Chapter Fourteen
The Plaza would host them again for the after-party. The Pops always took a week off after a concert, so each afterparty was a huge affair. This evening was not as grand as the anniversary party, so each orchestra member was allowed only one guest for free.
Jacob and Declan met her briefly after the show, hugging and taking selfies, but she let them opt out of paying $200 for their second ticket to the after-party. Declan went to flag a cab to take the two of them to some of their favorite cheaper bars in the East Village, and Jacob turned to her.
“You sure you don’t need me there tonight? You know how much I love free booze.”
“You love free booty more,” Gwen teased him.
“I do.” Jacob grinned. “I really do.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m sure I’ll get swept away again and leave you alone for most of the evening.”
“It’s tough to be so famous,” he said, pressing a hand over his heart. He brought his hands to her cheeks, pulling her head to his. “No drugs. No subway home after one a.m. No private after-after-parties with men you don’t know.”
She grinned. “I promise.”
Jacob touched the diamond earrings and said, “These look great on you.”
He kissed the corner of her mouth a dozen times until she pushed him away, laughing.
“Get outta here,” she said.
He started to head toward Declan, who was standing on the corner, but his eyes caught something over her shoulder. “Hey, man,” he said. “Beautiful piece. I was really, really impressed.”
Gwen froze, hoping…maybe he was talking to a ghost. Or a streetlamp.
“Thanks,” Xander’s voice rumbled about five feet behind her, near the side door to Carnegie Hall. Gwen crossed her arms, blaming the chills on her skin on the September wind, and not the memory of his voice behind her ear. “Xander Thorne.”
And then he was stepping to Jacob, extending his hand. Gwen bit her lip and looked down.
“Jacob Diaz. We’ve met, actually. Gwen and I played your friend’s wedding.”
There was a pause. Gwen looked up at Xander, finding his eyes running over Jacob. “Right, sorry. Jacob. You play piano.”
He had his cello with him, as always. There were lockers at Carnegie for the musicians to leave their instruments to pick up after the party or tomorrow morning, but Xander Thorne always took his instrument home first. Gwen would too if she had a Stradivarius.
Jacob nodded, and said, “Again, great piece. I really enjoyed it.” He turned to Gwen. “Have a great time. I’m so proud of you.”
She smiled.
“You’re not coming to the party?” Xander asked.
Christ, why was he so fucking talkative? She looked up to his considerable height and saw his eyes drilling into Jacob, watching, cataloging.
“He can’t,” Gwen said, not bothering to explain the problem of not having a spare $200 for one night of drinking to someone who owned a $900,000 cello.
Jacob grinned apologetically and headed to where Declan had flagged a cab. He pointed to Gwen as he walked backward. “See you at home.”
She smiled, waving to Declan as they slipped inside the car. And then it was just her and Xander. So Gwen cleared her throat and said, “See you over there,” walking quickly to join a few clarinet and piccolo players on the way to the Plaza.
She took advantage of the open bar for the first hour. She was dragged into pictures and conversations and miniature interviews by friends and strangers alike. She said hello to Mark from the New York Times again and made sure he felt welcomed. An older gentleman cornered her for almost fifteen minutes, talking about how he was sure there was an instrument off in the tuning, and how impressed he was that she found it.
Someone tapped her shoulder, and she took a deep breath, preparing herself for another mundane conversation with a stranger. She turned, looked down, and found Mabel standing there in her only nice dress, a proud smile on her face.
Gwen abruptly burst into tears.
She pulled her into her arms for a hug—a Mabel Hug—and ran a hand over her back. “Crying in public is very unbecoming, Miss Jackson,” she teased.
Gwen gave a wet laugh and whispered, “What are you doing here? Were you at the concert?”
She pushed a curl over Gwen’s ear. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
Gwen hiccupped. She knew there were donors and subscribers all around them, staring at her strangely as she sobbed, but she didn’t care.
“You shouldn’t have paid for the after-party!” Gwen whispered.
“Jacob gave me the ticket,” Mabel said. “You played beautifully tonight, Gwen. You were such a professional.”
Just as she was thanking her, a hand dropped on her shoulder.
“Gwen, dear, I want to introduce you to—” Ava stopped short when she saw who she was talking to. “Mabel,” she whispered breathlessly.
The hand holding Gwen’s went still, and Mabel turned a stony expression on her. “Ava.”
“What are you…” Ava cleared her throat. Gwen watched as the two women regarded each other. “You should have told me you were coming tonight.” A bright smile. “You could have sat in the box with me.”
“I prefer the balcony.” Mabel’s voice was clipped. “I’m sure you remember.”
Ava blinked and shook her head, taking a breath. “Excuse me, I’m sorry. I need to borrow Gwen, but…stay. We can have a drink.”
“No, I need to get going.” Mabel shifted her bag on her shoulder. “Gwen, you were magnificent. Don’t be a stranger.”
And then she was gone—pushing through the crowd until she disappeared.
Ava brushed down her dress and cleared her throat. “Um, let me introduce you…” She trailed off, and Gwen followed her as she crossed through the room toward someone important, but Gwen caught the way Ava watched the front doors open and close.
After twenty more minutes of introductions and pictures, she spotted Xander across the room, shaking hands and sipping scotch—caught up in a similar dance of donors. He grinned at something an older woman said, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.
Suddenly, Xander’s gaze snapped up to hers. She looked away, like she hadn’t just been staring, and let her eyes wander over the rest of the room. When she glanced back to him, he was still watching her, reaching for another glass of scotch.
Gwen felt that same pull again. Like the string between them was pulled too tight, too sharp. She slipped away from Ava and found Mei. They drank the cheapest alcohol the bartender would give them (open bar now closed), and Gwen managed to evade every question Mei threw at her about why Xander Thorne couldn’t take his eyes off her.
