The Gallery Steps — 11:47 PM
They ended up sitting on the gallery steps, Los Angeles sprawling around them. The party was still going inside—Charlotte could see Sophie through the window, charming a group of collectors.
Mateo had grabbed two champagne bottles on their way out. "Might as well take advantage of the open bar at my own opening."
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, passing the bottle back and forth like teenagers.
"So," Charlotte said finally. "Culver City studio apartment. No trust fund. Job hunting. How's that for a plot twist?"
Mateo laughed. "Honestly? It's the best thing I've heard all night."
"Really? Better than selling three paintings?"
"Way better." He looked at her. "What happened? With your family?"
Charlotte told him. Not the sanitized version, but the real one. The text message to her mother. The seventeen missed calls. The ultimatum. The choice she made to walk away.
"I sold my grandmother's pearls," she admitted. "The ones that have been in the family for four generations. Bought a painting from a seventeen-year-old student instead."
"That's the most romantic thing I've ever heard."
Charlotte blinked. "Romantic?"
"You chose truth over comfort. That's romance. Real romance, not the Instagram version."
They fell quiet again. Charlotte was acutely aware of how close they were sitting. Their shoulders were almost touching.
"Can I ask you something?" she said.
"Anything."
"What made you send me that letter? The one from Paris?"
Mateo considered this. "Henri. He asked me who I was writing all those letters to—I'd been filling notebooks, trying to process everything. When I told him about you, he said something that stuck with me."
"What?"
"He said, 'The only thing more cowardly than writing letters you'll never send is never writing the truth at all.'" Mateo smiled at the memory. "So I wrote you an honest letter. No fantasy, no projection. Just... here's who I was, here's what I hope for you, here's hoping we both found our way out."
"I read it fifty times," Charlotte confessed. "There was this one line—about seeing me as I am, not as a projection of your desperate hopes. I kept coming back to it."
"And?"
"And I realized I'd been doing the same thing. Projecting onto you. The passionate artist, the opposite of my world, the escape route. I never actually saw you either."
Mateo turned to face her fully. "So what do you see now?"
Charlotte looked at him. Really looked. Saw the paint under his nails. The scar above his eyebrow. The way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. The steadiness in his gaze that hadn't been there three years ago.
"Someone who learned to paint truth instead of fantasies," she said quietly. "Someone who loved his teacher enough to carry his lessons across an ocean. Someone who's scared but doing it anyway."
"That last one sounds familiar."
"We might be more alike than we thought."
"Is that good or bad?"
"I don't know yet." Charlotte's heart was pounding. "But I'd like to find out."
The space between them felt electric. Mateo's gaze dropped to her lips, then back to her eyes.
"Charlotte..."
"Yeah?"
"If I kiss you right now, would it be a mistake?"
Charlotte's breath caught. She could feel her pulse in her throat. "I don't know. But I really want to find out."
Mateo leaned in slowly, giving her every chance to pull away.
She didn't.
When their lips met, it wasn't the desperate, passionate collision of three years ago. It was softer. Tentative. A question rather than an answer.
Mateo's hand came up to cup her face, his thumb brushing her cheekbone. Charlotte's fingers tangled in his shirt, pulling him closer.
The kiss deepened. Three years of growing, changing, becoming. All of it in this moment.
When they finally pulled apart, both breathing hard, Mateo rested his forehead against hers.
"I've wanted to do that since you walked through the door tonight," he admitted.
"I've wanted you to do that since I walked through the door tonight," Charlotte said.
"So where does this leave us?"
Charlotte pulled back slightly, needing to see his face. "I don't know. I'm kind of a mess right now. No job, estranged family, living in a 400-square-foot apartment with a leaky faucet I can't afford to fix."
"I have a rickety Murphy bed and I eat instant ramen three times a week."
"Sounds like we're both disasters."
"Perfectly matched disasters."
Charlotte laughed, then sobered. "I don't want to rush this, Mateo. Three years ago we crashed into each other because we both needed something we didn't have. I don't want to do that again."
