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She sighed and poured herself another cup of coffee. Coffee was a new vice, and one she’d very much taken to. For most of her life, caffeine had been off limits. It made her hands shake, and a violinist with shaky hands doesn’t get into the Royal School of Music and definitely doesn’t play with the London Symphony Orchestra or anything else.
There had been a lot of things she hadn’t done, always telling herself that the sacrifices were worth it, that genius demands sacrifice, because that was how she thought of herself. A genius. No, that wasn’t precisely true. That was how she’d been taught to think of herself.
No sports, no birthday parties, no foreign holidays. Music, all the time. Music until it ran in her blood and rang in her ears, until her fingers hurt and her bowing wrist ached. It will all be worth it one day, she’d always heard, always believed.
Except one day had come and suddenly, it hadn’t been worth it, had it? All those sacrifices, all for nothing.
She pushed the electric bill away.
Not that being a violinist earned most people a lot of money. For a long time, they’d lived on Cora’s salary, or Cora’s travel budget, or Cora’s parents’ money. For a long time she hadn’t considered money at all.
Actually, she didn’t think she’d ever considered money. Her parents had certainly never broached the subject. Nothing had been too good for her, nothing was too much to ask in the pursuit of what she wanted, what she needed to achieve as much as humanly possible.
Not only had she never considered money, but she’d never considered anything other than the relationship she had with a shaped piece of wood and some gut strings and a few dead guys that had excelled in putting dots on paper.
She took another drink of her coffee. Still, she had coffee, she supposed.
Coffee and… an invitation.
She eyed her phone on the tabletop.
As she’d suspected, Ava had messaged her and invited her out. Just a drink at the pub, nothing fancy.
Her first instinct had been a small thrill. Getting invited anywhere was a novelty. Her second reaction had been one of dread. She couldn’t just show up at the pub. Everyone would know who she was, everyone would be talking about her and why she was back and speculating and who knew what else.
Which in the end was going to mean that she had to decline. For right now though, she was sort of enjoying having the option.
Though it wasn’t like she had money to spend on drinks.
She was finishing up her coffee when there was a bang on the front door, followed by several more in a distinctive rhythm that she already recognized as belonging to Jules.
She frowned in concern, she hoped Jules wasn’t coming to ask for her money back or anything. Yet again though she found herself looking in the hallway mirror and smoothing her hair back, wiping at a smudge of mascara under her eye, before she opened the door.
“It’s Saturday,” she said. Then she paused, looking a little more closely. “You’re less orange.”
“I’ve had a shower.”
“Well, if it washes off why didn’t you just have a shower yesterday rather than letting me look like a fool and making me worry?” Billie asked.
“You were worried about me?” asked Jules with a grin.
“No,” Billie said. She pulled the door slightly more closed. “And it’s Saturday. No lessons on Saturdays. Not that you have one booked on any day.”
“I know,” Jules said. She ran her fingers through her blonde hair and Billie thought how pretty her hands were. “Um, can I talk to you?”
???
For a second, Jules really thought she was going to say no. And who could blame her? Having a desperate, still mostly orange student turn up on her day off, Jules probably would have laughed and closed the door in her own face.
Billie watched her and Jules tried to look as non-threatening and simultaneously enticing as she could. Billie’s lips pushed out a little as she thought and Jules wondered if she’d ever been kissed by a woman. It was only an idle thought. With a body like that though, Billie must have been popular with whoever she chose to be popular with.
Except Amelia had said that she never went down to the corn field when they were teenagers. So maybe not. Maybe she spent all of her time playing the violin and the piano, just shut up like a recluse and—
“Are you coming in or not?”
Jules looked up to see that Billie had stepped to one side. “Oh, yeah, thanks, I, uh, I didn’t expect you to change your mind.”
“Change my mind?”
