He Put Me On Do Not Disturb For Three Years, But Prioritized His Stepsister Chapter 07

He Put Me On Do Not Disturb For Three Years, But Prioritized His Stepsister Chapter 07

In Northport, time moved slowly and quickly at once.

I painted every day.

Seas, clouds, every place I’d wanted to see but never made it to.

The gallery was doing well, and a few of my paintings sold.

Mr. Reed said my work had real grit, as if each stroke scraped something stuck in my chest clean

out.

I said yes, once it was all scraped out, I’d feel light.

One day, a visitor came into the gallery.

He was a man in a white shirt, clean-cut, with long fingers and faint traces of paint on his hands.

He owned the café next door. His name was Leo.

He had his eye on my painting of the white bird.

“This painting feels free,” he said.

“It’s yours,” I said.

Leo paused, then laughed. “That won’t do. You run a business now, so we follow the rules.”

He insisted on paying, then bought me a pour-over coffee.

The coffee had a faint floral, fruity scent. It wasn’t bitter, and it didn’t bite.

“Mr. Reed said you came here to clear your head?” Leo said, settling across from me,

warm.

his voice

“Mm.” I looked down at the latte art in my cup.

“I used to live for other people. Now I want to try, for once, living for myself.”

“Living for yourself is good.” Leo nodded. “You don’t have to read anyone’s mood, and you don’t need anyone’s permission.”

After that day, Leo came to the gallery often.

Sometimes he brought coffee, sometimes fresh pastries.

He didn’t talk much, and he never cut me off or told me how to do things the way Sean had.

He’d just sit quietly or read nearby.

While I painted, he’d wash my brushes and mix my colors.

“This color is too dark. Would a little blue help?” he’d suggest softly.

I tried it, and the painting came alive.

In that moment, I nearly cried.

No one had ever painted beside me before.

Sean said painting was a waste of time and would never make money.

Once, when I’d painted until two in the morning, he came out of the bedroom and turned off the

light.

“Stop. You’re running up the electric bill.”

But Leo would quietly leave a mug of warm milk at the corner of my desk while I was lost in a

painting.

No urging, no interrupting. He just left it there.

Two months later, Leo and I went to the island.

It was the route from the honeymoon plan I’d disliked, because Seán had wanted to stay in a tent and I couldn’t get used to the idea.

But Leo had booked an ocean-view room with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the sea.

In the evening, we sat on the balcony in the breeze.

Leo asked me, “Where else do you want to go?”

“The desert,” I said. “To watch the stars.”

“Okay,” Leo said. “Once we get through this busy stretch, we’ll go.”

No “too far.” No “too tiring.” No “I don’t have time.”

Just “okay.”

Waves crashed against the rocks in a steady rhythm.

I looked up at the night sky. The stars were bright, like a thousand eyes watching.

I thought of Sean.

I thought of everything he’d said and done.

It already felt a lifetime away.

Like a nightmare that had gone on for years and was finally over.