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"The screening won't be until two," Laurel is saying, while Gareth has his eyes glued to the wall, scanning the text of the exhibit information for her name.
"Just let me be excited for you," Gareth half-hisses, pointing to where Laurel Healy, Hidden Threads: Endangered Forms of Art in D.C. is plastered up next to the other filmmakers' projects. "You're in an exhibit! This is a big deal." He waves his hands for emphasis, as if she hadn't gotten a noise complaint from Gareth's neighbors when she'd gotten the call confirming the grant money in the first place.
"I know," she says, rolling her eyes despite the playful smirk that curls up the edges of her lips (colored, of course, in the "soft burgundy" shade of lipstick Rochelle had gotten her, to match the dress Gareth bought "for the occasion"). "It's just you turn into such an excitable puppy at these things."
"Well, forgive me for being happy for my girlfriend being such an awesome artist."
Laurel's lips deepen their curve, a silent smile that's interrupted when she glances back up at the exhibit's blurb. "Holy shit, is that Edgar?"
"Um, who is Edgar?" Gareth asks, sounding only mildly jealous.
"The British guy, from school. I thought I told you about him?"
"You tell me about a lot of guys." Laurel can tell he's doing his little incredulous-jealous-face without having to look. "Why don't we read the rest of your part instead?" He says, and without waiting for an answer from her, stares at the silver text gracing the wall with Laurel's name. "Healy's impressive narrative weaves ancient history into D.C.'s cultural fabric with all the skill of the artists she highlights. A tapestry of contemporary artisans in the modern city is bound by the threads of the past, reminding us that art is only kept alive if we continue to acknowledge it."
Laurel is more than a little stunned by the complimentary description. "Wow. That's the nicest thing anyone has said about my art."
"My girl's no amateur," Gareth nudges her side with a wink, and she has to suppress a laugh she's sure will echo in this room.
"Okay, I am forcibly dragging you away from this wall," Laurel says with a joking air of finality, giving Gareth a light shove and walking away from the film exhibition.
--
She takes him around the museum, and he starts going around labeling everything he sees as either "Liberal" or "Republican" based on some esoteric, arbitrary metrics Laurel doesn't even want to try to decipher.
"What about this one?" Laurel says, enabling him anyway.
Gareth walks up next to her, and she sees him purse his lips and squint his eyes in her periphery. "Hmm. Liberal."
Laurel looks at the Romantic style landscape in front of them and wonders just how his mind works. "Okay, why?"
"Idealism," he says, vaguely.
"Okay. Sure. Whatever." Laurel lets Gareth whisk her off this time, each dragging each other in turn to whatever catches their eye, playing these little games like "Political Affiliation of Paintings" or Gareth making up facts and Laurel correcting him with the knowledge from her art history classes, both of them carefully nonchalant—they are at a public event, still—though secret smiles betray just how much fun they're both having, just being with each other.
Gareth is joking around, mostly, though occasionally he'll actually recognize something and it's so disarming Laurel just has to grill him about it, but he feigns interest in something else and pretends to study a statue in great detail. "We're not done here," Laurel whispers in his ear, just to let him know he's not getting the last word. She will find out how he identified a Hopper painting—not even, like, Nighthawks, which everyone knows—without having to look at the little plaque, even if he is mumbling something about constituents, and art preservation, and y'know, patriotism, and, say, that looks interesting, why don't we look over here...
Gareth just shrugs. "I don't know what you're talking about." But she's not there. Gareth swings his head over his shoulder, and, seeing her absent, scans the room quickly. She's not wandered far, thank God, but he can tell right away she's got that distracted look on her face that tells him something's on her mind. "Hey. What's up?" he says, and then when she doesn't answer: "You really into, uh...Neo-Abstract Renaissance Expressionism?"
Laurel can't help but laugh. "That doesn't even make sense." She takes a deep breath, leveling her gaze back up at the painting. Gareth leans in to read the plaque next to it.
"Apollo and Daphne?" he asks, looking over at her. His eyes are slightly widened with concern, eyebrows furrowed just enough so lines start to take shape on his face.
"Yeah," she replies, suddenly quiet. He lets her have her moment, though hovers his hand close to hers as a reminder. She curls a finger around his. "Daphne, um..." Another deep breath. "Daphne was going to be my name."
Laurel watches him go through all his micro-expressions, concern giving way to confusion, seeing the gears turn in his head, and then...recognition. "Oh," he says, lightly, just to say, oh, right, yeah. I understand. Just to let her have this one for herself.
"I was thinking of a name, later," Laurel continues, skipping ahead—she doesn't have to explain. "And in the myth, Cupid shoots them with his arrows, and Apollo won't stop chasing after her. And Daphne wants nothing to do with him. So she, being a nymph, runs to her dad's river and asks him for help, and he turns her into a...laurel tree."
Gareth is quiet for a beat. "That's..." He takes her hand more fully, squeezing gently. He pulls her close, quickly, placing a short, sweet kiss on her temple. A second, just to say, that's beautiful. You're beautiful.
"What can I say?" Laurel says, a smile breaking through her soft-burgundy lips. "I don't like when things disappear."