Chapter 8
Ever
I’m early, even though I stopped at home to change first, but there were only so many times I could change my shirt or check my hair in the mirror.
Other than a glance before I leave the house on nights I play at The Striped Maple, I rarely spend a lot of time on what I wear.
Most Maplewoodians are pretty casual, except for Lydia, who I’ve only ever seen in heels and a skirt.
But since leaving the store, the need to impress Dmitri nudged and nudged until it drilled into me, quickening my pulse and making my hands sweat.
I look down at my khaki pants and wonder for the hundredth time if I should have kept on my jeans like I would have if I were playing by myself.
But Dmitri is just so… put together? Sexy?
Fascinating? For the first time in years, I want to put effort into how I present myself to a man.
Hell, I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt the thrill that comes with meeting someone new and feeling the tug of attraction. College, maybe?
I remove my cello from its case and pull up the tuning app on my phone.
“You’re early.” There’s a smile in the voice behind me, which causes my mouth to tip up.
When I turn around, a colony of bees swarms in my gut at the sight of the grin matching the voice.
Ray-Bans cover his dark eyes, paired with the plain white tee, dark denim, and navy cable-knit sweater, he looks cool, casual, and a little nerdy.
Which apparently is my kink because blood swoops to my cock, plumping it quickly enough to make my head light. “You are too.”
He removes his violin case from his shoulders and sets it on the ground. “I could lie and give you a line about how I’m always early. But the truth is, I’ve been looking forward to this since yesterday, and I couldn’t wait any longer.”
“I could lie too and tell you I wanted to warm up, but the truth is… Same.” I set my cello on its side next to the folding chair and stand, stepping closer to him. “It’s good to see you.”
Just a little shorter than me, maybe five-ten, five-eleven, he steps into me and wraps his arms around my neck.
A hint of his cologne invades my lungs, fresh, woodsy, and a little spicy.
I dip my head and inhale as he squeezes me.
We hardly know each other, but hugging Dmitri is as natural as hugging Trevor, who I’ve known forever.
Not that I have ever gotten hard from inhaling Trevor.
If pressed, I couldn’t tell you what Trevor or any person in Maplewood smells like.
But Dmitri’s scent is the phantom fragrance that has lodged itself into my olfactory senses since the festival.
He releases me and my arms tingle to envelop him again.
“What should we play today?” I return to my chair and position my cello.
He unfolds a portable wire music stand and sets it in front of me, then places his iPad on it and taps the tablet, waking it. “I brought music.”
“Don’t think I’ll be able to keep up with a professional musician.” I flip through the music, Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Debussy. I glance up at him. “You didn’t mention you were associate concertmaster.”
His expression tightens, and he lifts the violin to his shoulder. “It’s not important. It’s the music that counts.”
Seeing him tense makes something in my chest twist. I want to help him return to the easy way he held himself before I ruined it. So, I lift my bow and begin playing the notes of my favorite Vivaldi concerto. “The music is everything.”
With no hesitancy, he joins in. His shoulders relax, and the corners of his mouth turn up slightly as the concerto folds around us.
The vibration of the notes.
Smiles when one of us—usually me—falls behind or speeds up.
His deep inhale.
The eye contact.
All the ways in which musicians communicate without words.
There is an ecstasy that is indescribable when you’re connected to another person at this level, making beauty for no other reason than the pure splendor of doing so.
With every note, my skin tingles and a warmth fills my chest. Bees fly in, out, and around the hives to the rhythm of the music, their tempo matching ours as if they too are caught in the spell being cast.
As we transition from one piece to the next, time ceases to have meaning.
Notes drift through the air, their significance all that matters.
When my fingers ache and my ass throbs from sitting for so long on the unforgiving folding chair, I press on.
Any discomfort is worth it to witness the sway of Dmitri’s body as he loses himself in composition after composition.
Playing with someone at his level was once the dream, because it would have signified I had made it .
Whatever that means…
But now, the chill that blanketed the landscape in the morning has long been chased away by the rays of the springtime sunshine.
The sweet scent of grass, honey, and rosin fills my nose, and the beauty of the man absorbed in the music saturates my sight.
It’s better than anything I ever dared to imagine.
When he finally opens his eyes, Dmitri looks as though he’s been bathed in a magical light, almost ethereal.
His peaceful expression magnifies the sense of unburdened pleasure I experience when I play for my hives.
Music and nature blending together until we are all one.
But playing with Dmitri is the missing ingredient to a recipe I thought was perfect.
“Wow.” His eyes spark with the same awe I feel, like what we created was magic.
Crouching over his violin case, he removes the shoulder rest and then tucks it inside.
“Thanks again. I thought yesterday may have been a fluke, but for the first time in…” He looks up and to the right, then mahogany eyes meet mine.
“For the first time in a long time, I feel connected to the music. My friends and I just recorded an album, and that was a blast, but this, playing for the sake of playing, is…” He shifts his gaze back to his violin case and shakes his head. “I probably sound ridiculous.”
I want to touch him, to pull him into my arms, tell him I know exactly what he means. But I don’t do any of those things, and say, “I get it.”
We continue putting our instruments away in silence. Considering I don’t know Dmitri well, I’m pleasantly surprised at how comfortable the silence is. But the thought of our time ending gives me heartburn. The need to know him scorches in my gut, heating me from the inside.
“Want to grab a cup of coffee or something?” Holding my breath, I shrug into my cello case’s straps.
“If I have coffee now, I’ll be up all night.”
Disappointment spears my chest, deflating it in one massive blow. “Oh, okay.”
“How would you feel about a beer and some food?” His question comes with the reluctant hopefulness of someone who isn’t sure of the answer.
And just like that, his words repair the puncture in my middle.
