In Harmony(25)

“I’m fine, thank you,” I said, and I said it so quickly it sounded like I was snapping at him. “I mean: thank you. Sorry.” I was blushing and trembling like an idiot. What was wrong with me? I’m just nervous.

We finally sat down, no more than three feet separating us. He cranked his amp down to almost its lowest setting, so as not to drown me out.

“So,” he asked. “How are we going to do this?”

I took a deep breath. “We’ll divide the recital into five sections—two minutes per section, so ten minutes total. For each section, one of us will do the melody, the other will do the harmony. I’ll lead three, you lead two.”

He was grinning. “How about I lead three and you lead two?”

We’d have to compose the parts we led and then give them to the other person so that they could learn the harmonies. The more I let him lead, the more he had to compose and the more reliant I was on him. “Just trying to save you work,” I told him. “I hate to remind you, but we have to get your grades up, too. Let me take more of the composition.”

His smile tightened. “I want to do more of the composition.”

Because you think you’re better? He really was arrogant…but I couldn’t afford to make him angry. “You know what? How about we just make it six sections. Three each. How’s that?” Does that satisfy your ego?

He smiled sweetly. “Perfect.”

“I’m serious about the grades, though. We’re going to need to look at how we can—”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s play.”

And he was off and strumming and I fell silent. Partially it was the shock of how little importance he seemed to attach to his grades; mostly, it was what was coming out of the amp.

When he’d played in the bar he’d been singing, too. His playing had been great, but it had been just an accompaniment, most of his mind on the words. Now, with nothing to distract him, he could really let loose. It was like a tapestry woven from rich, sweet notes and shot through with threads of crisp magic. I assumed he was playing from memory, because surely no one could be that confident on the fly.

I picked up my bow and tried to follow. At first, it was like trying to coax a huge battleship around a nimble, darting speedboat, and I broke off again and again, my nerves getting worse. But then I saw an opportunity and went for it, and once my harmony was there it added depth to his flighty melody, giving it a whole new feel.

This could work, I thought. This could actually sound pretty good.

And then it came apart, him shifting before I was ready and me screeching with my bow. “Sorry,” I said instinctively.

“You say that a lot,” he told me. “You’re one of those people who spend their life apologizing.”

“Sor—” I caught myself.

“You shouldn’t be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for.” He was looking at me very intently, and I noticed his eyes again. It was dim in the practice room, the aging bare bulb painting the walls with shadows rather than actually lighting anything up. Those blue-gray chips of ice seemed to almost glow, they were so pale and clear. A little part of me was beginning to see what Jasmine had seen, what the girls who giggled and swooned for him saw.

I looked at his tattoo, and wondered if Ruth had been one of those girls, and what had happened that he’d had to leave her behind. “Is she in Ireland?” I wondered.

Then I realized I’d said it out loud.

He looked down at his arm. “Yes,” he said.

“It’s none of my business—”

“And yes, it’s her in the song. We broke up a few months ago. Before the song; after the tattoo.”

I nodded, and didn’t know where to look.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked.

“Of course!” Like I had any interesting stories about ex-boyfriends and names tattooed on my body.

“Why’s the New York Phil such a big deal?”

I opened my mouth, about to say a lot of things. I had plenty of responses, practiced since I was a kid, about how they were one of the most renowned in the world, about how it would take my career to places otherwise out of reach, about how—

“It’s all I’ve ever wanted,” I told him, the words surprising me as much as him.

He was silent for a moment. “All?” he said at last.

I nodded. “All.”

“Well, we’d better get this right, then,” he said. And he grinned, and something inside me that I hadn’t realized had been tensed unwound. It was as if his smile made everything okay, reassured me in ways that words never could.

I smiled back, and then thought that I probably looked like an idiot so wiped it quickly off my face. What was going on? Where was the brash, arrogant Connor I’d known—and avoided—for three years?