Chapter 9: Andre
And Svet, listening, finally understood that the territory she was so desperate to mark had been hers all along. The final chord of ‘Proximity’ faded into a silence that felt deeper than before the music started. Then the applause erupted, loud and genuine, washing over the stage.
Edwin gave a quick, awkward nod to the room, his public persona slinking back on like a jacket. He unplugged his guitar and made a beeline for their table, ignoring a call from a fan near the stage. He didn’t sit. He just picked up his jacket from the back of Svet’s stool.
“Let’s go,” he said, his voice still husky from the performance.
No one argued. They paid the tab and filed out into the cool night, the bar’s energy leaking out onto the sidewalk with them. Goodbyes were quick, mumbled things under the streetlights. Jessa got into a rideshare. Dave wandered toward his bike.
Edwin opened the BMW’s passenger door for Svet. The interior light clicked on, illuminating the familiar sanctuary of soft leather and quiet. He didn’t speak as he got in and started the engine. The hum was a relief.
He drove, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the console, palm up. An invitation. Svet slid her hand into his, interlacing their fingers. The contact was electric and calming all at once. They rode in a silence that wasn’t empty; it was full of the song, full of the alley, full of everything they hadn’t needed to say.
“Your place or mine?” he asked finally, his thumb stroking her knuckle.
“Mine,” she said. “I have a nine a.m.”
He nodded. He pulled up to her apartment building twenty minutes later but didn’t cut the engine. He looked at their joined hands, then at her. “I meant what I said. Out there.”
“I know.”
He brought her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the center of her palm, a slow, deliberate gesture that made her breath catch. “Text me when you’re inside.”
She floated up the stairs to her studio, the ghost of his lips still burning on her skin. She didn’t text him. She called. They talked about nothing—Dave’s pigeon movie, the acidity of the bar’s well vodka—until her words slurred with sleep.
“Go to bed, Svet,” he said softly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The campus games room the next afternoon was a different world, sun-drenched and echoing with the snap of pool balls and the drone of a forgotten sports channel. Svet was lining up a shot, cue in hand, while Edwin lounged in a torn vinyl booth, sketching chord diagrams in a notebook. Dave and Jessa were arguing over the jukebox selections.
“Eight ball, corner pocket,” Svet declared, taking the shot. The ball missed spectacularly, rattling the jaws of the pocket. “Dammit.”
“Your form’s all aggression, no finesse,” Edwin said without looking up from his notebook. “You’re slapping it. Needs to be a push.”
“Don’t coach me,” she grumbled, though she was smiling.
The main door swung open, letting in a shaft of brighter hallway light and a ripple of cooler air. Svet glanced over, chalk in hand. She froze.
Time did not stop. It bent. It folded in on itself, collapsing three years into a single, dizzying second.
Andre stood in the doorway, scanning the room. He looked the same, but more. His hair was shorter, but his smile was exactly as she remembered—a wide, easy thing that had once made her stomach perform gymnastic routines. He’d filled out, the lanky soccer player frame now solidly built.
Their eyes met. His smile shifted from general to specific, a beam of pure, surprised recognition aimed directly at her. “Svet? No way.”
Her cue stick clattered to the floor. The sound finally jerked Edwin’s attention from his notebook. He looked from the stick, to Svet’s stunned face, to the guy now walking toward them.
“Andre?” Her voice came out thin. “What… you’re in Canada.”
“Was,” he said, closing the distance. He smelled like clean laundry and a faint, unfamiliar cologne. “Transferred back this semester. Finance program. I was hoping I’d run into you.”
He didn’t go for a handshake. He opened his arms. Svet, operating on a autopilot from a buried part of her history, stepped into the hug. It was warm, friendly, overwhelmingly familiar. She felt the solid wall of his chest, remembered the ache his departure had caused, a hollow pain that had lingered for months.
“You look amazing,” he said, pulling back but keeping his hands on her shoulders. “God, it’s been forever. You still drink those horrible fizzy vitamins?”
She laughed, a nervous flutter. “Religiously.”
Edwin was standing now. Svet saw him from the corner of her eye, a still, watchful figure. Andre noticed him too.
“Oh, hey, man. Andre.” He released Svet and extended a hand to Edwin, friendly and confident.
Edwin looked at the hand for a beat too long. He took it, his grip undoubtedly firm. “Edwin.”
“Edwin’s a friend,” Svet said quickly, then immediately hated how it sounded.
“Cool,” Andre said, his gaze lingering on her with open, pleased interest. “Listen, I’ve got to find the admin office, but I just got a new number. We should catch up properly.” He pulled out his phone. “Still the same digits for you?”
“Yeah,” Svet said, her mind a chaotic static. “Yeah, same.”
