Chapter Seventeen
Gwen twisted herself up in soft sheets, pulling a pillow more snugly underneath her head. It was Sunday. She could sleep. She should go for a run. But she never went for a run. She wasn’t even positive she knew how to run. She pushed her face into her pillow.
Not her pillow.
Her eyes snapped open, staring at an unfamiliar digital alarm clock reading 8:53 a.m.
The night before swam up from her memories, and she blushed scarlet as her body abruptly turned on.
Was she supposed to stay the night? Was that okay? Was that what people did?
She turned over carefully and looked for Alex. His side of the bed was empty—sheets perfectly folded, as if she’d dreamed the whole thing. Just as she was wondering if that was her cue to get lost, she spotted a glass on the nightstand.
An iced latte. Either homemade or fetched and then poured into a glass for her.
Gwen blinked at it for a few minutes, trying to get her bearings. She slipped out of the sheets, attempted to fold and reset them like he had, and looked for her clothes.
Which were in the studio. Tossed onto the floor. Gwen sighed. She sipped at her perfectly mixed iced vanilla latte and pondered what to do.
A bathrobe hung from a hanger on the back of his bedroom door. She didn’t know if it was meant for her, but she pulled it down and slipped into it anyway.
That’s when she heard it.
A small humming. A faint melody drifting through the cracks in the doorjamb. Gwen pulled the bedroom door open and found the studio door shut. She pressed her ear to it. Something beautiful was happening inside, and Gwen almost felt bad for interrupting.
She opened the door to find Alex sitting at his desk in nothing but his boxer briefs, alternating between typing furiously and pulling her violin up to his chin, dragging the bow across in smooth legatos.
She watched, fascinated by him. He hit the space bar and the music writing program played an electronic violin melody, something distorted and so far from the pure sounds that the strings could make. Alex held her violin under his chin and joined, continuing when the playback ended abruptly, sailing into a melody that finished the phrase.
The violin dropped to his lap, and his fingers flew across the keys, typing notes directly onto the screen.
He must have felt her presence. He turned to the door and jumped up.
“Hey,” he said, placing her violin back in its open case. “Sorry. I should have asked—”
“No, please.” She stopped him, waving a hand. She smiled and said, “What are you working on?”
“I just”—he ran his hand through his hair—“had something in my head this morning.”
She nodded, staring at him—staring at his bare skin, frankly—and said, “Can I hear?”
He blinked at her, like he was about to decline. But then he turned to the computer, clicking. “Yeah. It’s not finished. Or good, yet.”
“No,” she said, fiddling with the tie on the bathrobe. “Can I hear you play it?”
There was that strange reflection in his eyes again, like he could turn off a part of himself with just the mention of the violin.
He reached for her violin with long fingers, taking his time, like maybe she would change her mind if he moved slowly enough.
Looking down at the strings, he said, “On one condition.” A perfect imitation of her own ultimatum last night. He looked up at her under dark lashes, eyes suddenly black. “Take off the robe.”
Gwen swallowed, feeling a chill run across her skin.
Oh, yes, how silly of her to forget. They’d had sex last night. They were now people who had sex. With each other, specifically.
Meeting his eyes, she pulled the tie from around her waist, peeling back the robe and slipping it down her arms. The look in his eyes when she stood across the room fully naked was intoxicating. The way his pupils were blown wide, like he needed to take in every inch of her, set her skin on fire.
He lifted the violin to his chin, and she sat across from him in the spare chair, crossing her legs and trying to find inventive ways to sit that didn’t make her naked.
She knew the moment the first notes played that this was not Fugue No. 2.
A different key. A different tempo. Something lovely and miserable and challenging and hopeful. He pulled the bow across a love song. His fingers framed a yearning sonata. His vibrato pulsed a haunted ballad.
It was all of those things.
His gaze dripped across her skin, resting on her face, dancing across her stomach, focusing on her breasts and her taut nipples.
A long held note that could have been the ending, and he lifted the bow and said, “Open your legs.” And an afterthought: “Please.”
Gwen heard a thrumming in the silence. His eyes on her, begging.
She smirked. “Take off your underwear.”
Something flashed in his eyes, and then he was pushing down his boxer briefs with one hand. His cock was half-hard, growing thick.
“Now, you,” he hummed.
