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“Hmm. Did your pilot want things to get serious?”
“I don’t know. I think so. I mean, he would have tried it, because he’s the kind of person who can do anything—”
“Tried it? You mean love? He would have tried to love you?”
“He does love me.” I grimaced in a pointless attempt to keep my voice steady. “He did love me, and I think I loved him, but I just don’t know if I can deal with the risks. What if it’s like you and mom?”
“Me and mom?” He sounded confused. “What’s wrong with me and mom? I love her so much.”
I couldn’t take the quiet passion in his words. He meant what he said: love, present tense. I couldn’t bear it. My tears gushed out, emotion choking me. “I can’t deal with that. Loving someone who’s gone.”
“Why, gone? What’s happened to your pilot?”
“Nothing. Devin’s fine. His name is Devin, and nothing’s happened to him, but what if something does? He flies planes for a living. We met during a freaking crash, dad.”
“What? You were in a plane crash? Honey, you have to tell me these things.”
I put my head back against the sofa cushion and beat it there a couple of times. “We were almost in a crash, but he saved us. He’s a good pilot.”
“Then why are you worried?”
“Because mom died.”
My father was silent a moment in sympathy for me, who still hadn’t gotten over this thing, this fact that my mom had died, even though love was stronger than death.
“You’re a scientist,” he said when he spoke again. “You know that things die. I’ll die, your pilot will die, you’ll die, but something comes before that, honey, and that’s life. Experiences and laughter, and memories. Maybe children, maybe animals that become part of your heart. What’s his name again? Devin?”
“Yes,” I said, sniffling. “Some of his friends call him Dev.”
“He’s alive, isn’t he? Right now?”
I thought of Devin that night at The Gallery, pushing Milo off me, avenging wrongs that weren’t wrongs, his eyes on fire.
“He’s very alive,” I said. “He’s the most alive person I know.”
“Then maybe you need him. He might help your bad mood.”
“He probably would, but it’s too late for us.”
“Too late?” My dad’s hmm was sharp rather than pensive. “If you won’t believe me, believe Albert Einstein: Time is a relative term.”
Not in this case, I thought, crying a flood of tears, for all the good they did me. I’ve been awful to him. This time, it’s really too late.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Devin
Another night, another European hotel room.
I’d landed in Frankfurt at nineteen hundred hours with Ayal at co-pilot. It was the first time we’d flown together since our emergency landing in the Azores six months ago. Neither of us mentioned it, although she asked how I was doing.
“Great,” I told her. “Perfect.” Then I changed the subject to her recent engagement, because near-death experiences tended to clarify relationships. Ayal had a gorgeous, hefty ring. If I’d been dating Ella when we almost crashed, we might have ended up together. I might have proposed to her in the weeks afterward with a gorgeous, hefty ring also.
Maybe. But probably not.
I declined Ayal’s invitation to dinner, thinking I might try to pick up one of the German flight attendants, but I didn’t. As usual, the energy was wrong. Instead, I got in a taxi and rode to my hotel, holding my pilot’s cap in my lap, tracing my fingers over the silver trim. It used to remind me of the collars the submissives wore at The Gallery, but I hadn’t been there in a while. I couldn’t work up the enthusiasm to go.
When I got to the hotel, I showered and sprawled on the bed, and flicked through a few cable channels. Nothing interesting. I opened my laptop and typed in her name, even though I knew I shouldn’t. Dr. Ella Novatny. I didn’t even have to type astrophysicist afterward, because she was the only Dr. Ella Novatny on earth.
Fuck. Why didn’t I just call her?
Because I’d never had a relationship like ours, and I didn’t know what I was doing. All my life I’d been a player, a jerk. I didn’t know how to be a boyfriend even if she wanted one, which she clearly didn’t. The whole thing was painful, and to force anything else to happen between us…it would only make things worse.
