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I rarely want to these days. I’m getting too fussy. The clean-cut type I hang out with at work does nothing for me. The men I dance with here are hot enough, but at twenty-five, I’m getting too old to drop my panties and bend over in the bathroom.
Although I would have, for Sir Panty Melter out in the alley. Too bad he’s a product of my imagination.
“Darina!”
I grin up at a slender, ridiculously hot dark-skinned man with a full head of sleek silver hair—a stylistic choice, as he’s in his late twenties at most.
“Eochan!” I yell back over the music. “Where’s Cissa?”
His partner—an adorable, pint-sized pink-haired beauty even shorter than me—is never far away.
He grins at his fiancée’s name. “Taking care of a situation downstairs.”
I don’t ask, and he doesn’t expound.
“Have you grabbed a drink yet?”
I crack a grin. “Make that five.”
I’ve had a hell of a week; I deserve it.
The philharmonic orchestra has a new, younger conductor—a nepo baby with something to prove at his first concert. I can admit he’s talented, but the fucker had us rehearsing again and again, without breaks. Then I had papers to grade, as I’m Professor Harwick’s TA this term. The man is known for doing as little work as possible.
I’m stretching myself thin in terms of workload, while all the while not truly challenging myself on an intellectual level. Music and academics have always come easy to me. I’m both incredibly beat and terribly bored.
“Remember, your money’s no good here, yes? The new bartender knows, just introduce yourselves if you or Rain are served by him.”
I beam, because twenty-five bucks per cocktail issonot in my budget. “You’re the best. A terrible businessman, but the best.”
He chuckles easily, glancing over at my friend. “You and I both know whatever club gets your pretty asses on the dance floor has an advantage.”
I don’t find the compliment uncomfortable, because he’s happy to say it in front of Cissa, too. I’ve never asked, but I think those two have an open relationship. None of my business. He’s handsome enough, but unconscious fantasies notwithstanding, I’d never approach a taken guy, and Eochan hasn’t made a move on me either.
“I’ll grab another drink and head right back there, sir,” I announce with a salute. The music’s calling to my heart. Ihaveto start dancing. “How are your DJs always so fucking good?”
“They’re out of this world,” Eochan agrees readily. “You have fun, sweetheart.”
“I intend to!”
I’m making my way to the bar when I hear it. A few notes, one high, one low, and a series of light, airy chords that make my heart flutter.
They’re a soft whisper I shouldn’t be able to hear over the deafening beat of the music in the hall. But I do. Oh, I do.
CHAPTER THREE
BETTER THAN CALLING MY SHRINK
Darina
The next day is challenging. Not in the usual way.
The pain in my bones, my joints, my blood is routine to me. I barely even notice. Fibromyalgia, the doctors call it. That’s the word they use when they have zero clue why their patients are in agony.
The allergies that make me cough and sneeze and lose my breath year-round are pitiless, but all that is also nowhere out of the ordinary for me.
That song, though? That’s sheer torture. Ican’tget it out of my head.
That faint echo of the strange music stays with me, in my heart, fucking with my head.
