28
When I pulled back the curtain just enough to see a black limousine roll up in front of our building, my legs went hollow, as if they’d suddenly been swapped out for cardboard cutouts.
Up until that exact minute, the whole thing had felt like talk—Tess daydreaming about Ryder, her living-room theories on how she’d make him fall at her feet, me nodding along and thinking, yeah, sure.
No real proof that this ridiculous scheme was actually headed anywhere.
And yet, there it was, sleek and massive, the hood of the limo catching the streetlights like a blade.
This wasn’t hypothetical anymore. It was about to step onto our very doorstep.
Okay, yes: the method Tess had used to lure him here would never end up in an etiquette manual. But hell, it had worked.
The low hum of the idling engine drifted up from the street, every second it lingered sounding like a drumroll before the charge. I sighed, trying to calm my pulse, but my hands were already slick with sweat.
Tess looked at me the way you watch a skittish cat circling too close to a crystal vase. She stood in the middle of the living room in full command position, cigarette balanced between her fingers, frozen midair.
“Keep it together,” she said, flat and firm. “Don’t screw this up for me. Sit on the couch, watch TV, and do nothing. If that’s too much for you, lock yourself in your room and let your cooler-headed roommate perform her little seduction dance without interference.”
Hiding in my room wasn’t an option. I had to witness every second of this, so I could turn it into one of the funniest chapters I’d ever write.
The second Ryder left, I’d barricade myself in and type until the keyboard begged for mercy.
Still, I followed her orders: I stretched out on the couch, arranged myself in what I hoped was the most casual position possible, and flipped the TV on to a random channel.
“Keep the volume low. Mirov needs to—” Tess paused, recalculating. “No, leave it normal. That’ll sound natural. Only a trained ear will catch it under the background chatter.”
The buzzer rang. Tess didn’t rush. She let a few deliberate seconds pass, savoring the moment, then picked up the receiver. “Fourth floor,” she said, calm as a surgeon, pressing the button like she was opening the gates of fate itself.
My heart pounded like a marching drum, ready to crack my ribs from the inside.
From the elevator shaft came the grinding whir of the cab climbing.
Tess, unfazed, shifted the cigarette to the corner of her mouth, lifted Rimbaud off her shoulder, and cradled him like a fussy newborn, smoothing down his feathers.
A ding announced the arrival. Tess flung the door open just as a man’s voice echoed from the hall: “Yeah, it’s him.”
Tess stepped back, her gaze sharp as ice. “And you are?”
“Ryder’s security team.”
“Uh-huh. And how exactly am I supposed to know that’s true?”
“Ryder’s downstairs, waiting in the car.”
“Proof?” Tess tilted her chin in challenge. “You bring me a piece of his ear? A photo of him in the limo holding today’s paper? Otherwise, forget it. This bird only leaves my hands for Zane Ryder himself.”
“We’ve got the ten grand in cash.”
“Stay right there. Don’t come closer.” Tess’s voice was low, razor-sharp. “You think I’m tempted by ten thousand dollars? If this bird isn’t found, tomorrow the reward’ll be twenty. The next day? Thirty. I don’t trust you. If you’re really Ryder’s people, bring him up here.”
And without waiting for their answer, she slammed the door in their faces, leaving them stranded on the landing with nothing at all.
“Holy hell,” I whispered, keeping my voice low. “You were amazing. Straight out of some hardboiled flick with Humphrey Bogart.”
Tess smiled without parting her lips, the cigarette still clinging to the corner of her mouth. “The best part’s still coming.”
The elevator groaned its way down, metal grinding against metal. From the street below came a scatter of voices, the slam of car doors, the low thrum of an engine idling in wait. Then—again—the elevator’s rise.
Every sense of mine snapped on like dressing-room bulbs. The sound shifted: slower, heavier, as though the very air was bracing itself. Footsteps rang on the landing—steady, deliberate, the kind that belonged to cowboy boots striding through Brooklyn without apology.
The apartment door stood wide open. No one spoke.
