Chapter Twenty-Nine
The subway doors slid open with a chime, and Cassie stepped out into the rush of bodies, the heat of the platform gone the second she hit street level.
New York in November had a way of cutting straight through you—wind tunneling down the avenues hard enough to make your eyes water if you weren’t ready for it.
Bootheels clicking pavement on Bleecker Street, Cassie tucked the violin case closer against her side as the wind carried coffee and exhaust through the cold. Pulling her hat lower, she picked up her pace, soon pushing through the door of Crimson and Clover Café.
Inside, it was all warmth and noise—milk steaming behind the counter, cups clinking as orders were called.
The place had been there forever—dark wood surfaces worn smooth, pressed tin ceilings, walls lined with old black-and-white photographs of the neighborhood.
It was old New York, not yet gentrified into something sleek or modern, and since moving there, Cassie had always felt at home in it.
“Hey, Cas,” the barista called as she approached the counter, already reaching for a cup. “Your usual?”
“Please.” Cassie unwound her scarf, a quick shiver running through her. “And Jordan’s too.”
“You got it. Go sit.”
Slipping past a couple coming in from the cold, she made her way to a table by the window, resting her violin case carefully against the wall before easing into the chair.
Outside, traffic dragged through the light, horns cutting through the noise as pedestrians threaded between cars. A delivery truck idled at the curb while a guy hauled crates onto his shoulder.
The light changed.
A motorcycle rolled up to the line, low and unmistakably custom—blacked-out frame, stripped clean of anything it didn’t need, the kind of build Nash would notice before anything else.
Pulling out her phone, she snapped a quick picture and sent it off.
It hadn’t gone quiet between them since leaving Clifton.
If anything, she talked to him more now than she ever had.
He wasn’t built for texting—half his replies were one word, if that—but he called most nights.
Usually late, his voice low in her ear while she lay in bed, music playing softly on her end while she stared at the ceiling of her apartment.
Meanwhile, she filled the daytime silence the only way she knew how—with memes, GIFs, and whatever stupid thing she could think up to get a reaction out of him.
This morning it had been a bathroom mirror selfie—wearing only her bra and underwear, violin tucked under her chin while she brushed her teeth.
Multitasking, she’d captioned it.
He’d seen it already and still hadn’t said anything.
Unbothered, she smiled to herself. Silence from Nash usually just meant he was saving it for later—for their phone calls.
The front door chimed. Jordan came in with a rush of cold air, cello case strapped to her back, black leather jacket half-open, bleached pixie falling into her eyes beneath a red beret.
“Fuck this weather,” she muttered, turning sideways between the tables before shrugging the cello from her shoulders and setting it carefully against the wall. “Fuck winter. And fuck this city.”
Collapsing into the chair across from Cassie, she continued, “Some asshole on the subway actually goes, ‘You’d be so much prettier without that.’” She hooked a finger toward her septum ring.
“Like I fucking asked, right? Like I woke up this morning praying some finance bro would weigh in on my face.”
“Please tell me you slapped him with his man purse.”
Jordan’s mouth curved. “Say that again. Slower.”
Cassie shot her a look. Since she’d been back, Jordan had been relentless about the return of her accent—catching it every time it slipped out just to be a pain in the ass.
“No,” she replied, clipped and deliberate. “I will not.”
“Yeah, no, babydoll, it’s still there.”
“It. Is. Not.”
“Cassie.” Jordan leaned forward. “I’m gonna hold your hand while I say this. It gets worse when you try to kill it.”
Cassie made a show of setting her phone down with a thump while Jordan leaned back in her chair, studying her. “So. Have you made any plans to see him yet, or are we still pretending you’re not basically married?”
“We are not basically married. And when exactly am I supposed to go? Between the five and eight?”
Most mornings started before sunrise, coffee growing cold somewhere nearby while she stood in the half-light of her apartment running scales until her fingers loosened. Rehearsals bled into performances, fittings, the works—days disappearing so fast she barely noticed them.
“We’ve got a night off coming up. Plenty of time for a quickie—trip. Whatever.” Jordan waggled her brows.
“You rehearsed that, didn’t you?” Cassie shot back. “And we only have half a night off. And a call time the next morning.”
“Still sounds like excuses.” Jordan shrugged out of her jacket. “We had that three-day weekend last month. You could’ve gone then.”
The barista appeared beside the table, setting two cups down between them along with a pair of plates.
Cassie glanced down at her usual—oat milk latte, extra hot—and a still-warm blueberry muffin split clean down the middle with butter.
Jordan’s was drip coffee and a bacon, egg, and cheese on a bagel.
About to take a sip, Cassie’s phone buzzed against the table.
