Chapter 13: The Gallery Opening
The buzz from Catriona’s phone was a distant, insectile sound. It didn’t belong here, in the warm, skin-scented dark of Aidan’s room. They both heard it. They both ignored it.
For a long time, they just breathed, tangled in his sheets. His hand stroked slow, idle paths from the dip of her waist to the swell of her hip.
“We should check that,” Catriona murmured eventually, her words muffled against his shoulder.
“Why?”
“Because it’s Diane. And she’s waiting.”
He knew she was right. The world, with its complications and its gallery openings and its unanswered questions, was reasserting itself through that persistent vibration. He pressed one last kiss to her hair and sat up. The room was cooler now. He pulled on his jeans, barefoot, and padded out to the living room.
The phone glowed on the chaos of the coffee table. He picked it up. The screen showed Diane’s name and a single, stark message: Well?
He carried it back to the bedroom. Catriona had sat up, the sheet pooled around her waist, her hair a magnificent riot against his pillow. She took the phone, her brow furrowing as she read. A soft, incredulous laugh escaped her.
“She doesn’t mess around, does she?” Catriona said. She looked at Aidan, her green eyes clear and focused. “What do I tell her?”
He leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. The weight of the decision was theirs, but he felt no panic. Only a strange, solid calm. “The truth.”
Catriona’s thumbs hovered over the screen. She typed, deleted, typed again. Finally, she set the phone down, screen-first. “I told her it was the beginning of a new story. And that we… that I wanted to see her tonight.” She chewed her lip. “The gallery thing is in a few hours. It’s a lot.”
“It is,” he agreed. He walked over, sat on the edge of the bed. “We don’t have to have it all figured out by tonight.”
“But we have to show up,” she said. “The three of us. In public. After… all this.” Her gesture encompassed the bed, the morning, the last twenty-four hours.
“So we show up.”
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The gallery was a cavern of shadow and amber light, a converted warehouse where voices dropped to reverential murmurs and footsteps echoed on polished concrete. Aidan arrived alone, a directive from Catriona delivered via text: I need an hour to turn from a goblin into a person. Don’t see the transformation. Meet you there.
He wove through the clusters of people, a glass of sour white wine in his hand. The sculptures were twisting, organic things—bronze forms that resembled both heartbeats and storm clouds. He wasn’t really seeing them. He was looking for her.
He found her near a central pillar, a beacon in emerald green. The dress was simple, sleeveless, falling to just above her knees, but it clung to every curve she had. The ink on her arms and the delicate linework on her collarbone was visible, part of the exhibition. Her hair was a controlled cascade of fire. She was laughing at something a grey-haired man in a sharp suit was saying, but her shoulders had a stiff, prepared quality, like a dancer waiting for music.
Then he saw Diane.
She moved through the crowd like a sleek, dark fish, effortless in a simple black jumpsuit. She went straight to Catriona, kissed her on both cheeks, a gesture that was both gallery-appropriate and intensely personal. Aidan saw Catriona’s posture change instantly, the stiffness melting into relief. Diane spoke a few words, then her gaze swept the room and landed on him.
She drifted over, plucking a glass from a passing tray. “You clean up okay, astronomy engineer.”
“You too.”
She stood beside him, both of them watching Catriona work the room. “She’s nervous. Half these people could make or break her next year. Go be her anchor.”
He didn’t hesitate. He set his glass down on a pedestal holding a tiny, fraught sculpture and crossed the space. When his arm went around Catriona’s waist, she leaned into him before even turning her head, as if she’d been expecting the exact pressure of his touch.
“Mr. Hendricks,” she said, her voice bright, “this is my roommate, Aidan. Aidan, Mr. Hendricks represents the Bryson Collection.”
The conversation flowed around him—talk of texture, negative space, artistic lineage. Aidan smiled, nodded, kept his hand resting lightly on the small of Catriona’s back. He felt the subtle tremor there slowly still.
Later, as the crowd thinned to the dedicated few, they found a dim corner where a large, half-unrolled canvas was draped over a chaise lounge, its edges curling invitingly. Diane joined them, her shoulder brushing Aidan’s. The air here smelled richer, of linseed oil and the faint, sweet scent of drying paint.
Catriona sipped her wine, her eyes on the obscured canvas. “I think we should discuss the future,” she said, her voice quieter now, meant only for them.
“Here?” Aidan asked.
“No. But soon. Actually, now.” She turned to face them both, her expression serious. “This isn’t a fluke. It’s not just chemistry. I can’t… do the casual thing. Not with this. Not with you two.”
Diane’s gaze was steady. “What are you proposing?”
“I’m proposing we stop being terrified and start being intentional.” Catriona took Aidan’s hand, then reached for Diane’s. “I want to see if this works. All three of us. However that looks.”