I scrolled through the results. Not the images. I couldn’t deal with the images of her in her glasses, lined up with her fellow researchers, or posing for a professional headshot. No, I scrolled through the journals and news releases instead, searching for her name and the various articles and prizes attributed to her. She’d published a lot in her career, which I learned was a really science-y thing. It separated the drifters from the doers. She had papers in the Journal of Cosmology and Astrophysics, and New Astrophysics, and The Astronomy Report…
I read her articles sometimes in my lonely hotel rooms, skimming over the words I didn’t know, which was seventy-five percent of them. No wonder she’d only wanted me for sex. I could have just kept having sex with her, and giving her the pain she liked. We both enjoyed it.
But I was coming to realize that wasn’t enough. When it came to Ella, I had a lot of lizard-brain desires and emotions, and none of it made sense. None of it was explainable in words. Like the science journals I read, I only understood seventy-five percent of what I felt, and the rest was…theoretical.
So I didn’t call or text her, just pored over her meticulous articles, taking life one internet search at a time.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Ella
I slowed on the sidewalk as I reached the front of Fierro Music’s New York offices, tugging at my sedate blouse and cardi, and adjusting my glasses. For a centuries old violin-making business, their headquarters seemed surprisingly modern, tucked between brokerage storefronts and a real estate showroom on 19th Street.
Now that I’d found the place, my nerves felt even more on edge. I didn’t know how this visit would turn out, or if Milo would even be there. I’d made an appointment with a polite receptionist, but that didn’t mean Milo would keep it. At this point, I was desperate enough that I had to try.
I was offered tea or coffee in the lobby, but I declined, staring at the old world fireplace and finely worked molding that outlined the high ceiling. There was a faint smell of wood and varnish, a sheen to everything that reminded me of The Gallery. Devin had told me Milo was one of the founding members, and I could see that luxe sensibility here, along with the muted suggestion of power.
Holy crap, what was I thinking, coming to see him? Why was I here?
Because you need to get over Devin, and there’s only one way to do that, which is to lose yourself in panic and pain.
I sat in one of the leather wingback chairs, but I felt too tense to lean back into its softness. The office was quiet, deathly quiet. I’d expected some kind of sound, either instruments playing, or classical music piped over a speaker. After a minute or two, the receptionist’s voice cut through the silence, igniting my anxiety.
“Dr. Novatny? Mr. Fierro is ready to see you now.”
“I…okay.” I stood, feeling stupid. “The son, not the father, right?”
“Yes. If you go down the corridor, past the work studios, you’ll see his office door on the right.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
My shoes sounded loud as I walked across the wood floor. Wood on wood. Everything here was wood. As I entered the central hallway, the scent of varnish and woodwork grew stronger. As I passed, I glanced to either side, into the “studios,” finding tables and tools, and instrument artisans working under white lamplight. The work surfaces were a mess of wood scraps and shavings, but the floors were meticulously clean, and the smell… I didn’t know if I liked it or hated it.
“Well, look who it is.”
I turned at the rough greeting and saw Milo at the end of the hallway, waiting for me. His hard, black eyes didn’t look welcoming. He stood beside
a door that read Massimiliano Fierro in black block print.
“Hello, Ella. How have you been? Come into my office.”
He gestured and I followed him, fascinated by the casualness of his dress. I’d only ever seen him at The Gallery, where all the Doms wore suits. Now, he wore dark jeans and a white linen shirt, like the men and women I’d seen in the workshops, and his long hair was tied back in a low ponytail. All he needed was a leather apron. His office might as well have been a workshop, since there were violins and parts everywhere.
“Did you find the place okay?” he asked.
I nodded, clutching my hands together. “Is your real name Massimiliano?”
“Yes.”
How had I not known that? For all the times we’d played together at The Gallery, I barely knew him at all.
“Do you actually make violins?” I knew his dad owned Fierro Violins, but I never thought Milo and the other employees assembled them in the middle of Manhattan.
“I do. I make them, I play them, I sell them. Please, have a seat.”
His office was like the lobby, only smaller and more intimidating. He sat behind a polished wood desk and leaned back in his chair, pursing his lips.
“Thanks for seeing me,” I said.
“No problem. Does Devin know you’re here?”
