Chapter 15
NOVA
Wes met me at the Lorimer Street station to take the L into Manhattan. I didn’t read anything into the fact he wanted to travel together, nor did I examine why I’d said yes to his invitation so quickly. Or why Wes had offered me his extra ticket in the first place.
There was nothing to examine about any of this.
“Hi,” I said, my strongest opener.
Wes was dressed casually—black combat boots, army green pants, and a slightly oversized concert tee. More than a few women stopped mid-conversation to glance at him, which was an impressive feat to pull off in a subway station.
“Hi, Nova,” Wes said.
I was soothed by the trademark dance of humor in his hazel irises.
“First strawberries, now cherries,” he murmured, glancing down at my summer dress. “I’m picking up on a theme.”
“Summer is for fruit.”
The L train loudly rolled into the station, clanking and screeching with comforting familiarity.
“I love The Strokes,” I said, nodding at his shirt. “Have you seen them live?”
We hopped on the car and stood facing each other, each gripping the metal stanchion between us.
Wes nodded. “A few times. I wish I’d been in the city when they were first taking off.”
“Me too,” I said. “We missed a sick time in indie music history. I hope we see something like that happen again.”
The doors closed with a ding, and we lurched toward Bedford Avenue. The car was crowded, which meant that, despite the air conditioning, I was sweating through my cherry-laden navy dress.
Wes grinned. “I really enjoy hearing you use the word sick. Maybe you are old at heart.”
“It all comes back around.”
He nodded. “Which is why an indie music golden era is bound to strike the city again. And this time, we’ll be here.”
I stared up at him, his height putting him almost a foot taller than me. There was something about Wes that was so disarmingly earnest. He didn’t seem like the same person in the real world as he was in The Circle. He was less guarded—still intense, but without the same severity.
I wondered again why he’d sworn off domming. Did that have anything to do with his mercurial demeanor around kink? A crowded subway car while sweat dripped down our backs didn’t seem like the best place to ask.
“Music saved me growing up,” Wes said.
I angled toward him, then stilled and kept my face neutral, as if one wrong move would discourage him from sharing more.
Me too, I wanted to say, but I remained silent instead.
After a few beats, he finally continued. “Especially as a teenager. When you don’t understand your own emotions, let alone how to communicate them, art can do it for you.”
I nodded in complete understanding. In addition to the dark corners of the Internet Lorelei and I had traversed under our domineering families’ noses, we’d also sneakily consumed forbidden media.
For me, it was mainly books, music, and movies.
Lorelei spent a lot more time on social media, pirated TV, blogs, and magazine contraband.
“Music helped me escape,” I said. “Books too.”
“Speaking of…” Wes said as the car doors opened again at Bedford. “I read your books.”
“Like, all of them?” I asked incredulously. It had only been six days.
“No, I’m on the fourth one. I read quickly.”
I guess without modern technology, that speed made sense.
But still. Part of me hadn’t fully believed he would read any of my writing.
It was common for friends, acquaintances, or men from dating apps to claim they were going to buy or read my books.
Very few actually followed through on either. It was just a polite thing people said.
“They don’t suck,” he said.
My ears popped as we headed under the East River. “Oh, good,” I said sarcastically. “I’d been anxiously awaiting your verdict.”
Wes smiled. “They’re witty and smart and heartfelt. The prose is beautiful, lyrical even. And they’re you. I like seeing inside you like that.”
The words scrambled my brain. The praise was one thing, but that last sentence… How the hell was I supposed to respond to that? My body responded with a dull ache between my thighs and a shiver of erotic fear down my spine at the idea of being bared before Wes.
My phone had vibrated in my hand when we were at Bedford. I took this opportunity to glance at the screen.
Maisy
What are you up to tonight? Wanna link?
“Sorry,” I mumbled to Wes, quickly texting Maisy that I was seeing a concert at the Lincoln Center, but we should definitely catch up soon.
I didn’t have to rudely text Maisy back while Wes was talking to me. It wasn’t like the text would even go through until we were at the next station. But I sought escape.
“Thank you,” I said finally. My skin was itchy and far too warm. “I—I’m not good at taking compliments.”
“That has been made apparent.” His smile was generous and teasing.
“I am who I am,” I said with a shrug, and my lips curved into a smile.
Wes glanced at my lips as they moved, and I squirmed under his watch. His own mouth opened and closed. After a beat, he changed the subject. “Do you listen to any Belle and Sebastian?”
I shook my head.
“That shocks me,” he said as we rolled into First Avenue. “But it also delights me to think of you hearing them with virgin ears. I’ll send you some songs to plug into your little Zoomer music apps. If You’re Feeling Sinister needs to be your first listen.”
“Zoomer music apps,” I laughed. Something about the way Wes was assigning me music like homework elicited another inappropriate response from my body.
Only I would get turned on by that.
“Or I have them on vinyl, if you want to listen to music how it was made to be listened to,” Wes added.
Underneath his confident facade, I saw the briefest flash of uncertainty in his eyes. Had he just invited me over to listen to records?
We both stared at each other for three long beats. “Do you have a DVD player too?”
Wes’s grin didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Of course.”
We engaged in our lighthearted, generational sparring match all the way until Sixth Avenue, where we hopped off to transfer to the 1 train.
When we got to Lincoln Center, we still hadn’t mentioned The Circle.
We talked about music and books and moody teenage angst, poking fun at each other’s quirks in a way I’d begun to crave when we were apart.
