Chapter Twenty-Five
iFELIZ CUMPLEA?OS!” THE words burst out of me as soon as my sister answers my FaceTime call. “Thirty freaking years old!”
On my phone’s screen, Amanda’s face lights up with a big grin. “Thank you!”
“What’s the birthday girl up to today?” I ask as I flop onto one of the den chairs we never use, careful to hold my phone so she can still see me.
“Well, I’m off today,” she replies, and then I’m being carried from one room to another as she moves around her apartment. “I’m going to a yoga class in a bit, and then we have dinner reservations at Carmino’s.”
“Oooo, fancy,” I say with a wiggle of my shoulders. “Then you’re going up to Besos, right?”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Rosa has your gift from me, by the way. She might have left it with Mom and Dad.”
Amanda nods as she sets me on her bathroom counter. “She told me. She’s bringing it to dinner tonight.”
“Good.” I watch as she brushes her long, wavy hair into a ponytail. My stomach sinks with guilt over not being there for this birthday, for missing such a big celebration in her life. My beautiful little sister, somehow thirty years old. “What else are you doing this weekend?”
“Well, I think I want—Oh!” Her eyes go wide as she looks down at the phone screen. “Who is that?”
“Sorry,” Oliver says as I whip my head around. He’s waving his hand as he backs away from the chair, hair askew, face already scarlet. “I didn’t know it was a FaceTime, sorry—”
“It’s fine!” I say, beckoning him closer with one hand. “Come here, come meet my sister. Again.”
His forehead creases as he looks at me, eyes pleading for mercy, but I persist. He was rude to them once and apologized for it; it’s time for a fresh start.
I hop off the chair so I can fit us both into the small phone screen with my hand extended. We’re practically cheek to cheek. “Amanda, you remember Oliver, right?”
“I do now,” she says, eyebrows raised so high they almost disappear into her hairline.
“Hi, Amanda,” he says softly, while I sneak my free hand around his back to touch him. “Happy birthday.”
She picks up her phone and brings it closer to her face. Her eyes dart between the two of us. “Thanks. How’s it going up there? You two working hard?”
“Always,” I say at the same time he says, “Great.”
Oliver and I look at each other and smile.
“Uh-huh.” Amanda’s response pulls me back to my phone. “Seems like you’re having some fun, too.”
“We try, but mostly we sit in the studio all day,” I reply with a shrug.
“Well, I can’t wait to hear all about it when you get back,” Amanda says, her tone carefully laced with something I can’t name—sarcasm, maybe, or just shrewdness. “When is that, by the way?”
Chris’s email hangs over me as I reply, “Not sure. I’ll let you guys know as soon as we get it figured out.”
“All right. Well, I gotta go to yoga. You two be good or whatever.”
I cock my head at this weird goodbye. “We will. Happy birthday! I love you! Tell everyone I said hi!”
“Love you, too,” Amanda says, and then the phone goes black.
Next to me, Oliver lets out a sigh as he adjusts his glasses. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was a FaceTime. I didn’t mean to interrupt your sister time.”
“Oliver, it’s fine,” I say with a reassuring squeeze of my hand. “The more the merrier and all that.”
Now that I’m looking at him, I can see how beat he is.
We started early today, so for the last couple of hours, we’ve been taking turns transcribing our handwritten notes and scribbles into the notation software.
This has been our life for the last week now that shooting has wrapped.
The big brainstorming moments at the real piano—the fun parts—are all but gone.
We’re into the nitty-gritty of it now, writing out the music we’ve created so that a real orchestra can perform it in just a couple of months.
The pressure was immense before we got that email from Chris last night, which Oliver and I have yet to discuss, but now?
Now I feel like I can barely breathe for all the directions I’m being pulled in.
Finishing Lineage and doing it justice. Getting back to New York in time for the dinner.
The fact that I’m missing my sister’s birthday and tried to stave off my own guilt with a gift I couldn’t afford.
Not to mention the fact that I’ve started sleeping in Oliver’s bed every night.
I have no choice but to deal with all of this later. Work comes first, as I told Oliver a few weeks ago.
“I can take over,” I say as I gesture to the studio door left open. “You’ve been at this for a while.”
“I don’t mind,” he mumbles as he rubs his eyes under his glasses.