Aidan’s chest felt tight. It was the question that had hummed underneath every look, every touch. Given voice, it was terrifying. And inevitable.
Diane looked at their joined hands, then up at Catriona, then at Aidan. A slow smile touched her lips, not playful, but deeply satisfied. “Okay.”
That single word released a coil of tension Aidan hadn’t fully acknowledged. Catriona let out a shaky breath, then a genuine laugh. “Okay? Just like that?”
“You said stop being terrified,” Diane shrugged. “So I’m stopping.”
Catriona looked at Aidan. He saw the hope there, raw and unguarded. He squeezed her hand. “Yeah. Okay.”
The decision, made in a whisper in a dark corner, charged the air between them. The murmur of the remaining guests faded into a dull buzz. Catriona’s eyes darkened. She released their hands and instead grabbed the front of Aidan’s shirt, pulling him down into a deep, claiming kiss. It tasted of wine and resolve. When she broke away, she turned to Diane, her movements sure, and kissed her with the same focused intensity.
Diane met the kiss with a soft sound, her hand coming up to cup Catriona’s cheek. When they parted, Diane’s eyes were black in the low light. She looked past Catriona to Aidan, her meaning clear.
Catriona took a step back toward a door marked ‘STORAGE’ and turned the handle. It gave with a click. She glanced over her shoulder, a silent, daring question.
They followed.
The room was cool and crowded with canvases leaned face-against the walls, the ghosts of unfinished work. The only light bled in from under the door, painting everything in stripes of dim amber.
No one spoke. The conversation was over. Now there was only geography.
Diane reached for Aidan first, her kiss exploring, welcoming. Catriona watched for a moment, then moved behind Diane, her hands sliding around Diane’s waist, her mouth finding the sensitive skin beneath Diane’s ear. Diane arched back into her, a gasp catching in her throat.
Aidan’s hands found the zip of Diane’s jumpsuit. He drew it down slowly, the sound loud in the quiet room. The fabric parted. He pushed it from her shoulders, letting it pool at her feet. Catriona’s hands were already on Diane’s breasts, her thumbs circling the tight peaks. Aidan watched, his blood heating, as Catriona kissed along Diane’s shoulder, her eyes locked on his over the pale curve of skin.
He turned Catriona gently, his hands on her hips, and found the zip of her dress. It yielded. The green fabric sighed to the floor. She stood there in just her underwear, her skin glowing in the fractured light, her tattoos like secret stories written across her ribs. Diane, now bare, came close, her front pressing to Catriona’s back, her hands roaming over Catriona’s stomach, rising to cup her breasts.
Aidan knelt. He hooked his fingers in the lace of Catriona’s underwear and drew them down. He kissed the inside of her thigh, feeling the tremor there. He heard her breath hitch above him, heard Diane’s whisper, “Look at him.”
He didn’t need to take her with his mouth. He just needed to be here, part of the ritual. He stood, and Catriona’s hands were on his belt, then his zipper, freeing him. Her touch was firm, reverent. Diane’s hand joined hers, their fingers intertwining as they held him, a shared possession.
They sank together onto a stack of moving blankets in a clear space on the floor, a nest of coarse fabric and urgent skin. There was no single point of focus. Aidan kissed Diane while his hand stroked Catriona’s flank. Catriona guided Diane’s head down between her own thighs, her fingers threaded in Diane’s dark hair, her eyes never leaving Aidan’s face. The sounds were soft, wet, utterly profane in this clinical space—sharp gasps, whispered names, the rustle of blankets.
When Aidan finally entered Catriona, she was arching under Diane’s mouth, her pleasure already coiling tight. He moved in a slow, deep rhythm that made her cry out, her hand scrabbling for Diane’s. Diane came up to kiss her, swallowing the sounds, her own body moving restlessly against Aidan’s leg.
It was not a race, nor a performance. It was a rebalancing. A deliberate, physical affirmation of the decision they’d just made. They moved together in the near-dark, a three-pointed star, each touch a seal on a new, fragile promise.
After, they lay in a heap of limbs and blankets, breathing in the dust and the smell of their own sweat. Catriona’s head was on Aidan’s chest. Diane’s leg was thrown over both of theirs.
From the gallery beyond the door, they heard the final, departing goodbyes of the last guests, the gallery manager’s cheerful farewell. The real world was closing up shop.
Catriona traced a circle on Aidan’s sternum. “So,” she whispered, her voice rough. “We’re doing this.”
Diane lifted her head, her chin propped on Catriona’s shoulder. “Looks like it.”
Aidan looked from one to the other, their faces haloed in the thin light from under the door. The terror was still there, a faint buzz at the edge of his awareness. But it was drowned out by a louder, more insistent sound: the steady, triumphant beat of his own heart, and the feel of theirs, keeping time with his.