Chapter Thirty
By the time Nash arrived in Manhattan, rain had already drowned the city in darkness.
Not darkness like back home, where night swallowed everything except the moon and the occasional lightning bug.
This was city dark—glass and steel burning against the clouds, shop windows bleaching the wet sidewalks bright enough it barely felt like nighttime at all.
The cab ride alone had been a goddamn experience.
Traffic clogged every street they turned onto, people slipping between cars, structures rising so high they blocked out half the world.
Everywhere he looked, signs blazed through the rain and steam curled up from grates in the street like the whole damn city was overheating beneath the cold.
Not his scene—not by a long shot—but he couldn’t deny the energy of it either.
As the cab rolled to a stop on Seventh Avenue, Nash pulled out his wallet and tapped his card against the screen mounted behind the driver’s seat.
Then he was stepping onto the sidewalk, Carnegie Hall rising above him in pale stone and tall arched windows.
Red banners snapped sharply in the wind overhead while black SUVs idled along the curb dropping people off one after another—women in long coats and heels, men in tailored jackets and scarves.
Nash glanced down at himself. Dark jeans. Black boots. White button-down beneath his black leather jacket—the nicest one he owned, usually reserved for funerals and court appearances. He’d even had Margie trim his beard before he left. It was about as cleaned up as he knew how to get.
Standing there now, suddenly it didn’t feel like enough.
Just then a gust of frigid wind cut straight through his jacket, shoving him toward the entrance.
Up the wide stone steps, through the brass-handled doors, into a glowing gold lobby where chandeliers hung overhead and ushers in red jackets guided people toward sweeping staircases disappearing deeper into the building.
“Ticket, sir?”
Nash unlocked his phone and pulled up the confirmation email. The usher scanned it with a polite nod.
“Third tier, row H. Right up those stairs.”
Taking the glossy program from the usher, he followed the crowd up, feeling bigger and rougher with every step. When he finally stepped into the auditorium, he stopped short.
Massive didn’t even begin to cover it.
Gold balconies curved upward beneath enormous crystal chandeliers while rows of deep red velvet seats spilled out below toward the stage. The shiny wood gleamed beneath the crystal light, reflections catching everywhere he looked.
A man carrying two champagne glasses slipped past him with a quiet “Excuse me,” and Nash resumed moving, quickly finding his row and taking his seat between an older woman adjusting a pair of tiny binoculars and two sharply dressed men, heads bowed together over a shared program.
Down below, the orchestra was taking the stage.
Musicians dressed entirely in black crossed between music stands carrying violins, cellos, and brass instruments Nash couldn’t name. Some sat immediately while others tuned, sharp uneven notes rising through the hall as more audience members settled into their seats.
Then Cassie stepped onto the stage.
Even seated halfway to the damn ceiling, Nash knew her instantly.
The shape of her. The sway of her hips beneath the black gown. Dark hair tucked sleek behind her ears. The way she carried her fiddle—holding the instrument lightly by the neck in one hand, bow tucked between her fingers in the other.
She crossed toward a chair near the front, settling beside her stand to straighten the sheet music there, completely at ease in a place that had Nash feeling like he’d accidentally wandered onto another fucking planet.
Then the house lights dimmed, and the talk around him fell quiet. The conductor stepped onto the stage—a woman in a black tuxedo, slender white baton in hand—and applause rolled through the hall.
The baton lifted, and the musicians straightened, the noise slipping off into silence.
And then the room filled with music.
The strings swelled low and smooth beneath the sharp cry of violins, the sound growing, rolling through the auditorium until Nash could feel it vibrating beneath his feet. More instruments joined in—louder, heavier—the music building until the whole place seemed to pulse with it.
Nash tried to sit still, he really did, but only a few minutes in he found himself shifting in his seat again. Not restless—just frustrated.
Because from this far up, Cassie was just a dark shape onstage, too far away for him to see her face.
And he hadn’t flown all the way from West Virginia for that.
So when intermission finally rolled around, Nash was on his feet before half the audience had even stood, muttering half-assed apologies as he squeezed past knees, bumped expensive coats, and hurried down the stairs.
One level down became two. The farther he went, the dimmer the lights grew.
An usher near orchestra level glanced sharply toward him.
“Sir, can I help you find—”
“Think I found it,” Nash muttered, already sliding into an empty seat as the lights dimmed again.
From here, he could actually see her.
Not just the outline of her beneath the stage, but her. The controlled sweep of her bow arm. The slight movement of her shoulders and torso with certain passages. Even the faint pull between her brows whenever she focused on a difficult stretch of music.
Some songs Nash recognized—Christmas tunes everybody knew. The rest he couldn’t have named if someone put a gun to his head. Too big for the room, too many pieces moving at once, soft one second and damn near thunderous the next.
Then Florence Welch walked onto the stage.
Nash only knew the name because Cassie had been talking about her nonstop for the last month, but even he had to admit the woman carried herself like somebody people paid attention to.
Tall beneath the chandeliers, red hair spilling over the shoulders of a dark-green gown as she crossed toward the microphone waiting near center stage.
A moment later, movement near the violin section caught his eye—Cassie stepping away from her chair, black silk cascading as she crossed to Florence, stopping only a few feet away with the violin raised beneath her chin.