And slowly she unfolded herself, dropping her toes to the floor, and pulling her knees apart.
She could do this. It was just like sitting in a chair watching him play.
He placed the bow back on the violin strings. “More.”
And just as she was about to shake her head and giggle, he started playing again.
And her thighs parted.
She thought it was maybe a second movement of the first song. And maybe it started that way, but as the bow pulled across the strings she knew in her blood that he was writing this, that very moment, staring at her.
To his credit, his eyes weren’t glued to her core. He swept over her, dragging arpeggios across her breasts, tumbling triplets down her sides, and lingering legatos into her eyes.
She was flushed, and her breathing couldn’t even out. Every time she thought she had her pulse under control, her eyes would dip down his body, landing on his now fully erect cock.
He pulled the final notes, and his eyes burned into hers.
She thought maybe she should say something like “beautiful song” or “can I close my legs now?”
He placed her violin in its case, stood from his chair, and crossed to her—a slow prowl ending with him standing between her open knees, looking down, his cock straining toward her.
She kept her eyes on his, a smile breaking out across her face as she chuckled anxiously. “Good morning,” she chirped.
He lowered himself to kneel in front of her, hands sliding up her knees. His lips smiled up at her as she dipped her head to kiss him, hands settling on his shoulders.
His thumbs brushed the insides of her thighs when his tongue slipped inside of her mouth. He whispered against her lips, “Did you like your latte?”
She smiled and nodded as he kissed his way down her body, threading her fingers through his hair when he bent her knees up to her chest and began licking at her.
They showered after that.
Well, more like he offered her the shower, and never ended up leaving the bathroom.
He had one of those obnoxiously expensive showers, with the overhead rain shower nozzle and the compartments and the money just oozing out of it.
“I don’t have anything…female. I’m sorry,” he said while searching under the sink for something other than Head and Shoulders. And Gwen smiled at the back of his head, realizing that that meant he didn’t have a lot of females using his shower.
“It’s okay. Can I use your stuff?”
He sighed, hesitating. “Yeah…” Gwen’s chest clenched at his tone, like he didn’t really want her in his things. “But then you won’t smell like you,” he muttered, still searching the depths of his cabinets.
She beamed at him even though he couldn’t see. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and she looked…ridiculous, really.
“But I’ll smell like you,” she offered.
His hands stopped fumbling. The cabinets closed.
She wasn’t quite sure how he ended up inside the shower with her, but he’d lost his underwear again at some point. Maybe it was when he was “showing her how to work the taps.”
He handed her his shampoo and said, “Write down the name of your shampoo and wash. I’ll have them for you next time.”
And maybe it was the way his eyes landed on her breasts as she reached above her head to rinse her hair, or maybe it was the way he said “next time” like a promise, or maybe it was the permanence of a supply of her belongings here in his space.
She wrapped herself around him and kissed him.
He dropped the bottle of body wash and pushed her up against the tiles.
It was only later, when they were dried off and eating Grubhub breakfast delivery in his kitchen, that she realized she didn’t get a chance to wash all the shampoo out of her hair.
The good thing about having the week off after concerts was that neither of them had anywhere to go for seven days.
Alex took her to dinner. Alex took her to lunch. Sometimes Alex took her to breakfast, but mostly they stayed in. Alex knew how to make eggs, bacon, French toast, iced vanilla lattes, and even omelets if she asked nicely. And he could do all of that while naked.
One morning, she talked him into pancakes. She sat on top of the kitchen island and debated sonatas with him while he mixed the batter and fought her off the bag of chocolate chips.
“You can’t beat Beethoven,” she said, mouth full of semi-sweet morsels. “Sonata Number Nine is so broad.”
He pulled a face at her. “I know you’ve got a hard-on for Beethoven, but—”
“Shut up.”
“It’s true. Concerto for your audition, now the sonata—”
“Fine, what’s your pick then?”
He made her wait for him to pour the first pancake before confessing, “Brahms, Number Three.”
Gwen smiled, remembering that video from the ones Nathan posted. “Why?”
Shrugging and reaching for the spatula, he said, “It’s melancholy. I think it puts you exactly in the mood it intends to.”
“‘Oh, so sad, melancholy boy,’” she teased him in a deep voice.