When he’s done, I pull his hands into mine. He wrenches his gaze from the studio to me. My stomach does a little flip when his lips curl up into a small smile.
“Let me.” It’s basically a plea; I need something singular to focus on, something that will take all my brainpower. “I want to.”
“Okay.” He kisses me once, briefly, the kind of thing that feels so familiar that it’s somehow just as intimate as the scorching ones we share when we’re naked in bed together. “I’ll make us some lunch. Or breakfast. Whatever time it is.”
When he leaves, I shut myself into the studio. Here, it’s just me and the music. All my anxious thoughts are out of sight and out of mind. At least, this is what I tell myself.
When I wake up the next morning, the bed is empty. My hands stretch out instinctively to reach for him, only to be met with cold sheets. Confused, I sit up and look around the room. Oliver is nowhere to be found.
The temperatures are dropping dramatically now that we’re into October, so it takes a great deal of effort to pull myself out of the comfort of the warm bed and stumble into the bathroom.
I rush through my usual morning stuff, fueled in part by genuine concern for Oliver in addition to the constant companion of my nerves.
Ever since I half moved into his bedroom, he’s been sleeping through the night.
If he did manage to escape and take himself on a field trip—well, then I guess I’m going to learn how to drive today.
Turns out, there’s no need; I find him as soon as I enter the kitchen.
He’s already dressed in a black chunky cable-knit sweater with dark denim jeans.
There are two to-go coffee mugs on the counter and some kind of insulated lunch bag next to them.
I rub the sleep out of my eyes and pull at the T-shirt I slept in, feeling very underdressed.
“What’s all this?” I croak.
He swerves around the kitchen island to wrap me in his arms. After working until well after midnight, I’m so tired my limbs feel like wet noodles but I do my best to hug him back. All I want to do is burrow into that sweater of his and go back to sleep.
“Good morning.” His lips are warm and soft as he places a kiss on my forehead. “I planned something for us. We need to get out of the house.”
My eyes close as I lean into his body heat. “Mm. Or we could stay here and go back to bed.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he mutters darkly, and I smile against his chest. “I could tell that you were in the zone yesterday so I didn’t want to pull you out of it, but I can also tell that you’re tired. We both are. It’s good to get out of here once in a while.”
“But the work,” I mumble just as my heart cinches in my chest. There’s still so much left to do; I know he knows this because we’re staring at the same screens day in and day out. Every day that passes is one closer to when we need to be fully finished. One closer to when this all comes to an end.
“The work won’t get done if the maestros can’t function,” he chides. “It’ll be here waiting for us when we get back.”
I force myself to open my eyes. With a sigh, I reply, “Okay. Just for today.”
“Great.” He leans back enough that I can see how big his smile is, and suddenly I find that I don’t care how much time we’ll lose doing whatever it is he has planned.
With the way he’s looking at me now, I’d be willing to take a week vacation to a remote island where there is no internet or instruments.
“Do you want to eat breakfast here, or take it to go?”
“To go?” I ask in question. “What are we doing?”
“It’s a surprise.” His eyes sparkle with excitement; I can feel the energy thrumming through him. “Wear some layers. It’s a little cold out today.”
He releases me, and I hurry upstairs to my old room to find something to wear.
I throw on some jeans, my favorite tan leather boots, and a white sweater.
A few minutes later, I’ve pulled my hair back into a ponytail, swiped on some mascara, and fished a flannel jacket out of the depths of my suitcase.
When I return downstairs, he already has the SUV running to warm up.
Once we’re buckled in and cruising down the driveway, I crack my window and sip my coffee.
The air has that distinct autumn chill to it now; it smells both fresh and earthy, probably because the trees overhead are in the middle of transitioning from green to orange, red, and yellow, some of their leaves already on the ground.
It’s a gorgeous day with a cloudless blue sky.
“Okay, this was a good idea,” I admit once the caffeine hits my system and Oliver turns down the highway. “It’s really beautiful out.”
He’s swapped out his regular glasses for his black Wayfarer sunnies, a look that still does it for me apparently.
When I look at him, I’m struck not just by how handsome he is, but how cool he looks.
The high-neck black Moncler jacket he’s got on frames his jawline in such a way that I wonder how it took me this long to notice how hot Oliver Barlowe is.
“Told you,” he says with a playful smirk.