Chapter Seventeen #2
Our waitress comes by a few minutes later, and we each order a flight of their beers and a burger.
Oliver removes his glasses when she takes our menus and rubs the bridge of his nose.
I pretend not to watch as he does this, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t captivated by how well he’s filled out as an adult. He is a beautiful man.
He’s also a quiet one.
After a silent moment passes between us, in which his gaze lingers over various parts of my upper half, I’m on the verge of throwing my hands up and groaning in frustration over how confusing this all is. I think he must see this, because he clears his throat and leans over the table.
“Listen, about last night.” His voice is so soft that I have to tilt forward to hear him over the ruckus of the restaurant. My spine is stick straight. I’m braced for impact as he continues. “I wanted to talk to you about it this morning, but I didn’t know how. I still don’t, to be honest.”
“I don’t either,” I interject, like a plea.
He closes his eyes and blows out a breath. “I thought maybe it would be easier if we got out of the house, but now I’m not so sure. I didn’t mean to make this weird, Celia. I just… I don’t know. I wanted to be honest with you.”
“I’m glad you were,” I say as I take a risk and reach across the table to grasp his hands. His eyes fly open the second our skin makes contact. “I don’t regret what we did. I really don’t.”
I watch as the tension eases from his shoulders. Almost everything about him softens in that moment, from his jaw to the fingers that had been bunched into tight fists against the table. I squeeze his hands gently in reassurance.
“I don’t regret it, either,” he sighs.
Our server drops by with our drinks then, forcing us apart. We both mumble a thank-you before I take a very generous drink of a wheat beer. Liquid courage or something.
I offer him a small smile. “I think it might be hard for you to talk about things and that’s okay. I’m not asking you to, like, give me a monologue or something. But I am a talker, so maybe just listen for a second, okay? And then tell me what you think after?”
He inclines his head just enough that I understand him; it’s his way of saying, Yes, please go on.
“Last night was—well, it was a surprise,” I start.
“A good one, for sure, and I really do like working with you. That’s just my concern, though.
This job we’re doing together. We can’t let this”—I pause to gesture to the open space between us as he narrows his eyes slightly—“get in the way of Lineage.”
“It won’t.” He shakes his head sharply. “I know that. It won’t.”
I lean forward again so I don’t miss any of his tiny but important reactions. “Okay. That’s good. I think we can see where this goes, you know? You and me in that house, living and working together… we’ll just take it day by day, yeah? But the work comes first. It has to.”
Oliver is careful, so careful, to hold himself together as I talk.
There’s no flicker of anything on his face—no surprise, no sadness, nothing.
It’s not until he takes a long drink of his own beer that the facade starts to crack.
The shutters behind his eyes open, finally letting me know that he’s hearing what I’m saying.
“Day by day,” he repeats carefully.
“This job…” The words dissolve on my tongue. I have no idea how to explain to him what’s at stake for me. “It’s just really important to me, okay? I need to know that I can do it. I need Chris to know that, too.”
He angles his head in question. “You are doing it.”
“We—” I point to him and then me. “We are doing it.”
“It’s a creative partnership, yes,” he replies matter-of-factly. “But you bring a fresh perspective to it. You always have, even when we were at school. Your take on composition was always so new and compelling.”
I raise my eyebrows. Like a moth to a flame full of compliments, I have to stop myself from melting into the table, because all I want is to be closer to him, to hear that someone who understands how hard this job is believes in me.
I shake my head to find some shred of my focus again. “Well, thank you. It’s you, too, you know.”
He sighs, more serious than ever. “I’m not talking about us working together. I mean you, specifically. You always had this unique take on everything from musicality to tempo. It’s true of everything you’ve done in your career, too.”
“My career,” I repeat with a sigh. “What career? I had one internship with a small regional symphony in New Jersey after we graduated, and then nothing. I’ve been writing music for corporations. Literally selling people vacuums and shit.”
He frowns and leans back in his chair. “You write percussion books for jazz. Legitimate artists.”
“How do you know that?”
He takes a drink of his beer and flattens his brows. “The internet.”
I cock my head and narrow my eyes. “You Googled me?”
“Well, yeah,” he replies, and that telltale pink appears on his cheeks.
“I Googled you, too,” I admit after a deep breath.
“It’s just hard. That’s what I’m trying to say—I’ve been hustling for so long, trying to break into this industry, and now that I’m here, I’m terrified I’m going to fuck it up.
I need this thing with Chris to go so well that I get hired for my next gig, because the corporate stuff is drying up.
Not that that was ever what I wanted to do to begin with, but I need to get paid, you know? ”
Even though he’s nodding and placing a comforting hand over my own on the table, I know that he doesn’t really understand what I’m saying.
He can’t. Maybe he’s faced some rejection from the industry, but he already has a few film credits to his name and an IMDB page.
Famous dad aside, he’s been establishing himself for years.
I saw that Deadline article about us. I’m the “newcomer”—the real risk in this situation, the one with the most to lose.
Like my apartment, and my will to keep going in a career when half the world is trying to replace me with AI while the rest just tells me no. That kind of thing.
“Celia, it is going well,” he replies, his tone serious. “Chris’s feedback has been all positive. We’re making great progress. It’s easy to get lost in a project this big, but that’s why we’re in this together.”
“Together.” I nod and swallow hard. “I just… I really can’t blow this.”
“You won’t.” He runs his thumb over my wrist in a gentle, reassuring touch. “You aren’t.”
“Then what about this?” I ask. “About us?”
It’s Oliver looking at me this time, the full version of him, and for the first time I notice that his eyes aren’t really brown. They’re more green than anything, but I’d never know if I hadn’t looked this closely. It makes me wonder what else I’ve missed.
“We take it day by day,” he says, before bringing the back of my hand to his lips. “And the music comes first. Always.”
When our food arrives, dinner becomes a much more lighthearted affair. The easy way we talk to each other about all the little things—from the book he’s reading to my favorite show I haven’t had time to watch—almost makes it feel like a first date. One of the rare ones that goes exceptionally well.
We walk out to the parking lot hand in hand. Instead of opening my door for me, Oliver kisses me senseless against the side of the G-Wagon, and my suspicions are confirmed—last night was not a fluke.
FROM: Student-Announcements-No-Reply
TO: Student Residents
DATE: Monday, December 15 at 9:03 AM
SUBJECT: Reminder: Residence Hall Move-Out Day—Friday, December 19
Dear Students,
This email is to remind you that all students residing at Meredith Willson Residence Hall must vacate the dormitories by Friday, December 19, at 5:00 p.m. This is to ensure that facilities staff can perform critical maintenance work during the winter recess.
Your room assignments will remain the same when you return to campus on January 12. We thank you for your cooperation and look forward to seeing you all again in the New Year.
Should you have any questions, please reach out to your Residence Advisor.
All the best as you enter finals week.
Happy Holidays!
Juilliard Administration