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Jules grinned and lifted one leg so that she could slip over Billie’s torso, straddling her again. Billie felt Jules pressing against her, felt her hands cupping her face, pulling her up into a long, lingering kiss. She groaned into Jules’s mouth.
“Sorry,” Jules said, pulling back. “I really do have to go though. I’ll be back in a second. I’m sure you can keep yourself occupied until then.”
There was a sudden coolness as Jules left the room and Billie tried to stop herself wondering just what was happening and failed miserably. This was nice, too nice. Surely there had to be a catch. And even if there weren’t, she really couldn’t spend hours, days, a lifetime with Jules Hawthorne, could she?
Except she could almost see herself doing it. Could almost see herself settling into this comfortable life. Could almost see herself waking up next to Jules every morning, stroking her skin, kissing her lips…
“You’re supposed to be keeping yourself occupied, not taking a nap,” Jules said, coming back again. She walked behind the couch and out of view. “Although I suppose if that means you’re getting a second wave of energy I might not be opposed to napping.”
“It’s a quarter to eleven,” Billie said lazily.
“Well, you don’t have any neighbors close by,” said Jules, coming around the couch with an intimately familiar box in her arms. She laid the violin case down on the coffee table. “Play.”
Billie struggled to sit upright. “What?”
“You heard me,” Jules said, standing there as naked as the day she was born, legs long and waist tight and breasts high in a way that made Billie’s nerves tingle with anticipation. “Play.”
Billie looked at the case, her mouth drying out so that she had to swallow. “I… I can’t.”
“This is the one thing that you definitely can do,” said Jules, hands on her hips. “Besides, it’s just me, I don’t know Mozart from a hole in the ground, so anything you do will be impressive to me.”
Billie’s hands were shaking already. “Jules…”
Jules leaned down, leaned in, taking Billie’s face in her hands again and kissing her lips gently, then the corner of her mouth, then the tip of her nose. “Play for me, Billie, please?”
Suddenly, in the quiet of the night, with Jules snuggling in the corner of the couch, it all seemed like a good idea. Suddenly, Billie’s hands stopped shaking and she felt the thirst to play, a thirst she hadn’t felt in a long time.
She snapped open the case, pulled out the bow and tightened it, rosining it slightly so that amber dust leaped into the air. Her fingers plucked at the strings as her other hand turned the tuning pegs until the notes slid into place.
Then she did it. She lifted the violin so that it slid into its home, the place at the hollow of her neck, where the calluses lay, her fingers found their place, the bow became an extension of her arm, and whatever had been standing in her way dissolved into nothingness and she began to play.
When she was done, when the stiffness had left her hands and she’d limbered up and the playing came as naturally as it had before, she lowered her bowing arm and turned to smile at Jules. Only to find her with tears tracking down her face, her nose red, her blonde hair mussed.
“Jesus,” Billie said. “I wasn’t that bad, was I?”
Jules hiccuped a laugh. “No, not bad at all.”
“You said yourself you’re no expert,” said Billie, laying the violin gently in its case.
“Come here.”
Billie obeyed, sitting on the couch and then allowing herself to be pulled back into Jules’s arms. She felt… oddly satisfied. Oddly complete again.
“You’ll never be good enough,” Jules said, stroking Billie’s hair away from her face. “But only because no one ever is.”
“Hardly the motivational speech I was expecting,” Billie said, her muscles tensing somewhat.
“Not being good enough is what keeps us going,” Jules said softly. “It’s what keeps us practicing, keeps us moving, that constant drive to be better. Whatever it is we do, however good we are at it, we’ll never be quite good enough. When does a painter stop painting? When does a violinist stop playing? Never, because they never capture perfection.”
Billie slid up a fraction so that she could tilt her face in Jules’s direction. “That wasn’t Cora’s point.”
“I know,” Jules said. “She meant you weren’t quite good enough to, I don’t know, play for the Royal Philharmonic or whatever. And probably you’re right, she was right. But that just means you have to come up with something else to do, not that you need to stop doing what you love. If this is what you love.”
“I don’t know,” Billie sighed, even though she did know because as soon as that missing piece had come back she’d started to feel better. Although that could just as well be Jules, she supposed.
“There are exceptions,” Jules said, sliding downward so that her breath was hot on Billie’s throat.
“Exceptions?” Billie said as Jules started to kiss her neck and sensations started to tingle up and down her spine.