He tapped at his screen. A second later, her phone buzzed in her back pocket. “There. Text me. We have a lot to talk about.” He gave her that smile again, nodded at Edwin and the rest of the table, and walked out, the door swinging shut behind him.
The room felt airless. Svet bent to pick up her cue stick, just to have something to do. Her hands were trembling. She could feel Edwin’s stare like a physical pressure.
“Friend?” Jessa mouthed silently, eyebrows raised.
Dave whistled low. “That was a vibe.”
Edwin said nothing. He just closed his notebook with a sharp snap. He crossed the room in three strides, coming to stand directly in front of her. His expression was calm, too calm, the kind of calm that comes from supreme, focused effort.
He cupped her face in one hand, his touch firm. He searched her eyes, seeing the shock, the fluster, the old ghost of a crush momentarily resurrected. Without a word, he leaned in and pressed a firm, possessive kiss to her cheek. His lips were warm, the action deliberate and slow, leaving a brand on her skin right beside her mouth.
It wasn’t a kiss of affection. It was a statement. A correction. A claim staked in front of everyone, for one person who had already left the room.
He pulled back, his eyes holding hers, grey and stormy. “My turn,” he said, his voice quiet, just for her.
The realization settled deep in her bones, warm and solid as the final note of Edwin’s song faded into applause. She didn’t join the clapping. She just watched him pack his guitar, his movements efficient in the hazy light, and knew she would follow him anywhere.
The next day was a lazy, sprawling thing, spent entirely in the controlled chaos of Dave’s games room. Sunlight cut through the blinds, striping the air hockey table and the old, sagging sofa where they’d collapsed after a late breakfast. Golf clubs from Svet’s impromptu putting lesson with a Wii remote were still propped against the entertainment center.
Edwin was a constant, quiet presence. He refilled her Celsius without being asked, his fingers brushing hers during the exchange. He mocked her terrible curveball in the baseball simulator, then stood behind her, adjusting her stance, his voice a low murmur in her ear until her avatar hit a home run. The air between them hummed with a new, unspoken certainty.
“You’re hovering,” she said finally, smiling up at him from the sofa as he stood nearby, sorting through a pile of vinyl records Dave kept for aesthetic purposes.
“I’m existing in proximity,” he corrected, not looking up from a Bowie album sleeve. He used the word from his song, and it landed softly between them.
“It’s the same thing.”
“Good.”
She stretched, her socked feet nudging his leg. He caught her ankle, his thumb brushing the bone, and held it for a second before letting go. It was a perfect, simple day, woven from quiet glances and the easy silence they’d always shared, now layered with something richer.
The front door of the duplex clicked open. Heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway, too deliberate for Dave. Svet, mid-laugh at something Edwin had said, didn’t turn. She was too busy looking at him, at the way the afternoon light gilded the stubble on his jaw.
Edwin’s eyes snapped over her shoulder. His easy expression hardened, his gaze sharpening into that cop-like assessment he sometimes couldn’t switch off. He saw something she didn’t.
In one fluid motion, he closed the distance between them. He cradled her face, his calloused palms warm against her skin, and kissed her. It wasn’t the soft kiss from the parking lot. This was deliberate, deep, and unequivocal—a silent statement spoken with pressure and heat. She gasped against his mouth, her hands flying to his wrists, not to push him away but to hold on.
When he broke the kiss, his eyes were still locked on something behind her. He slowly released her face. Breathing hard, Svet turned to follow his gaze.
Andre stood frozen in the doorway to the games room. He held a case of beer, his keys still in his other hand. His confident smirk had dissolved into something stunned and brittle. He looked from Edwin’s possessive stance to Svet’s flushed, surprised face.
The vinyl record Edwin had been holding now lay forgotten on the carpet, a silent, spinning black circle.
“Andre,” Svet breathed, the name a shocked exhale. Her mind scrambled, replaying the text about her sunglasses, the wink from the bar. She hadn’t replied. She had never told him where Dave lived.
He hefted the beer case awkwardly. “Dave texted. Said he needed supplies for the grill tonight.” His voice was tight. His eyes drilled into Edwin. “Didn’t realize it was… a private party.”
Edwin said nothing. He just shifted his weight slightly, a barely perceptible movement that placed him more squarely between Svet and the doorway. His silence was louder than any challenge.
Andre’s jaw worked. He forced a flat smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Cool. I’ll just leave these in the kitchen.” He turned and walked back down the hall, his footsteps retreating too quickly.
Svet listened to the distant clunk of the beer on the counter, then the decisive click of the front door. The comfortable room now felt charged, the air thin. She looked at Edwin, at the unyielding line of his shoulders. He was still watching the empty doorway.
“You knew,” she whispered.
He finally turned his head toward her. His eyes were dark, intense. “He was coming right for you. I didn’t like the look on his face.”