The scent of linseed oil had worked itself into every corner of the spare bedroom-turned-studio, warm and heady with the heat from the radiator ticking in quiet rhythm. Paint clung to the air — metallic, earthy, familiar — and the light from the single north-facing window washed over the reader's hunched form in silvery streaks.

You hadn’t left the room much today. Not that you ever did, really. You worked in hours, not minutes — whole afternoons sliding past with nothing but the soft scratch of a brush against canvas to mark their passing. Background noise sometimes filtered in from the hallway. A video James was filming. A clatter of mugs. The occasional laugh that definitely belonged to Will.

WillNE. The name felt strange in your mind when paired with the real person. You knew of him like everyone else did — saw his online personality projected ten feet tall — but here, he was just Will. Just a shadow that sometimes moved down the hall, a voice that always managed to cut through the noise.

You never really spoke. Not properly. You'd nodded at each other once in the kitchen. That was it.

Still, he passed your open door more often than made sense.

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t knock. Just paused, lingering at the threshold under some made-up excuse — checking his phone, sipping a drink, listening to whatever James was ranting about in the other room. But his eyes always drifted inside.

You never noticed.

You were always painting.

There was something about the way you worked that kept him rooted to the spot. The slow, careful rhythm of your movements. The gentle curve of your back as you leaned into your easel. The quiet furrow in your brow, like you were somewhere else entirely — somewhere no one could touch you.

He liked watching your hands most of all. The way you held the brush loosely, fingers smudged with colour, unconcerned about mess. It was the kind of raw, unfiltered focus he never really saw in the noise of YouTube life.

And he liked that you didn’t seem to care who he was. Didn’t try to impress him. Hell, you didn’t even look at him. You didn’t do much of anything except create.

You were brilliant, in this quiet, sun-drenched way.

And Will didn’t know how to step in without ruining it.

So he didn’t.

He stayed in the doorway sometimes, leaning his shoulder against the frame while you lost yourself in oil and pigment, unaware of the storm churning gently across the hallway.

When you finally stepped back from the canvas that day — late afternoon bleeding into evening — you tilted your head, squinting slightly as if trying to see the painting through someone else’s eyes.

And for one breathless second, you felt someone watching.

You turned, quickly.

But the doorway was empty.

Still, you swore the air had shifted. Warmer. Pulled taut.

You shook it off and dipped your brush again.

Will, from the top of the stairs where he’d retreated too quickly, pressed a knuckle to his mouth to keep himself from smiling. He didn’t mean to watch. He just wanted to.

And maybe next time… maybe you’d catch him.