New York City — 2005 Lower East Side, Art Gallery Two hours before closing

The lights above your head hummed, warm and diffused, casting soft glows on each canvas lining the brick walls. Glasses clinked, voices murmured, critics whispered. This was your night — a gallery show you’d poured your soul into for the better part of a year. And yet, your smile had been forced since the doors opened.

You’d told him months ago. You even printed out the invite and tucked it into his script binder because you knew how his life spun too fast sometimes. But when he called two days ago, voice tense and tired, saying he couldn’t make it — “press, junkets, George wants me in L.A. early” — you’d barely held it together long enough to hang up.

Now you stood by your favorite piece — a messy, moody portrait, oil on canvas — trying to look interested as someone in a velvet blazer dissected its emotional tension. But all you could hear was the echo of your own disappointment.

He should’ve been here. Not for press. Not for cameras. For you.

The crowd had thinned. Champagne ran low. The hum of the night slowed to something quieter, more personal.

And then the door creaked open.

You glanced up instinctively, half-ready to thank some late arrival. Instead, your breath caught in your throat.

Hayden.

Messy hair under a hoodie, a long coat hiding the fact that he’d probably just gotten off a plane. He looked exhausted. Slightly out of place. But those blue eyes — they locked onto yours across the gallery like no time had passed.

You didn’t move. Neither did he, at first.

Then he started walking toward you, each step echoing louder than any of the polite chatter had all night.

You crossed your arms instinctively, a wall.