Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“Then I can’t just give you a job,” he teased softly. “But I can put a good word in with the hiring manager.”
“That’s all I want. A foot in the door. The rest, I want to be able to do myself. You know throwing money at problems doesn’t fix them, right?”
“You were never a problem,” Vic swore. “And I never wanted to fix you. But I can accept if you want me to let go.”
“You don’t have to let go. Just loosen the chokehold a bit.” When he said nothing, her voice turned gruff. “Hey. Don’t you get all fucking maudlin and disappear on me completely. We are family, you know.”
Siorse broke her the-adults-are-talking silence with a gasp. “You said the f-word!”
“I’m grounded too, then.”
“Vic?” Siorse asked plaintively.
“Yeah, peanut?”
“Are you going away?”
“No, peanut. No. I’m not going anywhere.” He smiled, and his mouth tasted not like sour things, but like fear that wasn’t fear but just the metallic sharpness of a risk, of the unknown, of standing on the edge and knowing if he fell, he wouldn’t see the ground coming. He stood, staring helplessly around the apartment—before his gaze fell on the wash of moonlit silver hanging from the bathroom divider, that gown of starrise and magic. “I just need to do something important, right now.”
l
AMANI CRASHED HIS BOW AGAINST his cello’s strings until it sobbed, until it screamed, until it boomed, until it howled. It was better than sobbing himself, better than screaming, better than breaking something, better than tearing into his own heart until he tore Vic’s name out of himself the same way he’d torn up that contract and tossed it in the trash, then gone on a wild fucking internet spree throwing all of Vic’s shitty aggravating overbearing prick money at any charity he could find with an open donation form.
What had he really thought would happen? He knew better. Even if he’d never had a serious relationship with a submissive, he knew better than to think he could get tangled up with someone—someone like Vic, someone who saw the world through an entirely different lens—on such an intimate level and ever think it would end in anything but disaster. He’d set himself up for it, because he’d been listening to his own desperation too much to hear the tiny timid voice of his fucking common sense.
His fingers burned as hotly as his eyes. Still he dragged and plucked and ripped notes from the cello, curled on the edge of his bed and clutching it to him and holding it fast because it was the one good thing he had left from this.
He could play again.
He could play again, his heart steeped into the wood of his father’s cello, and the joy of quivering strings under his fingers softened the sharpest edges of the little hurts that had cut him open again and again.
When a light rap came at his door, though, he let his aching arm fall, the strings’ throbbing slowly quivering down to silence, as he looked up at his mother, tossing his hair out of his face. She looked in at him with the same pinched, worried look she’d had all week, haunting him like a ghost but letting him have his space. Now, though, she stepped into the room, reaching out to catch his wrist and turning his hand over with a cluck of her tongue.
“Amani.”
He stared down at his palm. At his fingers, an abraded red wound scraped across the tip of his index finger. He hadn’t even noticed the burn, too caught in playing until the strings turned hot.
“Oh,” he said listlessly. “I guess I overdid it.”
“You know better than to do that to your hands if you want to play.” She settled on the bed next to him; he set his cello aside, and she squeezed his hand. “I think you need to talk to me.”
He searched her eyes, and wondered why he’d been lying to her when she’d never condemned him for his choices, for his existence, letting him find his own way with a few gentle nudges here and there just to keep him from banging himself up too hard when he occasionally planted face first.
“You’re right,” he said, looking down at their hands. “I…I’ve been lying to you, and I need to be honest.”
“Of course, habibi. What is it?”
“That client I’ve been giving cello lessons to…” He licked dry lips. “I was giving him lessons, but we were also…we were together.”
She tsked and flicked her free hand. “I knew that. A man doesn’t come to pick up his cello instructor in a limousine.”
“I…yeah.” He laughed dryly. “And it’s complicated and weird, and there are things you don’t need to know, but…I think I love him, Mama.” His mouth forced itself down at the corners in that awful way that happened when he wanted to cry, but refused to let himself, his pride keeping his spine always straight. “I think I love him, but we’re just too different and somehow everything went wrong.”