Tess didn’t move, shoulder tilted just so, Rimbaud nestled in her arms like a living trophy. The silence thickened, weighted with expectation.
And then the doorway filled. Not just a man—an arrival. A flash of silk and sun-burnished skin, a scent of wood and smoke announcing him before his voice did. I forced myself to glance only once, as quick as staring at the sun.
Zane Ryder.
In our living room.
His voice—husky, cracked in a way that sounded dangerously sincere—split the silence. “Rimbaud…” It wasn’t a word so much as a wound set to music.
I pretended to watch TV, but my body betrayed me, every cell buzzing with curiosity. From the corner of my eye I caught everything, like an actress sneaking a peek through the curtain, storing every detail to pour onto the page the second the door closed behind him.
Tess didn’t hand him over right away. Rimbaud stayed tucked against her, and she stroked his feathers with the unhurried tenderness of someone guarding a secret. The traitorous bird buried his head against her chest with blissful surrender. Not even a commercial actor could’ve played it better.
“Oh my God…” Ryder’s voice washed over her like whiskey too strong to swallow—warm, gravelly, unmistakable. “He never lets anyone touch him. Ever. Not like this…”
“He’s an angel,” Tess murmured, finally passing the bird with a gesture so smooth it bordered on regal.
Ryder took him, lowering his chin to graze Rimbaud’s head instead of reaching with his hand. “Thank you… thank you so much. The concierge sa id you found him in Central Park?”
“Alone and lost.”
A slow nod. His eyes, hidden behind dark lenses, gave nothing away—whether he was measuring her or the bird. “I’ve got your reward.”
Tess turned without hurry, as though she’d just heard the price of a handbag she’d never consider buying. She flicked ash into a half-empty glass, smoke curling around her profile like a silk scarf.
“I insist.”
“I’m not interested in filthy money.”
The words didn’t drop—they landed like a knife, gleaming and final, wedged between them.
The silence that followed stretched so long I was tempted to turn my head, just to check if they were still there or if they’d evaporated into the tension.
Then Ryder’s voice, sudden, like a needle skidding across vinyl: “Wait… is that—? That’s Lev Mirov! No way. You listen to Lev Mirov?”
Tess didn’t answer at once. She reached for the bottle of red she’d staged hours earlier, uncorked it with a crisp pop, and poured herself a glass.
She took a slow sip, letting the wine roll across her lips and throat like a secret worth savoring.
Only then did she turn, leaning back against the counter, her gaze steady on him as though preparing to deliver a lesson he wouldn’t forget.
“Do I listen to the greatest jazz musician of all time? Which is to say, the greatest musician of all time…” She let the words hang, rich with intention. “…the answer is yes.”
“I’ve never met anyone who listened to Lev Mirov,” he admitted, his voice a mix of surprise and something that edged dangerously close to admiration.
“Neither have I,” Tess shot back. Then, as if a thought had just dropped on her from nowhere, she gave him a slow once-over, the corners of her mouth curling with the faintest trace of disdain. “Actually, it’s strange that…” She stopped. “Forget it.”
He drew his chin back a fraction, stung. “What do you mean by that?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Exactly. Which means you were implying something.”
“You musicians are all messed up,” she said, draining her glass in one swallow and topping it off again.
“You were about to say it’s strange that someone like me, who writes commercial hits, would be a fan of Lev Mirov.”
“Those were your words…”
Ryder sighed, tilting his head, a flicker in his eyes—half amused, half wounded. “Well, for your information, I’m working on a new record. And it’s going to be heavily Mirov-inspired.”
“Good for you,” Tess replied, her tone so glacial it could have sprouted icicles from the ceiling.
Ryder stared at her, motionless, like he was contemplating a twenty-foot statue uncovered in the middle of a jungle: incomprehensible, magnetic, maybe dangerous.
Then she struck him right in the chest. “Sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’ve got an appointment at the Tropical Jazz Club.”
I’d only find out later that it was the legendary spot where Lev Mirov himself played.
In that instant, Ryder would’ve needed a heavy-duty crane to lift his jaw off the floor.