“Hey, my next favorite is Amy Beach. Much more playful. So…fuck off.”
Gwen laughed—and gasped as the stirring spoon slipped across her cheek, smearing her with pancake batter. Gaping at him with wide eyes, she watched Alex’s face burst into a smile. She grabbed a handful of chips and tossed them at him, but not before he’d swiped at her other cheek.
She dipped her finger into the pancake mix and reached for him—but he darted to the left, flicking the spoon at her and landing a direct hit on the shirt of his she’d been sleeping in. She shrieked as he guffawed at her.
“Alex!” Snatching up the entire bowl of mix, she followed him around the island as he laughed, finally landing a glob on his face as he poured the chocolate chips down her shirt.
It wasn’t until they were out of breath laughing that they slid the first and only charred pancake into the trash and pulled out their phones to order pancake delivery.
Alex snapped a pic of her, batter in her hair, across her chest, a melted chocolate chip on her collarbone. “Proof that I won.”
She turned the bowl of batter over onto his famous, head-banging hair.
In the mornings, Gwen would wake up to an empty bed, the melody of a new song floating under the bedroom door he would close so she could sleep. She’d find him on her violin, on his cello, or even sometimes just editing on the computer.
Jacob checked in on her at one point, and she told him to not expect her back for a week. Eggplant emoji. He’d gone absolutely insane at that.
They each received emails from Nathan almost daily, asking if they could both come in to discuss the possibilities of showcasing the Fugue series in future Pops concerts. Alex would never respond, but Gwen would at least write back in the affirmative, stating that next week could be good.
On Friday, after she’d gulped down her latte and joined him in the studio, she was just about to rosin her bow and join him in playing a duet they’d found online, when he asked, “Did your mother play an instrument?”
“No. She liked to sing, but I think that was just fooling around.”
“And your dad…?”
“I never met him.” She gave him a weak smile. “My mom wouldn’t tell me much, but I did ask my grandpa about him later. He didn’t know if he had musical talent.”
Alex hummed.
She tilted her head at him. “Did you get the Times to leave out that bit about my family?”
Looking down at his hands, Alex said, “My agent had to call about your ‘Alex’ slip.” He lifted a teasing brow at her. “So, I also mentioned that the interviewer was too interested in your background—that it would weaken my position in the interview. He was more than happy to complain. It just didn’t seem like the kind of thing you were ready to have out in the open.”
She dipped her head. “Thank you.” While they were digging into deeper subjects, she finally asked him the question that had been gnawing at her for some time:
“Why did you leave Juilliard?”
He swiveled his chair to face her. “It didn’t suit me.”
“Can you explain why? I never went to college beyond a few GEs at City.”
He stared at her, his throat moving. “Applying for school is like applying for a box you want to live in for the rest of your life. That’s all university really is. It’s boxes.”
Gwen had to bite her tongue to keep from reminding him that his “box” was something people would kill to live in.
“When did you first hear the violin?” he asked.
She thought of the haunting melodies that would drift to her through the studio doors in Mabel’s shop. “Not till Mabel.”
“And you knew then that it called to you? That you needed it in your life?”
She nodded.
“I never had that,” he said. “I was two years old when my parents put a violin in my hand and taught me the scales. I was three the first time I played for a crowd. I’ve lived with the music and the applause my entire life, but I never chose it.”
Some faint memory dropped into her mind—a picture in Ava’s violin case of her playing the violin while she was pregnant. That was the first time Gwen learned that Ava had a son.
“Maybe it chose you?” Gwen offered.
Alex scratched his jaw, searching for words. “Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you have to do it for the rest of your life.”
It was a concept Gwen was unfamiliar with. Gwen was good at the violin, so she played the violin. Gwen was chipper and friendly, so they put her on the register at the food service job she had in high school. Gwen was tall and quick, so she joined the volleyball team for her physical education elective.
“So, what made you take up cello then?” she asked.
“I was encouraged to play an instrument that I chose, not one chosen for me.”
She frowned, remembering what Ava had told her. “By someone at Juilliard?”
“Yeah. He’s now my agent.”
She tilted her head at him. “And he was okay with you dropping out of the music program?”
“He encouraged it,” Alex said, twisting in his chair. “He knew I had more potential than what Juilliard could offer me. They were letting him go at the end of the semester—some administration bullshit—and he told me to come with him. We worked together on building the Roses.”
