Chapter 13 Julian #2
Silence stretches between us like a taut wire, dangerous and humming with tension.
Neither one of us knows where to begin this journey of pretense.
Being around Malik used to be so easy, as natural as drawing my next breath.
Now I can barely stand to look at him, can barely tolerate the way my body wants to lean toward him despite everything.
I look down at the keys, then to the empty seat beside me on the piano bench.
I hadn’t realized that I’d left a space beside me.
His side, as if seventeen years haven’t passed, as if nothing has changed.
My chest tightens at how natural it was, how automatic.
Heat flares behind my ribs at the unconsciousness of it, at the way my body still makes room for him.
Old habits die hard, apparently. Muscle memory is a cruel thing.
I shift, scooting toward the center of the bench, reclaiming the space like it’s a mistake that needs correcting.
Malik notices, of course he notices, his eyes shifting to the now-claimed spot, but he doesn’t comment.
Instead, he pushes my coffee closer to me with careful fingers, then takes a sip of his own.
I watch, despite myself, as his throat works, the way his eyes close briefly as he savors the familiar chicory flavor.
I don’t hesitate because I would be a fool not to take the gift being offered.
I take a sip and mirror his appreciation, letting the bitter-sweet warmth ground me in the present moment.
He sets his saxophone case down with the reverence of someone handling something precious, then takes off his sunglasses, folding them neatly before slipping them into his pocket.
When he looks up, his eyes are exactly as I remember, warm honey shot through with gold, observant and direct.
His gaze flicks to the keys, then to me, searching for something I’m not sure I’m ready to give.
“So,” he says, and even that single syllable carries weight. “New Orleans.”
I huff a breath, irritation sparking to life. “You don’t get to say it like that.”
“Like what?” His eyebrows lift in genuine surprise, and for a moment he looks so much like the boy I used to know that it physically hurts.
“Like you don’t already know.” I turn to face him fully, letting some of my anger show.
He knows what being in this city means to me.
How many conversations did we have about planning a trip here as teenagers?
How we dreamed of playing in some side bar on Bourbon Street, the place so packed with people that they’d have to watch us perform from the streets.
How we used to plan our imaginary future, complete with a shared apartment in the Quarter and late-night jam sessions that would stretch until dawn.
He takes a minute, probably getting lost in the same memories that are threatening to pull me under. When he speaks, his voice is softer than before. “I do know.”
The admission hangs between us, heavy with everything we’re not saying. Before I can respond, before I can figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do with that honesty, the door cracks open and Renee pokes her head in.
“You’ve got three hours,” she says briskly, all business and no-nonsense efficiency. “Four if you’re productive. Break after that. Soundcheck is at five.”
Her gaze sharpens as it lands on Malik, a warning without words.
The look says behave yourself and don’t you dare hurt him all at once.
He rolls his eyes and shrugs his shoulders in response, a visual I’ll behave that doesn’t convince anyone, least of all me.
Then she’s gone, the door clicking shut behind her with finality, leaving us alone again.
The room feels smaller now, the walls pressing in. The lack of conversation makes everything worse, amplifying the tension until it’s almost unbearable. Neither of us speaks.
Finally, Malik clears his throat. “We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”
I flex my fingers once, pressing them against the keys without making sound, grounding myself in the familiar resistance. “That might be a problem if we’re meant to write something.”
“Music doesn’t always need talking,” he says, and there’s a hint of his old self in the words, confident and sure. It recalls a conversation we had years ago, back when we thought we had all the answers.
I glance at him despite myself, despite every instinct screaming at me to keep my distance. “You always did say that.”
He meets my gaze, and something unreadable passes between us, recognition, maybe, or regret. “You never agreed.”
No, I didn’t. I was always the one who needed to analyze, to discuss, to pick apart every chord change and lyrical choice until we understood exactly how the magic worked.
Malik trusted instinct, I trusted preparation.
It should have been impossible, but somehow it wasn’t.
I turn back to the piano, my sanctuary and my shield.
“Play something,” I say, not quite able to keep the challenge out of my voice. “Inspire me, old wise one.”
I want to smile. God help me, I want to just be, but I keep myself contained, locked down tight. It will never be that easy again. Never.
He hesitates, and for a moment I think he might refuse. Then he reaches for his case.
The sound of the latches releasing is oddly intimate in the quiet room, metal clicking against metal with precision.
He assembles the saxophone with practiced ease, movements fluid and reverent, like he’s performing a ritual.
When he lifts the instrument, my fingers instinctively pause on top of the keys, poised and waiting.
Eager to create, to be the response to his call, despite every rational thought in my head.
He plays a single note. Low and warm, the sound sliding down my spine like honey, like a warm blanket on a cold night. It’s curious, searching, waiting for an answer that only I can give.
I answer without thinking, muscle memory taking over before my brain can interfere. A chord, rich and minor, settles beneath his note like it belongs there.
We don’t look at each other. We don’t acknowledge the ease of our improvisation, the way we fall into rhythm like we never left. Picking up where we left off seventeen years ago, like there’s not a mountain of anger and resentment and broken trust in our wake.
The space between us fills anyway, with sound and possibility and something that feels dangerously like hope.
The music isn’t polished. It isn’t careful.
It wanders and tests and pulls back, like two people learning to dance again after years apart.
A conversation neither of us knows how to have out loud, conducted entirely in melody and harmony.
My hands move instinctively, finding patterns I haven’t played in years, chord progressions that feel like coming home.
His breath weaves through them, searching and responding, creating something new from something old.
Something loosens in my chest, just a fraction, like a knot finally beginning to unravel. I tilt my head and listen to our notes, fine-tuning as we go back and forth, each phrase building on the last until we’ve created something that neither of us could have made alone.
This isn’t forgiveness. It isn’t reconciliation, and it sure as hell isn’t absolution. Yet I can’t deny it’s something. It feels like something new, fragile and shaky as a newborn bird, but something all the same.
For the first time since we started this tour, I don’t hate being here.
Not entirely, anyway, because music has always had a way of making me forget everything else, the anger, the hurt, the carefully constructed walls I’ve built around my heart.
When the sound finally fades into silence, it leaves something charged in its wake, electric and alive.
Malik exhales with an easy smile that transforms his whole face, “There it is.”
“There’s what?” I ask quietly, not trusting my voice to stay steady.
“The bridge,” he says, and his voice is soft, almost wondering. “We’ve been standing on opposite sides of it for a long time.”
I don’t answer because I don’t trust myself to speak. He’s right, and that terrifies me more than I want to admit.
Our music and our ability to create something out of nothing has always been our bridge, the thing that connected us when words failed. It’s how we first became friends, then something more. Our music wants us to hear it, to learn from it, and dare I say, to mend what was broken.
No, it will never be the same as it was. I may never be able to truly forgive what happened between us. This. . .this is something. This is a beginning, however tentative and uncertain. I can’t deny that I want to listen, to see where this fragile melody might lead us.
Nodding quickly, I begin to play a melody that seems to rise from somewhere deep inside me, notes spilling out like a confession I’m not ready to speak aloud. Then, to my own surprise, words fall from my lips with an ease that shocks me:
“It’s a slow dance, baby. . .
One step in and one step gone.
We keep moving in the wrong direction, but the same old song plays on.”