Chapter 12: Domestic Distractions
The world had narrowed to the press of his body against hers, the solid wood of the kitchen shelves a firm anchor against her back. Andi’s laughter dissolved into a sharp, pleased gasp as Matt’s mouth found the sensitive spot just below her ear. Her legs tightened around his waist, pulling him closer, her fingers tangling in the soft cotton of his t-shirt.
“The toast is burning,” she managed to whisper, her voice breathless against his cheek.
“Let it burn,” he murmured, his lips tracing a hot path down her neck. The smell of singed bread mixed with the scent of his skin and her perfume, a strange, domestic incense.
A thin wisp of smoke finally curled from the toaster, triggering a sharp click. The sudden silence was broken only by their ragged breathing. Matt leaned his forehead against the shelf beside her head, his chest heaving. Andi slowly unlocked her ankles, letting her feet slide to the floor, her body humming.
He pulled back just enough to look at her. Her hair was a mess, her lips swollen. She looked utterly, perfectly undone. A slow smile spread across his face. “We should christen the place properly. You said that last night.”
“I was talking about the kitchen,” she said, swatting his arm lightly, her own smile breaking through. “But I’m not complaining.”
He kissed her, a quick, soft promise. “I’ll make more toast.”
While he scraped the blackened slices into the sink, Andi busied herself with the coffee, her body still buzzing with the echo of him. This new rhythm, this easy back-and-forth between passion and domesticity, felt like a language she was born knowing. She watched the muscles in his back shift as he worked, the familiar paint smudges on his shirt a testament to the late night he’d spent at the easel after she’d fallen asleep.
Her phone buzzed on the counter, rattling against the marble. Sarah’s name flashed on the screen.
Sarah: So. How’s the first morning in the new love nest? ;)
Andi rolled her eyes, a blush warming her cheeks. She typed back a quick, Making breakfast.
Sarah: Uh huh. Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
“Who’s that?” Matt asked, sliding a plate of freshly buttered toast toward her.
“Your sister-in-law. Being nosy.”
He chuckled, grabbing his own phone. “Ben just sent me a meme of a cartoon cat with hearts in its eyes. I think they’re in on it together.”
The normalcy of it, the gentle teasing from their inner circle, made it all feel more real, more cemented. They ate standing at the island, shoulders touching, the morning sun streaming through the large window and painting a bright rectangle on the floor where her duffel bag had been.
“I’ve got that gallery meeting today,” Matt said, dusting crumbs from his fingers. “The one on Grand. They’re finalizing the artists for the autumn showcase.”
“That’s today?” Andi’s eyes widened. “Matt, that’s huge. Why are you so calm?”
He shrugged, but she saw the flicker of tension in his jaw. “It’s just a meeting. Don’t know if they’ll even want my stuff. It’s a pretty traditional space.”
“They’d be idiots not to want you.” She said it with a finality that brooked no argument. This was the other side of their new life—the professional dreams, the quiet anxieties. She was learning the map of his doubts as well as she knew the lines of his hands.
He looked at her, really looked at her, and the tension in his face softened. “Thanks, Andi.”
After breakfast, he retreated to his drafting table to gather his portfolio, and Andi found herself drifting through the loft, picking up the scattered evidence of their life. She folded the blanket from the couch, stacked his art books neatly, and finally stopped in front of his current work on the easel.
It was a cityscape, but not the one outside their window. This was their neighborhood viewed from the roof, the lines softer, the colors more dreamlike. And in the foreground, leaning against the parapet, was a faint but unmistakable sketch of a figure with wild, curly hair. Her.
Her breath caught. He’d been adding her to his world long before she’d ever carried a box through his door.
The buzz of his phone broke the silence. He picked it up from the drafting table, his brow furrowing as he read the screen. “Shit.”
“What?” Andi asked, her hand still hovering near the painting.
“It’s your mom.” He let out a long breath. “She says ‘Ben told us the news.’ She wants us to come for dinner on Sunday. All of us.”
The air went still. The news. Not that she’d moved in, but why. That she and Matt were a we. Telling Ben was one thing; facing her parents was another tectonic shift.
“Oh,” was all Andi could say.