Something didn’t sit right with Gwen about that. Mabel and her grandfather had always pushed college on her, from the moment she started high school. It didn’t quite click in her mind that a college professor would advise someone to quit college, but she supposed it might happen.
“Do you ever regret dropping out?” she asked softly.
He dragged a hand over his neck. “No. I don’t like to dwell on that. I’m a different person now than I was at Juilliard.”
“Literally, Xander.” She winked.
“Exactly,” he said in all seriousness. Like he didn’t understand the joke. Like he truly believed Xander was more than a persona. Gwen nodded, taking note.
“I actually had an email from my agent this morning.” Alex turned to the desktop, clicking through windows. She had the feeling he was eager to change the subject. “I asked him about using the recording studio for Fugue Number One. He said next weekend is good, he just needs us to come in and sign a few things first.”
Alex turned to her, eyes bright, but her skin prickled.
“Your agent owns a recording studio?”
Alex nodded. “The Roses record there. He has his own label that we’re covered under.”
Gwen didn’t know much about the recording industry, but there was something strange about how entrenched Alex’s agent was in his career.
He must have read something from her face. “Do you still want to record with me?”
She shook out her tense shoulders. “Yeah, yeah. I just… What kind of paperwork? Will he own the recording after this?”
“No. Nothing like that. Probably the usual. Liability waivers and things like that. Lorenz likes to be thorough.”
“Lorenz?” Gwen tilted her head. “Calvin Lorenz? I met him. He gave me his card.”
Which she’d torn up at Nathan’s insistence.
Alex’s eyes narrowed on her. “When did you meet him?”
“At the Plaza after the anniversary party.” She remembered his cold gaze and soft hands. The memory was enough to make her shiver.
That was Alex’s agent?
“What did he say to you?”
Gwen looked up at the bite in his tone. Alex’s brows were drawn together, and his jaw was tight. She suddenly felt like she was being chastised.
“Nothing. He complimented me on my performance and gave me his card. I never called him, though—”
“Good.”
Alex stood from the computer chair and went to the kitchen, making omelets more loudly than necessary.
She frowned at the door. Good? Was there a reason he didn’t want her to have an agent? Or was it that he didn’t want her to have his agent?
Later that afternoon, Gwen was still trying to figure out Alex’s mood as they headed downtown to Lorenz’s studios in the East Village. Alex held her hand in the cab, pointing out food places he wanted to take her to, but his answers were clipped anytime she brought up Lorenz.
They arrived at a newer building, standing ostentatiously among the older brownstones, and walked the stairs down to the basement. The door opened to deep red walls and black furniture. The low ceilings seemed to press down on them. Alex nodded to a dark-haired boy behind the desk and led her down a hallway lined with pictures and framed awards. He knocked on a door at the end of the hall, and Lorenz’s voice bid them enter.
Calvin Lorenz sat behind a large desk, focused on his multiple screens, clicking a pen in an odd staccato rhythm. As Alex closed the door behind them, he looked up, and his light blue gaze landed on her. He smiled, the creases around his eyes unmoving.
“Xander. Glad you could make it in,” he said. “Miss Jackson, it’s so lovely to meet you again.”
He stood from his chair and grasped her hand in both of his—soft, like he’d never picked up an instrument in his life.
“Likewise, Mr. Lorenz.”
He gestured for them to sit, and his eyes dragged over the two of them, calculating.
“So, Xander,” he said, leaning back on his desk and crossing his legs, “you want to record?”
“Yes, I’ve been writing a lot more. I’d like to utilize the studios for my demo tracks. I can pay the engineers myself if need be—”
“Oh, nonsense,” Mr. Lorenz said, waving his hand. “You know the studios are open to any of my clients.” His eyes turned on her. “But Miss Jackson…is not a client yet.”
Gwen blinked at him, feeling a shiver run down her arms. Yet.
“Like I said, I can pay.” Alex’s voice was firm.
Mr. Lorenz walked around his desk, taking his seat again. “I know you can. But I’m just thinking of the bigger picture here.” He settled in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. There was a glare on his thin glasses. “If you’re going into the studio to record for something outside of the Roses, it should push your career forward, Xander.”