She cast her eyes over the people near him, wondering if he’d brought anyone as a date, and caught him watching her again. Gwen turned her back to him quickly, downed her cheap vodka, and declined Mei’s invitation to head to another bar with a few others. After a sweep of the room to find Nathan or Ava had failed, she said her goodbyes.
Exiting into the humid wind, she pulled out her phone to see if Uber would be cheaper than a taxi.
“It’s after one a.m,” said a voice from the door behind her. She turned to find Xander Thorne, leaning on the door frame, scotch glass in hand. “Taking a cab?”
She stared at him. “I’m calling an Uber.”
“Good.” He sipped. “Wouldn’t want to disappoint Jacob.” He hit the consonants in a strange cacophony, a mocking tone. His eyes were glazed.
She swallowed and returned to her phone to confirm the ride. She heard a glass rattle and saw him placing his empty scotch glass on the steps, straightening to come down the steps and join her at the curb.
“Why did you change the ending?” she asked, sticking to safe topics. Music. She stared at an electronic billboard across the street advertising ten-dollar “I Heart NY” shirts.
“Felt right,” he said, swaying next to her. She looked up at him. “’S what it feels like. Every time.”
His eyes were on her lips. He swallowed, looking away, down at the curb.
How silly of her. Music was never a safe topic between them.
“How ‘what’ feels like?” she whispered, watching his eyes come back to her, darkening.
Something cruel passed through his gaze, and his lips twitched. “Does Jacob know about us?”
Her blood warmed, hearing him say “us.” The way he addressed it head-on. But something stuck out to her. This fascination with Jacob.
She blinked, eyes widening. “Jacob is my roommate,” she said. “He’s gay.”
The smirk dripped off his lips, his eyes roving her face, drinking in her skin.
She frowned down at her Uber driver on the map. Francisco was four minutes away. “So you think I’d hook up with someone while I’m in a relationship?”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her. “Gwen, I’m sorry. I— Fuck.” She saw his hand move to touch her and pull back sharply.
“That’s not why I came over in the first place. So—”
“No, of course not. I’m the one…” She heard him huff, and the ruffle of his hand through his hair. “I instigated.” She kept her eyes down on the map of Francisco’s progress. “Why did you come over?”
She paused, hearing her blood rushing in her ears. “I wanted to play electric violin.” She chuckled, knowing that was only half of it.
She felt him move toward her, crowding her, taking up her air.
“You never got to.” He breathed against her ear. “We could go. Now. Back to the apartment, and you—”
“No. Thank you, though.” The thought made her light-headed. She felt the heat spreading through her as she realized something for the first time.
He wanted her. It wasn’t just about sex. It wasn’t just about luring her into something. It wasn’t about embarrassing her. And it wasn’t about trying to teach her how to play cello.
She pressed her lips together to keep from saying, “Yes, let’s go to your place,” and stared down at her phone, her heartbeat pounding as she watched the image of the car come closer to them.
“Gwen.”
She looked up at him, and his eyes stirred in her that feeling, that emotion that had danced through her when he played tonight. The feeling of being incomplete, just inches from the tonic. The peace.
His lips twitched upward, a small chuckle. “Or we could get tacos,” he said, smiling, and staring down at her, drifting over her like water.
She inhaled deeply. And the scent of alcohol on his breath solidified it for her.
“You’re drunk.”
“I can sober up—”
“And what about Chelsea?”
His eyes slid back and forth between hers, confused and searching. “Chelsea? What?”
She blinked, thinking of Chelsea’s absence from his Instagram, the lack of feminine touches in his apartment.
But that wasn’t the issue. The issue was Francisco in his black Toyota. The issue was how badly she wanted him to join her inside and come uptown with her. The issue was that playing electric violin at his apartment at one in the morning would be explosive—whether or not he had neighbors. That she didn’t trust either of them to keep their distance. They couldn’t just “get tacos” or “jam” or whatever the cool people said. If she spent more than another second in his presence, she’d beg him to touch her again. And she didn’t want that while he was drunk.
“I can’t,” she said. And she felt the string wobble, tugging them both into a frequency that was just unbearable. She saw it on his face. A rejection harsher than before. And that’s why she said, “Not tonight.”
His face relaxed, eyes wandering over her, lips parting.
Peace.
The tonic.
A black Toyota pulled up.
And because she was so, so not smart, she placed a light hand on his chest, tilting up in her heels and turning her mouth to his cheek, whispering, “Good night, Alex,” before pressing her lips to his skin. She felt him follow her down, turning his head to try to catch her. A hand pressed softly to her hip, and her body shivered.
She pulled away, not daring to meet his eyes again as she slipped into the Toyota.
Not tonight. Her mouth had betrayed her, but she couldn’t help the warmth spreading through her stomach.
Francisco tried to make small talk with her, but she couldn’t concentrate. Not when she could feel her pulse in her lips. Not when the smallest touch to her hip had lit her up, making her body beg for the car to turn back around.
Jacob wasn’t home when she climbed up the stairs. She stripped off her jumpsuit and heels and didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for lying on her bed and slipping her fingers over her clit. The memory of his hand there…his fingers so much thicker than her own. She imagined his dark eyes on her as she touched herself, the hum of Fugue No. 1, Unaccompanied under her skin. She licked her lips to chase away the taste of him and threw her head back as she came, whispering, “Alex” into the dark of her bedroom.
Her body unwound, and she fell asleep shortly after.
Gwen woke up the next morning to a picture in the New York Times of her watching Xander Thorne play Fugue No. 1, Unaccompanied.
No mention of Alex Fitzgerald. And, thankfully, not a word about Gwen Jackson’s dead mother.