Soon the orchestra began to play, low and haunting beneath the hall’s hush.
Then Cassie joined them, her first note ringing high above the music, carrying sharp before dipping lower into something richer, rougher as the bow moved faster.
A moment later, Florence began singing. Soft, then stronger, louder, rising right alongside Cassie’s violin.
But Nash only had eyes for one woman.
Not because she looked beautiful—though Christ, she really fucking did.
But because she looked like she belonged there. Like she’d been made for the stage lights and silk, to stand beside world-famous singers without looking out of place for even a second.
And still, none of it erased the rest of her.
The girl who could play mountain music with the best of them. Who danced barefoot around bonfires with moonshine on her breath and smoke in her hair. Who talked shit, ran pool tables, rode with bikers, and still walked onto a stage at Carnegie Hall like she had every right to be there.
Most people spent their whole lives trying to be one thing.
But Cassie…hell, Cassie was all of it.
The orchestra swelled around them. Florence’s voice climbed higher, Cassie’s violin chasing right alongside it, the two sounds twisting together until Nash couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
Then the final note hit…and held…before falling away into silence.
And the room exploded—applause crashing through the auditorium as people surged to their feet, Nash among them, pride hitting him so hard it damn near hurt.
Florence laughed breathlessly into the microphone before turning and pointing toward Cassie, drawing another roar from the crowd.
Cassie shook her head, grinning as she pointed right back toward Florence.
Then both of them turned, gesturing toward the orchestra behind them as renewed applause thundered through the hall all over again.
“That’s my girl!” he shouted, shoving two fingers into his mouth, letting out a piercing whistle sharp enough to cut through half the auditorium.
“That’s my fuckin’ girl!”
Florence blinked toward the audience with a startled laugh.
But Cassie—
Cassie froze, her smile faltering as her gaze swept through the crowd. It passed over him once before snapping back hard, her eyes widening when she finally saw him.
Then she was moving.
She turned so fast her gown whipped around her legs, hurrying toward the side of the stage, only to stop short halfway there, spin back around, shove the violin and bow at Florence, and bolt again, kicking off her heels mid-run.
Barefoot now, gown hitched halfway up her legs, she disappeared down the stairs.
And Nash—
Nash was moving too, shoving past people and into the aisle while applause continued crashing through the auditorium.
They collided near the front row, Nash hauling her straight off her feet as her arms flew around his neck.
“Holy shit,” she breathed, grabbing his face, grinning. “You’re here. You’re finally here.”
“We’re going viral.”
Cassie walked barefoot into her bedroom, water bottle in one hand, phone in the other, wearing nothing but the white button-down she’d torn off Nash somewhere between the elevator and her bedroom.
Beyond the tall apartment windows, Manhattan glowed gold and white, the streets below shining dark beneath the rain pelting the fire escape.
Only her small bedside lamp was on, the soft light catching on scattered clothes and fallen shoes.
Hell, she was lucky she’d managed to get the violin safely inside before they made a wreck of each other.
It still didn’t feel entirely real.
Nash in New York. Nash in her apartment. Nash stretched out across her bed in only boxer briefs and one sock barely hanging on, looking like a man who’d been very thoroughly and savagely fucked. Every few minutes, she caught herself staring at him and grinning all over again.
“Look at this,” she said, climbing back into bed and setting the water beside a small, framed photo—her and Connor at her graduation, the tear down the middle barely noticeable.
“What’s that?” Nash asked, cracking an eyelid.
Cassie shoved the phone into his hand. “Jo just sent me this.”
On screen, a TikTok video replayed shaky concert footage of Cassie shoving her violin at a startled Florence Welch before bolting barefoot offstage. The camera jerked wildly after her, catching the exact moment she launched herself at Nash.
Her stomach flipped watching it.
Not with embarrassment. But with that same overwhelming rush she’d felt the second she realized it was him in the crowd—that somehow, impossibly, Nash had found his way into this part of her life too.
“Yeah, well,” he said, amusement flickering across his face as he watched it play again. “You did run offstage like a fuckin’ lunatic.”
“No regrets,” she replied with a shrug, despite the fact that Natalia was probably going to tear her a new one. That, and she was almost definitely getting roasted by the entire orchestra for the rest of her natural life.
Nash snorted loudly, thumb scrolling through the comments.
“‘That violinist saw her man and said fuck this symphony.’”
Laughing, she curled closer, her mouth wandering along his chest and up his neck. God, she’d missed him. His skin beneath her hands. The scrape of his beard against her cheek. Finally being close enough to smell the smoke and soap of him still lingering beneath the sex.
“Listen to this shit,” he continued. “‘That violin handoff was so smooth it’s like she’s done this before.’”
He glanced down at her with a smirk.
“You done this before, Cas?”
“Nope,” she murmured against his throat. “First time abandoning Florence Welch mid-applause for a biker.”
“A biker,” Nash muttered.
With a growl, Cassie snatched the phone from his hand and tossed it aside. Climbing over him, she shrugged the shirt from her shoulders.
“My biker,” she corrected, pressing a kiss to his mouth.
A rough laugh rumbled out of Nash as his hands slid up the backs of her thighs.
“Property,” she whispered with a teasing nip to his lip. “Of Strawberry.”
The End.