Garrett
Epilogue
S ix months later, I'm sitting at my piano when Claire walks in from the kitchen with two glasses of wine.
She's wearing one of my shirts and nothing else, her hair damp from the shower, and I have to pause mid-song because she's so beautiful it hurts.
"Don't stop," she protests, setting down the wine and curling up next to me on the bench. "I love listening to you play."
I resume the piece, Claire de Lune , which she pointed out was hilariously on the nose given her name, and she leans her head on my shoulder.
When the last note fades, I work up th courage and say: "Move in with me."
She blinks. "What?"
"Move in with me. You're here most nights anyway. Your toothbrush is in my bathroom. Your clothes are in my closet. Just make it official."
"Garth, we've only been together six months—"
"I've been in love with you for eighteen months. I'm done wasting time." I take her hand. "Move in with me. Then decide what you want to do—stay at Rhodes, go somewhere else, start your own company. Whatever you want."
"You've thought about this."
"I think about you constantly." I kiss her knuckles. "So yes. I've thought about it."
She's quiet for a moment, and I can see her processing. Then: "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay, I'll move in. On one condition."
"What's that?"
"You keep playing piano for me. I like seeing this side of you."
"Deal." I pull her into my lap, and she laughs as I kiss her neck. "Anything else?"
"Well..." She's blushing now. "Maybe we should christen the piano."
I pause. "Christen the—Claire, this piano is...." How do I put in words how priceless this Steinway piano is?
"So?" She's already unbuttoning the shirt she's wearing. "I promise to be gentle with it." She lets the shirt fall, and she's naked underneath, and fuck it. It's just a piano.
"Come here," I growl, pulling her onto my lap so she's straddling me on the bench.
She kisses me, and I can taste the wine on her lips, feel her already wet against me through my slacks. My hands slide up her thighs to grip her hips, and she's working on my belt, impatient.
"Someone's eager," I murmur against her mouth.
"I've been thinking about this since you started playing." She gets my pants open, frees my cock. "Do you know how hot you look at this piano?"
"Tell me."
"Concentrated. Intense. Your hands on the keys..." She positions herself over me. "Made me wonder what else those hands could do."
"You already know what these hands can do."
"Show me again."
She sinks down onto me in one smooth motion. The angle is deep, perfect, and when she starts to move the bench shifts slightly on the hardwood floor.
"Careful," I tell her, gripping her hips. "Don't want you falling."
"Then hold on to me."
I do. One arm banded around her waist, the other hand sliding up to cup her breast as she rides me. She sets a rhythm that's slow and rolling, her hands braced on my shoulders.
"Lean back," I tell her.
She does, and I catch her with one hand on the small of her back while the other works between her legs. From this angle I can see everything—watch myself disappear into her, watch her head fall back, watch her breasts bounce with every movement.
"Garth," she gasps, and her hands reach back, landing on the piano keys.
Discordant notes ring out, and it should be jarring but somehow it's perfect. The soundtrack to us—messy and beautiful and completely ours.
I thrust up to meet her, harder now, and more notes crash out as her hands scramble for purchase on the keys.
"Don't stop," she breathes. "Oh God, don't stop."
I don't. My fingers work her clit while I fuck up into her, and she's getting close, I can feel it in the way she's clenching around me, hear it in the sounds she's making.
"Come for me," I tell her. "Want to hear you."
She does, crying out my name, and the final chord her hands strike on the piano is somehow the perfect punctuation. I follow her over, pulling her down onto me as I come.
We stay like that for a moment, both breathless and laughing, her collapsed against my chest while random notes still echo in the air.
"I love you," she says.
"I love you too." I brush her hair back from her face. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For not giving up on me. For seeing past all my bullshit. For making me remember how to be alive."
She cups my face. "Thank you for seeing me. Really seeing me."
"Always." I kiss her softly. "You're impossible to miss."
She pauses and then muses softly. "I'm glad we got snowed in."
"Me too."
"Best Christmas ever."
I smile into her hair. "The first of many."
I spent five years hiding from life, from love, from everything that made me feel human.
Claire brought me back.
And I'm never letting go.
THE END