I stared for a moment and pretended to nearly fall off the bench. “Dear God, Bennett. You’re just killing me.”
“Sorry, let me try again,” she said, meeting my gaze, unwavering. “I love you. With every bit of my heart, I love you, and I don’t want to spend one single day apart from you.” She smiled and touched my cheek. “I want an abundance of you, Orion.”
“I see what you did there.”
“I learned from the best.”
I kissed her softly, laid my lips on hers. My girl, my warrior. Hermouth parted for me, soft and warm, sweet and good. The best kiss of my life because it was with this girl who saw me. All of me. And the part of me that has been searching for a place to put my true self had found its home.
We broke the kiss, and I grinned. “You know what we’ve never done?”
She arched a brow. “Is this about to get super inappropriate?”
I rolled my eyes. “Way to ruin the moment.”
“I’m just trying to stay consistent.”
“We’ve never done a duet. You’re a hell of a piano player, yourself.”
“Oh, please,” she said. “I’m a toddler compared to you.”
“That is not true. There will be no Bennett slander in my presence.” I gave her elbow a nudge. “Come on.”
“What are we going to play?”
“I don’t know. There’s bound to be a duet that we both know. And if there isn’t, we’ll make it up as we go along.”
“Make up a duet,” she said. “Because it’s just that easy.”
“No,” I said. “It’s bloody hard as shit, but that’s what makes it fun.”
Harper studied me. “Your eyes are twinkling.”
“They’re what?”
“Nothing,” she said, smiling to herself. “Okay, Orion Mercer.” She put her hands on the keys next to mine. “Let’s play.”
EpilogueHarper
A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.
—Gustav Mahler
10 Years Later, Boston
“It’s strange how everything happens all at once,” I murmured.
And yet it felt like it took forever to get here.
I ran my hands over the embossed diploma cover from MIT for the hundredth time.
Dr. Harper Bennett, PhD.
“What’s that, baby?”
Mom sat on the couch, applying lipstick in her compact mirror. She looked beautiful in a long blue dress, her hair almost entirely silver now. Pale pink and gold light spilled over her from the living room window of my Boston townhouse. The sun was setting over the city, casting it and my mother in a warm glow.
“I was just thinking it’s funny how I defended my dissertation and got my PhD just as Orion finished his tour. Chapters closing at the same time.”
