Luckily, when he arrived, Vik was too busy eating some foodie salad to notice anything was up. The guy was usually sharp as a tack, his big, dark eyes like CCTV cameras, but stick some grub in front of him and he lost track of every fuck he’d ever had to give.

After letting Red into his fancy three-story town house, Vik jerked his thick head of curls toward the stairs and said around a mouthful of bright leaves and white cheese, “You still want to paint that view?”

“No,” Red said dryly, hefting the art supplies slung over his shoulder. “I’m just here to flirt with Alisha.”

“Yeah, well, she’s out. I knew you were coming.”

Red snorted, kicked off his shoes, and made his own way up the stairs. Vik followed like a lanky shadow, face still buried in his bowl. Every now and then, as they climbed to the attic floor, he’d give a disturbingly orgasmic groan and mumble, “You really have to try this.”

“What is it?”

“Spinach, pomegranate seeds, feta cheese, balsamic—”

“I’ll have the recipe for Mum.” When they reached the attic, Red peered into the mysterious bowl, surprisingly drawn to the colors, the textures. Deep, gleaming pink that reminded him of biting kisses. Soft, creamy white, like gasping murmurs of pleasure. The contrast made him think of other juxtapositions, like shiny shoes and velvet skin.

Christ, he was in a strange mood today.

He turned away from the surprisingly inspiring salad to survey the bare and slightly dusty attic space. Alisha hated what she called “tat,” so the Anand house was the tidiest, most streamlined space he’d ever seen, with no drawers full of crap or biscuit tins filled with thread, or spare rooms stuffed to the brim with old record players and books that would never be read. They had no use for the attic at the top of the house, and so it remained empty, the walls a neat, plain white and the floorboards pale blond. All of which made the play of light through the roof windows absolutely stunning at a certain time of day.

This time of day.

Red loved light. He craved it. Once upon a time, everything he’d created had been all space and glow and refracted rainbows through crystal. But these days, all he seemed to produce were vivid fever dreams that he occasionally liked, until he remembered what he’d been before.

Did that mean he was ruined, or just changed? He hadn’t decided yet, but he’d known for a while that this space would be the perfect place to find out. That, if he couldn’t catch his old self here, it was really gone. He needed to know so he could move forward, but he’d been almost afraid to find out.

Then he’d shown Chloe that painting. He supposed having someone else’s eyes on his work had made it more real. He supposed the fact that she liked it, too, had made him brave, which said a lot about his strength of character—or lack, more like—but fuck it, he needed all the encouragement he could get. He focused on his breathing as he set up by the windows, and by the time he was ready to paint he was almost in a meditative state.

Which Vik, of course, immediately shattered. “So,” he said, as Red stared at the mess of blue and white on his palette. “You’re painting again. That’s new.”

“Not,” Red grunted, half of his mind elsewhere. He could talk while he worked, but it usually wasn’t polite.

Luckily, Vik had years of experience in interpreting. “It’s not new? You’ve been holding out on me.”

Red squinted up at a sky of solid, slow-moving, cotton-wool cloud. Today, autumn was cruelly bright instead of dully gray. This was perfect. But how perfect would it be if he inverted the shades, to catch the way all that white sent the softest, slightest pain shooting through sensitive eyes? After a moment’s thought, he grabbed a different tube of paint.

“Ah well,” Vik went on between mouthfuls of salad. “If you’ve been hiding it, this is progress, right? You’re not hiding anymore.”

It took a moment for Red to really hear those words as he built up color on his little canvas. His new work habit—standing in front of his courtyard-facing window half naked—hadn’t felt like hiding at the time. But now he found himself noticing that, for months, he’d only ever painted at night. Even though he’d chosen that room as a studio, set up by that window, for the light itself.

Hiding. According to the pang in his chest, he had been. He shrugged as he daubed cerulean over violet. “Getting my shit together.”

He could hear the smile in Vik’s voice. “Yeah? You feeling good?”

Red snorted. “Who are you, Dr. Phil?”

“Ah, don’t start that manly crap. We talk about our feelings in this house, boy.”

“Can I talk about my feelings for your wife?”

“This bowl would be a great hat on you.”

Red rolled his eyes and studied the skyline. On the outskirts of the city, there were plenty of bleak council flats, like grim obelisks kissing the clouds. Like a monument to the massive gap between rich and poor in this country, they symbolized a truth the wealthy preferred to avoid. Usually, he’d paint them out of the picture, replacing them with coppery autumn trees or a gold sunset—with bright, brilliant beauty. But for some reason, today, he couldn’t make himself do it. His changed mind kept demanding, Why should I?

Why should he create a more palatable version of reality? Why should he paint for anyone but himself?

He’d grown up in flats like those, his home one monstrous headstone among a row of eight. Looking at them now, he felt something. It wasn’t clean or simple, but it was powerful, and it was worth sharing. He mixed a deep pink, like love’s blood, and tried his best to do that feeling justice.

As Red worked, Vik’s chatter slowed, then stopped. Silence rose up to cradle Red like soft blankets, and before he knew it, he wasn’t thinking anymore. He used to take it for granted, that lack of thought, the ability to turn off the constant churn of his mind. But when he put the final touches on his work, and came back to himself, it was a shock to realize he’d “gone” somewhere else. That he’d escaped constant self-awareness for a while. He hadn’t known he had it in him anymore.

But apparently, Vik had. He clapped Red on the back as he came over, his eyes stuck on the charred carcasses, swallowed up by wild, thorny nature, that Red had turned the flats into. Vik had grown up in flats like those, too. Red held his breath.

The rubber-band tension stretched, then snapped back. The sting was the kind that made you feel alive. Vik squeezed his shoulder and muttered, “Proud of you, mate.”

For a second, Red was proud of himself—of his work—too. Then came hesitation. He hadn’t produced anything like his old stuff. He’d forgotten to even try. In front of him was a vivid, half dream, half nightmare of a landscape, the kind that made him feel flushed and frantic and reckless. So he had his answer. He’d lost himself. He took a moment to breathe through that realization, to sit with the finality of it. Oddly, it didn’t choke him. In fact, knowing it once and for all felt a little like lifting a weight.

He swallowed and wiped his paint-spattered hands on his jeans before turning to drag Vik into a hug. They stood like that for long moments, until Red managed to form a half-decent sentence. “You’re always behind me.”

“Well, not always. That’d be a bit fucking weird.”