Page 63 of A Man To Remember
"Then there are other galleries. Other opportunities." I run my thumb along his cheekbone, feeling the dampness there. "I've spent the last ten years running from this place. From these memories. From you. But I don't have anything to run from anymore."
His breath catches, a sharp little intake that sounds like hope trying not to get too loud.
"You mean..."
"I mean I'm staying. If you'll have me. If you want me to."
The kiss he gives me tastes like salt and relief and every tomorrow we're going to have together. It's desperate and full of promises neither of us has the words for yet. When we break apart, we're both crying and laughing and holding onto each other like we're afraid the other might disappear if we let go.
"I love you," he says against my mouth, the words I've been waiting to hear since I was eighteen years old and stupid enough to think love was something you could control.
"I love you too," I reply, and it's the easiest truth I've ever spoken. The most natural thing in the world. "I always have. Even when I hated you, I loved you. Even when I tried to stop, even when I convinced myself I was over it—I never was. I never could be."
He pulls back to look at me, eyes still bright with tears but no longer sad. "Really?"
"Really. You've been it for me since high school, Jesse. Everything else was just... killing time."
We pack up the rest of my equipment together, hands bumping as we work, stealing touches whenever we can. Neither of us can stop smiling, these ridiculous grins that make our faces hurt but feel too good to stop.
The future spreads out before us, uncertain in all the best ways. We don't know what the gallery will say. Or if I'll be able to make a living here. Or how we'll navigate this thing between us, now that it's real, and permanent, and ours.
But for the first time in my life, I'm not running toward something or away from something else.
I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
EPILOGUE
AUSTIN
Three months later.
THE PLACE BUZZES with the kind of energy that makes my palms sweat and my heart race in ways that have nothing to do with caffeine. Bodies move through the space like schools of fish, clustering, dispersing, reforming somewhere else. The lighting is perfect—warm but nottoowarm, bright, without creating glare on the glass.
I've been to plenty of gallery openings before, but always as a guest. Always on the outside looking in, nursing cheap wine and pretending to understand the artistic vision behind abstract paintings that looked like someone sneezed paint onto a canvas.
This is different.
This is mine.
My photographs line the walls in carefully curated arrangements, each one matted and framed with the kind of attention to detail that makes art look official.
The title card next to the entrance readsIntimate Strangersin elegant serif font, followed by my name in smaller text beneath. Seeing it there, printed and permanent, still feels surreal.
Jesse appears at my elbow with two glasses of water, one of which he presses into my hand. "Breathe," he whispers, close enough that only I can hear him. "You look like you're about to pass out."
"I just might."
"Don't. Not yet. There's a woman over by the corner piece who's been staring at it for ten minutes. I think she's calculating how much wall space she has at home."
I follow his gaze to where an elegant woman stands transfixed by one of my favorite shots—a couple caught in the moment just before a kiss, all tension and anticipation and electric space between their bodies.
"She asked me three times if it was for sale," Jesse continues, pride evident in his voice. "I told her she'd have to talk to you, but yes, everything's available."
The past two hours have been a blur of handshakes and small talk and people saying things like "fascinating use of shadow" and "really captures the raw intimacy." Jesse has been by my side the entire time, playing unofficial ambassador, talking up my work to anyone who'll listen.
He's better at this than I am, actually. More natural with strangers, better at reading what they want to hear. When someone asks about my process, he launches into explanationsabout lighting techniques and the importance of making subjects comfortable. When they ask about inspiration, he talks about the beauty of human vulnerability with the kind of passion that makes people lean in closer.
It's like watching him discover a talent he didn't know he had.
