The room where I try to write has slowly become the room where Charlie paints – always in nothing but his underwear, as though bare skin loosens his imagination. He fills his canvases with young men borrowed from Pinterest photographs, embellishing them with his own wild inventions. His pace is relentless; one wall is already crowded with finished works, while the others gleam with fresh white paint, waiting their turn.

I, by contrast, sit fully clothed at my desk opposite him, my screen a blank page that refuses to yield. His half-naked body distracts me more than the silence we share – a silence that can stretch for hours. My sentences falter, my fingers hover above the keys, while my gaze strays repeatedly to the slope of his shoulder, the subtle shifting of muscle beneath skin. When our eyes do meet, the faintest smile flickers between us, and in that moment, it feels as though the room itself has been written.

Our different pursuits seem to mirror our temperaments: Charlie paints with fearless exposure, while I write with restraint, dressed in caution. Yet the tension coils tighter. My prose begins to echo the shapes of his body, the rhythm of his movements, until the line between art and desire starts to blur.

At times I tell myself I am only imagining it – that Charlie is merely eccentric, his near-nudity no more than a quirk. But each page proves otherwise. It is littered with involuntary admissions: the shadows along his collarbone, the hush of his breath when he leans too close, the bare expanse of thigh against the studio chair. These confessions rise from me slowly, as though I am being coaxed – cornered – into acknowledging what I cannot claim.

Tonight, the silence shatters. My phone vibrates, abrupt as a stone cast into still water. Charlie turns at once, alert, the brush slipping from his hand. “I need a rest from painting,” he announces lightly. “Let me see what you’ve written.” He springs up, knowing I will resist, his request merely a pretext to draw near, to glimpse what has intruded into our silence.

It is from Bianchi in Verona. A thrill runs through me, but I dare not open it – Charlie would notice too much. “Who is Bianchi?” he asks, now beside me, his voice soft but insistent.

“A friend of Cola,” I murmur, unwilling to elaborate. The words hang in the air, evasive, unsatisfying, already unravelling.