“She used the exclamation point. The single one. That’s her ‘I have questions’ punctuation.” He ran a hand over his head. “Your dad is probably cleaning his golf clubs and planning a very serious talk with me in the garage.”
A nervous laugh bubbled out of her. “He likes you. He’s always liked you.”
“As his son’s friend. Not as… this.” He gestured between the two of them. The space that had felt so intimate moments before now felt exposed.
Andi walked over to him, taking the phone from his hand and setting it down. She placed her palms flat on his chest, feeling the steady, strong beat beneath. “Hey. Look at me. We knew this was coming.”
“I know. Just… faster than I thought.”
“We’ll go. We’ll have dinner. We’ll be us.” She stood on her toes and kissed him, a soft, reassuring press. “And if my dad takes you to the garage, just talk about his new driver. He’ll love you forever.”
He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. The gallery meeting, now the parental inquisition—the outside world was pressing in, demanding definitions for the fragile, beautiful thing they’d built in this loft.
He grabbed his portfolio case, a sleek black container that held a year’s worth of his heart. “I should go. Don’t want to be late.”
She walked him to the door, her hand finding his. “Knock ‘em dead, artist.”
He paused on the threshold, just as Ben had the night before, but this time he was the one leaving their shared space. He looked back at her, standing in the middle of the room they now both owned, and some of the worry in his face eased. “Hold down the fort.”
“I’ll try not to christen anything else until you get back.”
His laugh was genuine this time, a rich, full sound that echoed in the high ceiling. Then he was gone.
The lock clicked into place. The silence he left behind was different. It was waiting. Andi leaned against the door, the wood cool through her shirt. She looked around the sunlit loft, at his paintings and her books, at the ghost of their morning pressed against the kitchen shelves. It was all so perfectly, terrifyingly real. Sunday was coming. But for now, the only sound was the city’s distant hum, and the faint, metallic smell of burnt toast that still lingered in the air.
But for now, the only sound was the city’s distant hum, and the faint, metallic smell of burnt toast that still lingered in the air. Andi pushed off the door, the ghost of his touch still warm on her skin. She gathered her backpack, her movements automatic, the weight of her literature textbooks a grounding counterpoint to the dizzying spin of her thoughts.
The city streets were a blur of noise and motion. She walked to campus, the familiar route feeling alien, as if she were seeing the cracked pavement and bustling coffee shops through a new, slightly distorted lens. Every couple she passed seemed to be in on a secret she was only just learning.
Her first lecture, on post-modern narrative structures, failed to capture her usual focus. The professor’s words about fragmented identities and unstable realities felt a little too on the nose. She doodled in the margin of her notebook—a quick, messy sketch of kitchen shelves.
“You’re quiet today,” her friend Chloe whispered, sliding into the seat next to her after class. “Still unpacking?”
“Something like that,” Andi said, snapping the notebook shut. “Just a lot on my mind.”
“Well, wipe that look off your face. You look like you’re contemplating tax law, not Ulysses.” Chloe linked her arm through Andi’s, pulling her toward the exit. “Come on, I need caffeine and you need to tell me why you’re smiling at your phone like that.”
Across town, Matt stood in a stark white gallery, the air cool and smelling of fresh paint and floor polish. He clutched his portfolio, the black case feeling flimsy in his hands. The curator, a woman with a severe grey bob and sharp eyes, gestured for him to lay his work on a wide, minimalist table.
“The autumn showcase is about urban intimacy, Mr. Johnson,” she said, her voice echoing in the vast space. “The moments between the noise.”
She was silent for a long time, moving slowly from one piece to the next. She paused at the rooftop cityscape, her finger hovering just above the sketched figure with the wild hair. Matt’s throat went dry.
“This one,” she said finally, tapping the protective glass. “The technical proficiency is evident throughout, but this… this has a pulse. It’s not just a place. It’s a person in a place.” She looked up at him, her expression unreadable. “We’d like the entire ‘View from the Roof’ series. The far wall is yours.”
The tightness in his chest released in a single, shuddering breath. “Thank you. That’s… thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Just have them ready by the tenth.” She offered a rare, thin smile that didn’t soften her eyes but held a glint of respect. “We’ll send the contracts over.”
