Again.
A small storm had begun to brew in me, rising up from below. A fury for Harper piled on a lifetime of my own. All buried. Pushed down because that’s all I knew to do.
When Ezra Wolfe started in on me in Advanced Piano, the storm began to rise. A tempest was still alive in me—decades’ worth—ready to burst free. I shot to my feet, knocking over the bench, my breath coming hard. Wolfe stared me down, but I didn’t blink. Didn’t move—afraidto move—because every muscle was coiled and ready to spring, to tackle the fucker to the ground if I had to.
And then he laughed and dismissed the class.
As the students filed out, I fought for breath. For calm, pushing it all back down. Harper shot me a concerned glance as she went out, and it nearly all came back, a ferocious need to protect her…
Ezra Wolfe chuckled, bringing me back around. He and I stared each other down, the baby grand between us.
“Well, well, well,” he drawled. “There he is. Or at least, a hint. You want to tell me where that’s been hiding?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said tightly.
“Start with the basics,” Wolfe said. “How is it you play so perfectly without sheet music? Rote memorization?”
“Sometimes,” I said, fighting for calm. “I can hear a piece and play it by ear.”
“The other day you said you can read music but that it’s complicated. Explain.”
“I see patterns in the notes, but things like tempo and dynamic notations are hard to decipher.”
“Hard to decipher?”
“Yeah. Confusing. I have—”
He flapped a hand. “Actually, notes and notations, by ear or not… None of that interests me. What I want to know is, where did thatcome from? The fire just now. Or more importantly, where has it been and how do we keep it?”
“I don’t know,” I said, a small, strange ache in my chest. Like longing. “I don’t usually…”
“Disobey?”
I nodded. The piano bench was tipped over, so I set it on its feet. “It’s not how I was raised.”
“Ah, yes,” Wolfe said disdainfully, watching me put the bench back in its place. “The proper British stiff upper lip.”
I crossed my arms. “You don’t seem to have that problem.”
Wolfe’s eyes widened, and I thought I’d overstepped, but he laughed dryly.
“Indeed.” He ran a hand along the shiny black surface of the piano that matched the lacquer on his nails. “I’ve swung quite far the other way, diving headlong into a deep well of vices. Nearly drowned once or twice, and I still take the occasional swim…” Wolfe looked pained for a moment, then dismissed the shadows. “But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you. I was lying when I said that you play without emotion or heart.”
My head whipped up. “You were?”
He nodded. “I can hear it in your music, but faintly. A tap-tap-tapping of someone trapped in a cave-in and trying to get out. Your technical precision is astonishing, Orion. A talent like yours comes around perhaps once in a century. If only you could break out of that trap…” He shook his head. “You would put me to shame a hundred times over.”
I scoffed, but that pang in my chest came again. The ache for the music I’d abandoned for so long. “That’s a wild exaggeration.”
Wolfe cocked a brow. “Have I presented myself as someone who lets compliments roll readily off his tongue?” He tapped his chin. “I must be giving a sweeter impression than I thought.”
“Not exactly,” I muttered.
“Aren’t you at all curious about your extraordinary gift, Orion?”Wolfe asked. “I don’t understand how you play like you do—emotional unavailability notwithstanding—and not do everything in your power to cultivate your talent. Make something of it. Hell, at the very least, show off and get paid for it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “My family doesn’t show off, Professor Wolfe. And it was never something I knew I could do as acareer.”
Wolfe’s expression softened. “Did it ever occur to youto ask?”