We laughed all the way through the line and into the auditorium, the rest of the world fading away.
It was only when the lights dimmed and the performers took the stage that Wes and I finally fell silent.
My chest was buzzing with warm energy. I glanced at Wes’s thigh, inches from mine. His beautiful face had finally turned away from me toward the stage.
The first orchestral piece was the strangest performance I’d ever heard, and I quickly remembered Wes had called the orchestra experimental.
Instead of gliding their bows across the strings to create smooth sound, the performers intentionally ground the bow hairs down against the strings to produce a haunting cacophony of slow, harmonized discomfort.
It was both grating and mesmerizing. I couldn’t wait for it to end, and I didn’t want it to stop.
Wes and I exchanged a look when the piece ended and before the next began. “Art?” he asked.
I pretended to weigh the question, head cocking slightly to the right and then the left. Finally, I nodded. “Art.”
The next piece was a slow build, and thankfully, they were playing the instruments the way God had intended. No more sickening crunch of strings.
I kept waiting for the slow build to break, for the haunting melody to shift into a sweeping, full-orchestra climax.
We’d already been musically edged for fifteen minutes by the time I started to drift into the sound, my emotions melding with the orchestral story.
It wasn’t unlike those trance states Jayne and Archer were so interested in.
After another five minutes, I glanced at Wes’s tattooed hand on his thigh. I imagined how it would feel on my thigh instead. Warm, calloused, heavy. Wes glanced at me.
My throat bobbed. I quickly returned my focus to the stage.
Maybe this orchestra was trying to torture us, drive us to madness. Enough foreplay; I wanted the action.
Suddenly, the lights went out. The music halted in an instant. The crowd gasped.
In the next breath, the lights came back on. The orchestra filled the space with a sharp harmony of sound, full and climactic, like I’d been begging for.
The lights went off. Silence.
The lights turned on. Booming music.
The next time the lights went off, a few annoying people below us had their phones out to take a video. The brightness of their screens ruined the dramatic effect of total darkness.
An older gentleman next to us was quick to intervene on the collective’s behalf. “Put your phones away!” he yelled in a thick New York accent.
Several people shushed him.
The lights came on, bows dramatically met string. I grinned, and Wes’s thigh brushed mine.
The next time we were plunged into darkness, the phones had been put away.
“Did you like it?” Wes asked on our way back to the 1 train.
I side-eyed him. “It was bizarre.” I smiled. “But yes.”
We were less talkative on the train back to Sixth Avenue.
It wasn’t uncomfortable; it just felt like we were both mulling over our own inner worlds—whatever feelings the music had brought forth.
When I studied Wes’s face, his forehead creased in thought, I wished I had a way to look as deeply inside him as he had with my books.
The pensiveness melted when he met my eyes.
“How long have you lived in New York?” I asked.
“Since I was seventeen.”
“Eighteen,” I said, answering the question for myself.
“Are you no-contact with your family?” he asked gently. “We don’t have to talk about it if—”
“It’s okay,” I said, cutting him off. “Yeah, no-contact. Lorelei is the only person from my past I still—well, I guess we’re not speaking anymore.” I swallowed, the burn of Lorelei’s abandonment a smack in the face. “Did your family move here?”
Wes shook his head. He tracked a group of drunk men who’d slowly drifted closer to us. One of them bumped my shoulder, slurring an apology as he quickly returned to laughing with his buddies.
Wes glared and reached for me. His hold on my waist was warm and firm as he guided me to stand closer to him on the other side of the stanchion.
I exhaled slowly. Wes dropped his touch and took a step away to give me more space.
“No. I grew up with my mom in North Carolina. When she passed, I was forced to live with my dad here in the city.”
My heart clenched. “I’m sorry about your mom.” Seventeen was so young to lose a parent.
Wes nodded. “She was an amazing mom and an incredible human. I owe her everything.”
He said nothing of his dad—and I didn’t miss the way he said he’d been forced to live with him. The bitterness in that phrase was strong enough for me to taste on my own tongue.
“I didn’t want to fall in love with New York, but I did. I fell hard and against my will, kicking and screaming the whole way down,” he said with a small smile. “Love is funny that way, right?”
I shrugged. I knew he was being rhetorical, but I answered anyway. “So I’ve heard.”
Wes’s brows drew together. “The romance novelist has never been in love?”
The question resembled our usual teasing, but his tone wasn’t humorous. He looked genuinely shocked. The way he studied me was imploring, intrusive even.
I was grateful when we pulled into Sixth Avenue, offering a solid escape. My skin burned, and I frowned the moment I turned away from him and exited the car. I shouldn’t have admitted something so pathetic.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t tried to fall in love. Men had just made the feat extraordinarily difficult for me with their energy, words, and general behavior.
Wes let me walk at my preferred breakneck speed through the station to the L train platform, and that alone confirmed he pitied me right now.
We maneuvered to a less crowded area, a difficult feat for a Friday night. Manhattanites were on their way to Bushwick in droves for the edgier clubbing scene.
“Nova,” Wes said.
He touched my arm, and I turned toward him. He wore that thoughtful look of his, the one that softened his hard exterior and melted all my defenses.
The oncoming train stopped him from continuing. We smiled at each other as the screeching tore through the space. Wind whipped my hair back, and Wes tucked a stray strand behind my ear. I shuddered.
We were so focused on each other, we didn’t notice we were stepping into an eerily empty car until it was too late.
The doors closed.