He walked out of the gallery into the bright afternoon, the city sounds rushing back in a wave. He stood on the sidewalk, disoriented by the sudden shift from quiet anticipation to roaring success. He fumbled for his phone, his first instinct to call Ben, to fall back into the old, easy pattern of sharing wins with his best friend.
His thumb hovered over Ben’s name. He saw the text from Ben’s mom, the unspoken question mark. He thought of the garage, the golf clubs, the ‘very serious talk’. This win was his, but the person he wanted to tell was the one he’d left standing in their loft surrounded by the smell of their burnt breakfast.
He opened his messages to Andi instead. The screen was blank for a moment before he typed, The far wall is mine.
Andi was in the library, surrounded by the scent of old paper and dust, when her phone vibrated. She read the message and a laugh escaped her, too loud for the quiet room. An elderly man at the next table shushed her, but she just grinned, offering a silent, apologetic wave.
She typed back, her fingers flying. Told you they weren’t idiots. She paused, then added, I’m proud of you. Can’t wait to see your art on that wall.
She looked down at the copy of Ulysses open in front of her, the dense text now just shapes on a page. All she could see was the far wall of a white gallery, and his paintings, their paintings, filling it with color and life. She packed her bag, the weight of her books feeling insignificant now, a minor detail in the sprawling, unpredictable narrative of their day.
She packed her bag, the weight of her books feeling insignificant now, a minor detail in the sprawling, unpredictable narrative of their day. The image of Matt’s art on a gallery wall was a bright, brilliant flame in her mind, eclipsing the dull thrum of anxiety about her parents. She practically floated out of the library, the stern shush from the old man already forgotten.
Chloe was waiting by the bust of a forgotten poet, tapping her foot. “Okay, spill. What was the text? Your face just did a whole thing.”
“He got it,” Andi said, her voice cracking with a giddy laugh. “The gallery. They gave him the entire far wall for his series.”
“No way! That’s huge!” Chloe grabbed her shoulders, giving her a little shake. “We are getting drinks to celebrate. Proper drinks. Not the cheap campus stuff.”
“I can’t tonight, he’s… we’re…” Andi trailed off, the word ‘celebrating’ feeling too intimate, too loaded to share even with Chloe. It wasn’t just his success anymore; it was theirs. “We have plans.”
Chloe’s eyes narrowed, a knowing smirk playing on her lips. “Plans. Right.” She looped her arm through Andi’s again, steering her toward their literature seminar. “So, it’s like that now. You and Matt. For real, for real.”
“It’s always been for real,” Andi said, the truth of it settling deep in her bones as they walked. “It just looks different now.”
“It looks like you two finally stopped being idiots.” Chloe pushed open the heavy classroom door. “I’m happy for you. Seriously. Even if it means I lose my last single friend to domestic bliss.”
The seminar room was stuffy, the air thick with the collective breath of twenty students dissecting Faulkner. Andi tried to focus on the discussion of narrative time, but her own timeline kept intruding: the press of Matt against the kitchen shelves this morning, the phantom smell of burnt toast, the text that had lit up her phone. Her professor’s words about the past being never dead merged with the looming specter of Sunday dinner at her parents’ house, a collision of then and now.
She scribbled urban intimacy in the margin of her notebook, circling it. That’s what this was, what his paintings captured. Their own private city on a roof, the space between two people in a crowded world. It felt more tangible than any theory.
When the class finally ended, Chloe shouldered her bag. “You’re basically vibrating. Go home to your artist.”
“I am,” Andi said, already moving toward the door.
“Tell him congrats! And that he owes me a drink for putting up with your distracted ass all day!”
Andi waved a hand in acknowledgment, already halfway down the hall. The walk home felt different than the walk to campus. The city’s noise was no longer a distraction but a soundtrack, the golden-hour light painting the brick buildings in warm, familiar tones. She passed the bodega where they bought overpriced ice cream and the park where Ben had once pushed Matt into a fountain. Every corner was layered with memory, both his and hers, now irrevocably theirs.
She turned onto their street, her pace quickening. She could see the large window of their loft from the end of the block, a beacon. The faint, melodic scratch of a jazz record spilled out onto the sidewalk below, a sound that now meant home. She took the stairs two at a time, her key already in her hand, the metallic taste of anticipation on her tongue. She pushed the door open.