I stand tall, exhilaration firing through my veins.
“The Striped Maple has better burgers than Red’s or Sparky’s.
But if you tell anyone I said so, I will deny it until my last breath, and I’ll tell everyone in town you were the one who uttered such blasphemy. ”
White teeth gleam, and cheeks round to orbs under his sunglasses. He holds up his hands in surrender. “Your secret’s safe with me. I won't let them run you out of town on my watch.”
“Let me drop off my cello at home and then we can walk over. You can leave your things at my place and pick it up when we’re finished.” I head across the field and he follows.
He detours closer to me to avoid a whizzing Frisbee and the dog chasing it. “Thanks.”
Within minutes, we approach the A-frame sherbet-colored cottage that was once my grandparents’ home, and I can’t help but smile.
The wildflowers my grandmother planted before I was born will begin blooming in a few weeks, giving the already happy house an air of cheerfulness that welcomes you like a dear friend.
When we come to the sandstone walkway, Dmitri stops.
“This is yours?” He stares at the home I’ve lovingly refurbished and remodeled over the years.
I thrum my fingers against my thigh, unexpectedly nervous and wanting him to love my home as much as I do. Which is absurd, considering he’s only here on vacation. “I inherited it after my grandfather died. My grandparents bought the place shortly after they married.”
“It’s amazing.”
Relief comes as swift as the breeze blowing over us and I’m buoyed by the delight in his eyes as he takes in my home.
“I have so many great memories of them in this house. But it’s been nice to make it my own.
My buddy Aleric helped. He refurbishes antiques and furniture so his insight was invaluable, since I didn’t have a clue where to begin.
” I unlock the door and push it open to the compact living room. “You can leave your violin here.”
He sets it and the stand down on the blond hardwood floor—Aleric and I spent hours upon hours upon hours refinishing—next to the beige velveteen chair that sits across from the stone fireplace.
The late afternoon sun shines through the windows next to the fireplace, stretching a long stream of sunlight over the sofa and cerulean area rug.
I rest my cello against the accent wall painted in the same blue as the rug.
“A tour can wait, happy hour and three-dollar beers cannot.” I sweep my arm toward the door, and he laughs.
“Never let it be said that I stood in the way of a man and happy hour.”
The walk to The Striped Maple only takes five minutes, but in that time, I learn that Dmitri’s parents are both musicians with the Houston Symphony, he’s named after Dmitri Shostakovich, and his middle name is Mendelssohn after Felix Mendelssohn.
“So there was really no way I could avoid music.” His chuckle is deep and rumbly, and strums a yearning I haven’t felt since I was twenty-five and in love with an oboe player who ended things when he landed a gig with the Kansas City Symphony.
My eyes take a moment to adjust to the darker room as I guide Dmitri into the bar, my palm resting on the dip of his lower back.
“Hey, Ever,” Conall calls from behind the mahogany bar, and his smile widens when his gaze lands on Dmitri. “Good to see you again, Dmitri.”
My fingers on Dmitri’s back flex, ready to drag him away from Conall and anyone else who might try their shot with him.
Relax. You are not a jealous, possessive asshole.
A few locals nod and wave. I return their greetings but keep my hand on Dmitri’s back, ignoring the raised eyebrows and knowing smirks.
There’s no getting away from prying eyes or running mouths in Maplewood.
As my mother says, it’s part of our charm.
I know to the locals, a touch as innocent as guiding him to two stools at the end of the bar is paramount to claiming him and shouting to all of Maplewood that he belongs to me.
So, maybe I am a possessive asshole when it comes to Dmitri. Who knows? Everything about him seems to be throwing me off center.
We claim our seats, and I introduce Dmitri to Conall.
“We met at the festival. You were hanging out with Lydia and Celia. They’ll be here later with their band.” Conall slides two mugs of the house IPA to us. “Anything else?”
“Two of your maple burgers with fries.” I turn to Dmitri, my knee bumping his beneath the bar. “That good?”
He nods and shifts, so it’s not just our knees touching. The length of his thigh presses against the length of mine. “Lydia and Celia have a band?”
A current sparks under my skin, zipping up my thigh and settling in my groin. To keep from mauling the man—because I want nothing more than to straddle him and devour his mouth—I raise my beer mug. “They and a couple of other women started a band a while ago. Call themselves Rocktogenarians.”
“How old are they? I thought they were in their mid-sixties.” He brings the mug to his lips and closes his eyes as the cold brew fills his throat.
My mouth hangs open as I watch his Adam’s apple bob. I wonder what he tastes like right there. “Uh, no. They’re all in their eighties.”
What would he do if I trailed my tongue along the column of his neck before sucking on the bobbing bump?
“This is good. Smoother than I expected.” His words knock me out of my X-rated trance, but I’m struck mute by those gleaming teeth shining at me and the amber fleck in his left eye.
“It’s the honey.” Conall answers because my voice has gone on strike. “We have the best.” He winks at me in the flirty way he’s known for, but his grin sobers when the door opens and a tall guy in a flannel shirt walks in.
The guy’s messenger bag bulges and he carries several thick books tucked under his arm.
I’ve seen him around town, but I haven’t spoken to him.
The gossip is that he’s writing a book about Maplewood, which I find hard to believe.
He slips into the corner booth in the back of the bar, and Conall’s gaze doesn’t leave him. “You two good?”
“Yep,” I answer.
Conall raps his knuckles on the scarred bar top. As he heads for the back booth, he calls over his shoulder, “Your food will be out in a few.”
“So tell me how a cello-playing beekeeper who used to live in Philly ended up back in Maplewood, Vermont.” Dmitri’s tongue swipes at the foam clinging to his top lip, the pink tip mesmerizing as I imagine what it would feel like on me.