Alex’s fingers tapped on the arm of his chair. “They’re just demos—”
“I’ve reached out to Hilary Hahn,” Mr. Lorenz said.
Gwen’s eyes widened, and she almost whipped around in her chair to check if her idol was standing in this very room. Alex was very still next to her, and it took everything in her to keep from looking at him.
“She’s very interested in working with you on a duet,” he continued. “Her next album is coming out this spring. We could push for the track to be included.”
Gwen could feel her heart hammering. That would be amazing exposure for Alex. Not to mention the money he could get as composer and performer on an album that size.
And Hilary Hahn playing the violin part on Fugue No. 1 would be magic—
“This duet is with Gwen. I won’t be playing it with anyone else.”
Gwen looked at Alex. His jaw was set, tendons twitching along his neck. Why was he being so stubborn about this?
“You should consider it,” she said to him. “That’s a great move for your career.”
“Listen to your girlfriend, Xander—”
“She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my collaborator,” Alex hissed. She felt the words slice at her.
Silence stretched over the room, and Gwen felt like something had disappeared, leaving her hollow. Her face heated, but she didn’t dare look at Alex. She kept her eyes glued to Lorenz as he smiled slowly.
“Apologies.” He shrugged. “I made assumptions.”
So had I, Gwen thought. She quickly thought back over the past week of sex and food and music, and she had the sudden twisting realization that perhaps it didn’t mean anything more than that.
Alex was quiet next to her, scarcely breathing.
“Look,” Lorenz said, leaning forward on his desk, “if Gwen is interested in furthering her career with solo engagements and creating a brand for herself, then she and I can discuss signing a contract of representation. If not, then no—you will not be recording together at my studios.”
Gwen was just wrapping her mind around what kind of brand could be created for her when Alex said, “Gwen, will you excuse us?”
Her skin chilled as she glanced at him, his eyes locked on Lorenz. She nodded and stood on shaking legs. “It was great to see you again, Mr. Lorenz.”
“Leave your email address with Hunter at the front desk. I’ll send a sample contract for you to look over if you’re interested.”
His lips tugged in a grin, but his gaze was on Alex, who was curling his fingers over the arm of his chair.
She excused herself, pulling the door shut behind her. The hallway seemed to swim before her as she walked past the Grammy Awards and platinum albums out to the lobby. Turning her thoughts to Lorenz’s offer of representation helped distract her from the other, more painful thing.
Alex didn’t seem eager for Gwen to sign with Lorenz, and neither had Nathan. He’d told her to tear up his business card.
But Gwen couldn’t help but think about what Lorenz had just offered—solo engagements and branding. Despite her pride and enjoyment with the Pops, Gwen couldn’t ignore the desire to be a solo artist. A true equal to Hilary Hahn, Sarah Chang, and Lindsey Stirling. Lorenz could do that. That’s what he’d done with Alex, after all.
Reaching the lobby, her steps halted, and she shook her head. Lorenz might have turned Alex into a star, but along the way he’d lost his name, his family, and even himself. Did she want to run the risk of that happening to her as well?
The dark-haired boy behind the reception desk didn’t even look up at her, typing away on his phone as she stood dumbly in front of him.
What am I doing here? The thought struck her between the eyes. If she wasn’t a client, and she wasn’t waiting for her boyfriend—
Gwen checked to make sure she had her debit card and house key and darted up the basement stairs to the street.
She hated goodbyes.
Her grandfather made her sit in the hospital room with her mom as she withered and expired. He’d said she would regret not saying goodbye. He’d been wrong. When it was his turn, she had kissed him goodbye before heading to her chemistry final, and he’d called an ambulance for himself twenty minutes later. She’d liked that better. Not the rest of it—the paperwork and condolences and funeral costs. But the quickness.
She needed to be quick.
If Alex were to come out of that office, hold her hand in the back of a cab, and fuck her on his kitchen counter again, it would just be the beginning of a long goodbye.
Because he wasn’t Not-Her-Boyfriend to her. He couldn’t live in that space.
The soles of her shoes slapped against the filthy sidewalk, and she threw her hand up to grab a cab. A blinker turned on, and a yellow car swerved to her.
She was half inside, calling out for Washington Heights, when a hand gripped her elbow.
Alex’s eyes were wide when she turned over her shoulder. “Where are you going?”
