbs brushing those impossible cheekbones as his paint-stained fingers clutched at my fine silk doublet. When our lips met, the whole world condensed to this single point of contact – this kiss that felt like coming home, like finding something I'd lost lifetimes ago.

“I know you,” he whispered against my mouth. “I've always known you.”

The confession broke something open between us. Suddenly we were clinging to each other, kisses turning desperate with the weight of too much time apart. His hands left paint stains on my clothes that I would treasure like badges of honor. My fingers tangled in his hair, memorizing its texture all over again.

“Stay with me,” I breathed between kisses. “Stay with me this time.”

He pulled back slightly, confusion flickering across his face at my strange phrasing. But before he could question it, a shadow fell across the studio floor.

My heart recognized the threat before my mind could process it. Valentino stood in the doorway, his cardinal's advisor robes blood-red in the evening light. His eyes held something dark and ancient as they took in our embrace, the painted evidence of our love surrounding us.

“No,” I whispered, already trying to push Eli behind me. “Not again. Not this time.”

But Valentino's face held no triumph, only a haunted understanding as he gestured to the guards waiting in the hallway. “I'm sorry,” he said softly.

Everything happened too fast after that. Guards flooding the studio. Accusations of heresy. Elia's paintings – our beautiful story – torn from walls and burned in the street below. I tried to fight, tried to use my family's influence, but Valentino had built his case too carefully.

“The paintings are blasphemous,” he declared to the hastily convened church council. “Look how he corrupts sacred imagery with mortal love. How he twists divine truth to serve earthly desire.”

But his eyes held no zealot's fire – only a desperate certainty that he was somehow protecting us from something worse. Like he remembered fragments of older patterns but couldn't quite grasp their meaning.

They took Elia away in chains while I watched helplessly, my wealth and power suddenly meaningless against the Church's authority. The last glimpse I had of him was his face turning back to mine, those beloved hands reaching out before guards yanked him roughly forward.

I spent days plotting rescue attempts, calling in every favor my family name could command. But Valentino's influence ran deeper than I'd known, his accusations spreading through Florence like poison.

When they finally let me see Eli in his cell, he was already changed. They'd kept him in darkness, but his hands had found ways to create even here – our story scratched into the walls with stolen charcoal, my eyes drawn over and over in desperate repetition.

“I dream of you,” he whispered as I pressed against the bars separating us. “Not just here, not just now. I dream of other times, other places. Why do I dream of you?”

“Because we've loved before,” I said, no longer caring who might hear. “Because we'll love again. Because some souls are meant to find each other, no matter what tries to keep them apart.”

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