16. Harlowe
Iwasn’t meeting with my performance advisor until tomorrow and I had a few hours to go until I was needed at Nutcracker rehearsals. It was pretty easy to figure out how to book a practice room. There were plenty, so I had no problems.
I was starting to get excited about all of this, but I was still on edge and playing my violin was how I dealt with all of that. I wasn’t technically in orchestra this semester, but my mother and I did have some Christmas traditions.
We did The Nutcracker twice every year growing up.
Once was with me playing in the orchestra and then we’d go watch a performance so I could enjoy the dancers.
Sometimes, we didn’t have a ton of money, but there were usually dance schools doing a performance so we weren’t paying for professional ballet tickets.
We went every year until I went to undergrad and I had some fond memories. Tchaikovsky might not have liked the score he wrote, but I did. It wasn’t exactly my usual style, but I had a fondness for it.
I launched into the Adagio from Act II of The Nutcracker. That one always hit me in the feels. Tchaikovsky wrote that movement after his sister died and I could always feel the grief in the soaring notes.
I knew Rue was playing the Sugar Plum Fairy and Cullen was playing her Cavalier, so they’d probably be dancing this unless Blackvale changed the staging so whoever was playing Clara and the Nutcracker did it. I couldn’t wait.
I was usually zoned out when I played, but I could hear someone in another practice room join me and start playing the cello solo that joined the violin. They were good. I liked solos, but I loved feeding off other artists. We rose until the final notes of the piece were played.
I took my violin off my shoulder and closed my eyes. That was nice. This was what I was made for. I meant to take a minute just to enjoy it when the door flew open and a man was in my personal space.
He was tall with a shock of purple hair. He was covered in swirling black tattoos all the way up to his chin and he had a ring through his septum and lip. He was exactly my type, but he also had me cornered with only an expensive, hard to replace violin as a weapon.
“Woah,” he said, holding his hands up. He had a sexy voice and an accent I couldn’t place. “I was sitting with Meadow while she was practicing her cello. I came to see who inspired her the join in. That was fucking gorgeous. I guess I should have knocked, huh?”
“That would be wise because if I ended up breaking this expensive violin, I would have shoved the pieces up your ass.”
His face brightened.
“I’d give you my real name, but you’d mispronounce it with a song and I’d have to kill you. You can call me Topher.”
“Harlowe.”
I couldn’t figure him out. I didn’t think he was a dancer or a musician. Well, I knew he wasn’t a dancer. He would have had to dye his hair back if he was a dancer because the Nutcracker was only a few weeks away and they would have done promo photos.
The rules for that varied by orchestra. Some didn’t care, some did. It was why all my tattoos could be covered with orchestra blacks. He could be an art student, but why was he in the practice rooms instead of the art studios?
“Relax, Harlowe. It’s not that deep and I’m not here to hurt you. I’m not a student here. I’m a scout, of sorts. Sometimes, you’ll see me and sometimes, you won’t. It’s my job to figure out who to put you in front of as you graduate. And I’m very good at my job.”
“I thought Dr Faustus was the one with the connections?”
“He’s not the only one. And have you met him? I’m much more likeable than that malcontent tosser. I’m also loads better looking.”
I mean, he wasn’t lying. Topher was beautiful.
He was built like he could be in the dance program, even if he was much taller than the average dancer.
Topher was all hard lines and sharp cheekbones except for that full, soft mouth.
I put away any thoughts about that mouth because my dating history was full of mistakes and bad decisions.
Even a one night stand with this guy was a bad idea.
Down girl. There were probably plenty of people here if I got tired of my vibrator.
“I saw you thinking about it for a minute,” he smirked. “You shut that down pretty quick. A weaker person would have asked me for a shag in exchange for a good audience. Several of them have.”
“If I ever fucked you, it would be because you look like that. If I end up graduating from this place with a contract, it’s going to be because I earned it, not because I fucked the pretty goth boy who knows people.”
“Students are off limits, but you just made me hate my job,” Topher moaned.
Looking at him, I hated his job too. Pity he wasn’t just an art student. Still, Topher looked like he was my age. How did he get so many connections in the art world and if he had them, what was he doing here at his age instead of out in the world being an average twenty-six-year-old?
This was a strange place.