She gaped at him, unable to make her throat work, unable to ask for space when she didn’t want any.
He ran a hand through his hair and climbed into the cab next to her. She scooted down the seat, and let him direct the driver to the Upper East Side.
The cabbie shot down the street, rattling over potholes, and Gwen stared at the screen in the back seat flashing commercials for Broadway shows at her.
“I shouldn’t have taken you to him,” Alex finally whispered once they’d reached Central Park.
Gwen waited for him to continue, but he just stared out the window.
“There are other recording studios,” she said softly.
“I can’t record anywhere else. Contractually.”
She blinked at him. His lips pressed together in a thin line.
The cab pulled up outside his apartment building, and Alex gave the driver cash. He slid out, holding the door for her, but Gwen hesitated.
She couldn’t go upstairs with him if they were only “collaborating” together. She couldn’t be that stupid.
“I think I should go home.” She was half in, half out of the cab, one foot on the street.
That desperation was back in his gaze, the same expression from those first weeks of the season, when she wouldn’t agree to see him. Alex knelt down in front of the open door and placed a hand on her knee.
“I don’t want him in my personal life. Lorenz has a way of twisting up things I love, and I didn’t want to give him anything else of me.” He cleared his throat and looked up at her with dark eyes while Gwen tried to brush the L-word away from her heart. “You are more than my collaborator.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. A horn honked at their cab, and Gwen quickly jumped out, thanking the driver and scurrying to the sidewalk. Alex didn’t make an attempt to escort her to the door of his building; he just stood staring down at her.
“Why are you with Calvin Lorenz if he makes you feel this way?” She squinted up at him through the sun beating down over his building.
“He owns Thorne and Roses as much as I do. Actually, more. The contracts he drew up when I was twenty are… aggressively exploitative. I’m embarrassed for signing them, but I admired him so much back then.” Alex ran a hand through his hair and took a shaky breath. “I’ve been looking for ways out of them for a few years.”
“You can’t just quit them? Break the contract and walk away?”
“Walk away to what?” He chuckled, shaking his head.
Gwen frowned, listening to the traffic pass and watching the pedestrians trot by. She’d never felt like she had absolute freedom—always held back by money or fear—but she’d also never been shackled like this.
She remembered what Mabel had said about him when he was young—He was always set on “ being” someone.
Suddenly, she glanced up at him, her eyes watering against the sunlight. “Is that why you contacted your mother about joining the Pops a year and a half ago? You wanted a way out?”
Staring off over her shoulder, he tightened his jaw, the muscles jumping. “It doesn’t matter now.”
But it did. Realization cracked over her. He’d wanted first chair so he could get away from Lorenz. And she’d taken it from him.
“Why did you agree to return this season?” she asked, voicing an unanswered curiosity. “If they weren’t going to give you first chair, I still don’t understand why you came back. Lorenz couldn’t have been happy about it.”
Alex’s gaze locked on her, eyes burrowing into her own. He lifted his hands and placed them gently on her jaw. “Because my apartment still smelled like you.”
She blinked against the sunlight, her pulse pounding in her ears as she bit back a smile. “Didn’t Mabel ever tell you never to let a girl get in between you and your instrument?”
He leaned forward and kissed her softly. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve ignored her good advice. Can we go upstairs? I have to make dinner and ask my girlfriend if she’d be my girlfriend. And then I want to tell the whole world she said yes.”
Gwen’s face was on fire, her smile bursting from her lips even as she pressed them together. She nodded into his shoulder and let him take her hand to lead them inside.
Gwen woke up the next morning to the drifting melody of a violin, the smell of an iced vanilla latte, and the blinking of a very active phone screen. Two missed calls from Jacob. A text from Ava, asking for coffee. Seven emails from Nathan. And a bundle of Instagram notifications.
Around midnight last night she’d been tagged in a photo that @Xander_Thorne had posted.
From their pancake adventure. Pancake mix all over her cheeks, her face mid-laugh, reaching out to swipe batter into his hair.
You make me so happy @GwenNoFear.
She slapped a hand over her mouth, choking back a laugh. They really were together now. A public announcement that no one could ignore.
Grinning down at her phone, she watched her follower count rise and her notifications continue to ping.
The number of comments under the post was in the thousands.