It begins in the studio—quiet, until the knock.
The lock clicks like a camera shutter.
Jules doesn’t turn on the gallery lights; he likes the dark to do half the work. Outside, rain needles the glass, and the city pretends not to watch us.
“One favor,” he says, voice low, as if the paintings might gossip. “Then we’re even.”
He hands me a shirt I won’t be wearing and a towel that smells like bergamot and trouble. I pretend not to notice his eyes dip, the way they always do, like gravity has a type.
“Pose?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Not quite,” he says, and opens a drawer I’ve never noticed under the desk. Inside: a Polaroid camera, a key card, and a folded note with my name in his handwriting—the old kind, the kind that makes a promise and a threat at the same time.
Jules closes the drawer, keeps the card, and tucks the camera strap into my hand. “Blue room. Ten minutes. Don’t let anyone else see you.”
I spin my ring without meaning to. Outside, thunder rolls. Inside, the gallery breathes. I’m already moving when he says my name. Not Renzo. The other one I don’t use after midnight.
The blue room smells like paint thinner and wet stone. The air is thick, humming with rain.
I strip the shirt from my shoulders, let it fall in a careless heap, and feel his eyes tracking each movement. The Polaroid is heavier than it should be, strap biting my palm, his instructions still burning in my ear.
“Ten minutes,” Jules had said, but already the seconds feel stretched, elastic, charged.
I lean against the table, the towel loose at my waist. The glass doors rattle with thunder, a pulse behind me, and when I look up, Jules is framed in the doorway—camera hanging at his side, not lifted. Watching. Waiting.
He doesn’t speak, but his mouth curves. It’s the same look from the last time, the look that ruined us. The silence between us grows sharp enough to cut, and I let it.
The storm outside cracks white across the glass. I close my eyes, drop the towel, and wait for the click.
It never comes.
Instead, Jules says my other name. The one I swore I’d buried with him. And in that instant, I know this isn’t about a photo. It’s about a debt neither of us finished paying.
Next on Renzo: After Hours: Episode 02 — Hotel Key A missing key card. A locked door. And an invitation Renzo shouldn’t accept.
Add comment
Comments