"What do you want?"
"I want..." Charlotte thought about it. "I want to have coffee with you tomorrow and learn what kind of music you listen to when you paint. I want to tell you about the worst date I went on while you were in Paris. I want to introduce you to Maria, the girl whose painting I bought. I want to go slow and figure out who we are as people who've both grown up."
Mateo smiled. "That sounds perfect."
"Really?"
"Really. No expectations. No fantasies. Just two people getting to know each other." He paused. "Although..."
"Although what?"
"Can I kiss you again before we commit to going slow?"
Charlotte laughed, but she was already leaning in. "I think that's allowed."
This time the kiss was longer, deeper. Charlotte let herself get lost in it—the taste of champagne, the scratch of his stubble, the way his hand slid into her hair.
When they finally broke apart, both flushed and breathless, Mateo groaned.
"Going slow is going to be torture."
"Probably."
"Worth it though."
"Definitely."
Goodnight — 12:43 AM
Mateo walked Charlotte to her car—a beat-up Honda Civic that was a far cry from the Tesla she used to drive.
"Breakfast tomorrow?" he asked. "There's a place in Echo Park that makes incredible chilaquiles."
"I've never had chilaquiles."
"Good. Neither had I until six months ago. We can be beginners together."
Charlotte smiled—a real smile, the kind she'd forgotten she could make. "Text me the address."
"I don't have your number."
"Yes you do. Same one from three years ago. I never changed it."
Something flickered in Mateo's eyes. "You kept it?"
"I kept a lot of things I shouldn't have. And threw away a lot of things I should have kept. I'm still figuring out which is which."
"Well," Mateo said, opening her car door, "we have time."
"Do we?"
"I'm not going anywhere. Are you?"
Charlotte thought about her tiny apartment, her empty bank account, her uncertain future. And for the first time in her life, uncertainty didn't feel terrifying. It felt like possibility.
"No," she said. "I'm not going anywhere."
Mateo smiled. "Good."
They stood there for another moment, neither wanting to leave.
"I should go," Charlotte said, not moving.
"You should," Mateo agreed, not stepping back.
Charlotte laughed. "This is ridiculous."
"Completely."
She got in the car, rolled down the window. "Mateo?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For learning to paint truth. For sending that letter. For seeing me as I am."
"Thank you for coming tonight. For being brave. For giving us a chance to start over."
"Not over," Charlotte corrected. "We can't erase the past three years. But maybe we can build something new from who we've become."
"I like that better."
Charlotte started the engine, then paused. "One more thing?"
"What?"
"I'm really glad you're not going anywhere either."
Mateo's smile could have lit up the whole street. "Me too."
After she drove away:
Mateo stood on the sidewalk, watching her taillights disappear into LA traffic.
Sophie appeared beside him, grinning. "So?"
"So."
"That's all you're giving me? I sat in there charming tech bros about Montmartre for two hours while you two made eyes at each other."
"We're having breakfast tomorrow."
"And?"
"And we're taking it slow."
Sophie raised an eyebrow. "That lipstick smudge on your collar suggests otherwise."
Mateo touched his collar, feeling heat rise to his face. "Okay, we're taking it relatively slow."
"Good for you." Sophie linked her arm through his. "Come on. Your adoring public is waiting inside. And you need to talk to the people who bought your paintings."
As they walked back into the gallery, Mateo looked up at his exhibition title above the door:
TRUTH IN ORDINARY LIGHT
Three years ago, he'd been obsessed with extraordinary moments—the grand gesture, the perfect inspiration, the transformative love story.
Now he knew: truth was in the ordinary. In breakfast dates and slow beginnings. In learning someone's real favorite music instead of projecting your own. In sitting on cold steps and sharing cheap champagne.
In choosing to see someone as they are, not as who you need them to be.
And for the first time in three years, Mateo felt like he was finally painting from life—not from fantasy.