Nice underwear
Bike’s decent too
She blinked at the texts, a slow grin curling the corners of her mouth.
Jordan, catching the expression, pointed at her with both hands. “Oh my god, you can’t even hide it anymore. You’re so down bad it’s catastrophic.”
“Shut up.” Cassie flipped the phone face down and returned to her coffee.
Jordan grinned wider. “No, seriously. Look at you. You’re smiling at your coffee like a divorced dad in a Hallmark movie. Cas, come on, just go see your man already.”
Sighing, Cassie glanced out across the café.
Irritatingly enough, Jordan wasn’t wrong. She could have gone last month.
Seeing him wasn’t the problem. It was everything after.
What if it felt different in person than it did over the phone?
What if it slipped back into what it used to be?
Or worse—what if it didn’t?
And she was supposed to what? Fly back and forth whenever she could manage it while she waited for one of them to finally say it?
Because out of everything they talked about—Junie, whatever club chaos he’d been dealing with that day, her life in New York, her mess of rehearsals and performances—that was the one thing they never touched on.
What this was.
What they were.
And how it was all supposed to work.
It was like neither of them wanted to be the one to bring it up, so they just kept not saying it.
Jordan took a bite like she hadn’t eaten in a week, then pointed the sandwich at Cassie mid-chew. “You know, I’m starting to feel like your fucking therapist at this point.”
Ignoring her, Cassie tore off a piece of muffin.
Jordan kept going around another bite. “Like, you tell me you had Hozier-level sex with this guy, that his dick is big enough to hang your laundry out to dry—”
“Jesus Christ, Jo—”
“—that he’s changed, matured, whatever.” Jordan waved her free hand around. “And you’re still stalling.”
Cassie didn’t even hesitate; she chucked the rest of her muffin at her. Jordan caught it one-handed, laughing before tossing it back and sending crumbs spraying across the table. “Hey—save the violence for the stage tonight.”
“Need I remind you,” Cassie replied, brushing crumbs off her sleeve, “as your former roommate, that you are not exactly the pillar of sound decision-making either?”
Jordan only grinned around a mouthful, completely unbothered.
“And therapist, my ass,” Cassie continued. “First of all, if I had a therapist, it would absolutely not be you.”
“Rude.”
“Because you’d interrupt me halfway through to tell a better story.”
Jordan nodded solemnly. “Mhm. And it would be a better story.”
“Because I would’ve already been on that plane and back again.”
As the hired Escalade pulled up outside the stage entrance, Midtown was slick with rain and clogged with traffic, headlights smearing across the wet pavement beneath a dim sky.
Cassie climbed out first, shielding her violin case with her coat while Jordan wrestled her cello from the back hatch.
“Why,” Jordan demanded, glaring at the case, “did I choose the one instrument built like a dead body?”
“Because you enjoy suffering.”
“No, I enjoy attention. The suffering is incidental.”
Backstage buzzed with movement, crew members pushing rolling sound equipment through the halls while tuning notes drifted from open rehearsal rooms. Musicians crowded the narrow corridors in various stages of readiness; winter coats draped over black concert clothes as people filtered in and out of dressing rooms.
In the cramped warmth of the dressing room, she unpacked her violin—the one Nash had bought her—and tightened her bow, checking tuning by ear. Around her, conversations rose and fell—someone hunting down missing sheet music, somebody else arguing over a program change.
As curtain time drew closer, she changed into a black silk gown and slicked back her bob, pinning it in place. Beyond the dressing room walls, the muffled sounds of the arriving audience began to swell.
By the time the house lights finally dimmed, performance had already pulled her under.
From first chair, the concert passed in flashes—from the sweep of bows rising together to Natalia’s sharp movements at the podium.
Applause rose and fell between movements while musicians shifted quietly, pages turning beneath the stage lights.
Somewhere near the middle of the program, Cassie caught Jordan trying not to laugh after one particularly brutal tempo change from Natalia, both of them immediately looking away before either could so much as crack a smile.
As stagehands began preparing for the final act, a noticeable tension had settled over the audience, anticipation humming through Carnegie.
Applause swelled through the theater as Florence Welch stepped onto the stage, her emerald silk gown sweeping beneath the lights. At Natalia’s cue, Cassie rose from her chair and crossed to center stage, violin tucked beneath her chin as the orchestra softened around them.
The first pull of the bow across strings—
vocals rising a moment later.
As the song wound toward its end, the final notes of the vocals carrying above the fading sweep of the orchestra, silence slowly settled over Carnegie—
—right before erupting into applause.
Cheers and whistles broke out, building together until one sharp, piercing whistle sliced through the noise.
Then came the shout behind it.
“That’s my fuckin’ girl!”