Page 65 of Serenade Me

Chapter Twenty-two

Marius

I wasn’t lying when I told her how performing with her last night had changed me.

Well, not completely lying.

Withholding truth, maybe.

Withholding just how much it had changed me.

Withholding just how much my whole life had changed since she’d come (back) into it.

Withholding just how much I knew it was wrong to be lusting after my bandmate and best friend’s sister.

Withholding just how much I feared that I was going to go back to living the life I lived when she would inevitably have to leave it.

***

“Anca,” I whisper her name a few hours later, my voice muffled against the mass of her curls brushing my lips.

“Mmmgnightsleepsleeptimehmmmm,” she mumbles back.

“Sleep sleep time later. Motorcycle ride time now.”

Her steady breathing stops for a moment and her eyes flicker open.

“Did you just say ‘motorcycle?’” she mumbles.

I grin at her, knowing I’ve got her. Underneath that demure exterior is a daredevil.

“Come on, snoring beauty,” I tease as I nibble on her ear.

“I don’t snore!” She protests, pulling herself away from me. I grab her by the waist and pull her back against me.

“Okay, okay. You were just breathing out Tchaikovsky’s 1812 cannon section with your nose.”

“Bastard!” She growls at me as she wriggles away, grabbing my t-shirt from the foot of the bed and pulling it over her bare body. “So? You going to show me this motorbike or not?”

***

The lake is like a mirror.

So still, I daren’t even breathe in fear it will shatter the illusion, the cloudless, moonfilled sky reflected in the crystal clear water.

But for all the beauty of the scenery surrounding me, all I can focus on is the warmth of Anca’s face against my back. Her hands grip the sides of my waist as she straddles the bike behind me, as her chest lays against me, her face turned to the side as she drinks in the sights of Lake Annecy by moonlight.

I try not to think about what I’m bringing her out here to do. And why it needs to be done now.

We don’t say a word as we round the empty road that curves around the lake. Further and further away from the town center as the lakeside homes turn from tourist resorts to weathered, alpine chalets.

I know these houses by heart.

They line up like memory tiles along this strip of road, all leading up to the empty plot of land about two miles from the bustle of the main street of the city center. I lead the bike off the road and up a path into the overgrown grass, turning it so we face out onto the water, and turn the ignition off.

We don’t move for a moment, and I wonder if Anca’s fallen asleep. A deep sigh a minute later eventually answers my question and I feel her peel herself away from me.

“Where are we?”