Chapter 21 #2
Quill shakes her head, her blonde chin-length bob swinging around her.
“Absolutely not. Not a peep out of me. So… sex?” Her eyebrows bounce up and down suggestively before she shuts the door behind her.
“Are we talking good sex? Like life-changing, vagina-ruining, toe-curling, I can hardly walk now sex? You’re dealing with two taken ladies. Let us live vicariously some.”
Ugh.
I fall against Catarina. Never in my life have I had girlfriends.
I had Rina, but she’s older than I am by several years.
When your parents are spies and you grow up with a family of billionaires, you learn that trusting people is a dangerous game to play.
Plus, when you spend all your free time playing the cello, you’re not exactly hanging out at the mall with your besties.
I was an emo orchestra nerd. And I was okay with that.
I mean, at least I never gave it a ton of thought before.
But now… now it might be nice to have someone who doesn’t know my life and isn’t intimately ingrained in it to talk to. I open my mouth to start spilling my guts, when there’s a knock on the door.
“You’re needed on stage,” someone calls out.
“Later,” Catarina demands with a pointed finger. “You’ll tell us later?” This time she’s checking.
“Later,” I promise as we grab our instruments and head to practice.
Entering the stage area, I take my seat beside the other cellos, who give me that grin that doesn’t touch their eyes and could never be considered a smile.
They don’t like me, and I understand it.
I’m twenty-two and came in as first chair and was immediately given a solo.
You don’t win over love and affection that way.
Antonio stands at the podium, calling us to the piece already set up on our music stands. “Winter” by Vivaldi is typically a piano piece, but it’s been reconstructed for the entire orchestra.
He finds me, staring for a moment before he begins moving his arms, starting the piano first before bringing in the violins, flutes, oboes, and clarinets.
The piece continues and I play along until it grows to a mournful juncture and then Antonio cuts out all other instruments and then it’s just the cellos.
All four of us, but I know what this is and so does everyone else.
My eyes close and I force my breath to remain even.
It’s just rehearsal. Just notes. Play, Raven. You were born to play.
We play for three measures and then percussion enters in, and I breathe a sigh, still hating that I’m reacting this way, yet oddly grateful I downed the two shots after what happened earlier with Luca. I don’t even care. Whatever it takes to make it through this.
One song morphs into another and then he breaks us up by instrument groups, having us each play leads on various pieces.
Five hours later, I’m entering the back room to store my performance cello I keep here and find Catarina and Quill somehow already waiting for me along with… flowers.
“These just arrived for you,” Quill says with a smug grin. “And this time, they have a card.”
“Oh?” I stare at the bouquet. White roses and I nearly laugh. Is he waving the proverbial white flag? Never. Luca Fritz never surrenders.
“Did you read it?”
“No,” Catarina replies primly, perched on the edge of the counter. “We were waiting for you, but the temptation was killing us. Good thing you came in when you did. I’m assuming these are from the hot sex guy?” Her fingers rake over one of the roses, caressing the petals.
“Likely, yes.”
“And is hot sex guy the flowers guy?”
“He could be.”
“Do you ever answer anything directly?”
I grin. “I was trained not to.” They think I’m kidding. I’m absolutely not.
“Oh my. The plot thickens.” Catarina is having such a difficult time holding in her curiosity, she’s practically vibrating.
Licking my suddenly dry lips, I make my way toward the huge vase of white. At least two dozen and all perfect. I inhale their fragrance, smiling stupidly despite myself. I grab the card from the holder and open it.
“My love for you is a puzzle… for which I have no answers. I can’t control it… and now I don’t care. I truly, deeply love you.” -Padme Amidala
I crack up before I can stop it, my eyes thick with tears once more. He freaking sent me a Star Wars quote. So Luca, it’s ridiculous. And that quote, those words. I sigh. This man.
“What? What does it say? Who is it from?”
I hand Quill the card and she reads it, her jaw agape by the end. “Um. Wow. Just… yeah, wow.”
Catarina snatches the card from her hand. “Who is Padme? That’s a total chick name and I know you’re not gay.”
“Padme is the mother to Luke and Leia Skywalker.”
They both shake their heads in unison as I take another inhale of the flowers.
“You mean like in Star Wars? I don’t understand.”
“Yeah. Me neither.”
“Sucks to be you then.” I wink at them.
“You’re not going to tell us?” Catarina is incredulous, but I can’t.
I might have been ready to open up about all of this before, but now…
I don’t know. What would I say? Luca is famous.
A billionaire. And anything between us would be construed wrongly.
I’m not ready to share that, especially when anything I would share is suffused in heartache.
“I’ve sort of reunited with someone. Someone who I… someone who I was in love with once. And then he broke my heart and now…” Now I hate him. Only somehow that doesn’t feel right to say anymore.
“And now?” Quill prompts.
“And now I don’t know.”
“This mysterious man is the one who has been sending you flowers for years. Even though he broke your heart and is back in your life and bed, but you don’t know what it is?” she surmises, a touch incredulous.
I stare at the flowers. “I don’t want to get my heart broken again.” I gave him all of me once, but that wasn’t enough. What if it’s not this time around either?
Catarina wraps her arms around me from behind and Quill joins in on the other side of us and somehow, I’m crying.
I can’t remember the last time someone held me or hugged me like this, not including my father, because it’s different.
Octavia gives me love and comfort and support, but I’ve never cried on her shoulder the way I am now.
Certainly not about her son and the number he did on me.
“Do you want me to take a bat to him until his lungs bleed?” Catarina asks.
A croak of a laugh sputters out of me and I pull back, wiping my nose and eyes with the back of my arm. “No. Not yet.”
“It’s a standing offer,” she tells me, winking.
“That goes for me too. We know it’s not easy for you here, but we have your back. With anything.”
“Thank you. I am so grateful for your friendship and understanding.” Because there isn’t anything else to say to that. It’s everything. These women are my friends, and this is not The Conservatory.
I get another two simultaneous hugs for that as they squeeze the life from me.
“Anyone want to take these home?”
“No,” Catarina says, her voice firm as she pulls back, touching one of the roses with delicate fingers, her expression one of reverence.
“These flowers… this time you’re keeping them.
No excuses allowed. They are the essence of love and so is this card.
Whether he broke your heart in the past or not. ”
I stare at them, at the card still in Catarina’s hand, and I take it back from her, holding the thick card stock tightly in my palm.
“Okay. These flowers I’ll keep.”
Because I fucked Luca Fritz in an alley today and he told me he loved me. Always. That he wants me. Forever. And then he sent me flowers with a line he knows only I’ll get. It was designed to make me happy. To have me smiling and laughing. To make me feel loved.
Even though looming in the back of my mind, I know he’s done and said all of this before. And I’d be a fool to believe this time is different.