Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“Don’t we make pretty pictures,” he murmured bitterly.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” Amani said. “I didn’t mean to pry. I was just looking around while I waited.”
“Wouldn’t put them out if I had a problem with them being seen.” Victor offered a dry, humorless smile; he looked tired, today, as if something had been sucked out of him, leaving him as empty as this apartment. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I had a meeting to negotiate buyout and takeover of a foreign competitor, and it didn’t go well.”
Amani arched a brow. “Did you manage to offend them, too?”
“No, they just wanted to sell a niche company for half the GDP of a small European nation. I didn’t see any market value in that and it actually could have had a detrimental impact on the local economy in their home country, so I refused. They didn’t take it well.” He smirked half-heartedly. “Contrary to what you might think, I don’t like wasting money.”
“That does come as a surprise.”
Victor only smiled faintly, then turned away. “Do you mind if I take a moment to change?”
“It’s your house. Your hour.”
“Forty-five minutes, now, I suppose.” A lingering glance slid over Victor’s shoulder. “I’d hate to waste it.”
Amani said nothing, only watching as Victor crossed the room, a rather telling slump to his shoulders and weariness to his stride—yet still he carried himself with his back straight, stiff with pride. He bent to pull a few meticulously folded items from the drawer at the foot of the bed, then vanished behind that translucent obsidian screen, nothing but a silhouette of powerfully flexing muscle as he began undressing in soft rustles of cloth.
Tearing his gaze away, Amani crossed the room to settle down on the couch next to his cello case, crossing his legs. Victor’s Ficker was still resting on its stand, the bow on its own little stand next to it, and Amani reached over to stroke his fingers over the aged wood, feeling its texture, how it had been worn and polished and worn again, the subtle places where he could feel the repetitive patterns of fingers against the wood of the upper and lower bout.
“Would you like to play it?” Victor asked softly—once again making Amani start, heart briefly skipping as he pulled his hand back. Victor moved far too quietly, with a certain lithe grace, tread likely even more silent thanks to bare feet that peeked out from the frayed cuffs of another pair of designer jeans, faded gray-washed denim sitting on him as if it had been made for him, his loose V-neck t-shirt in muted dark violet slouching against him as if trying to cling lovingly to every sculpture of his body. He’d mussed his hair, breaking it from its slick-shellacked coiffure into lazy, messy tangled sweeps.
And that awkward smile was back, almost shy, as he glanced over Amani once more before clearing his throat and looking away.
“I just,” Victor started, before trailing off and trying again. “I’ve heard unless they’re factory-assembled, no two are alike. Every one feels and sounds different. So I thought…maybe you’d like to try mine.”
“Not right now,” Amani said. “I’m not sure I’ll be playing for this lesson.”
“No?” Victor chuckled as he sauntered closer, then drifted past Amani to sink down in the chair he’d occupied last time. “Not going to show me up again and remind me how woefully inadequate I am?”
“You’re not woefully inadequate. You’re just out of practice.”
“That’s fair. I won’t be up to the level of someone who practices every day.”
Amani winced. “I don’t practice every day.”
“Oh?” Victor’s brows lofted. “How often do you practice?”
“I don’t,” Amani admitted, and wasn’t ready for the rush of shame that brought, this feeling like he was bleeding right down the center of his chest. “At all. Your first lesson, that was my first time playing in…” He lowered his eyes, looking down at his hands, curling them together. “Since shortly after my surgery.”
“I…I’m sorry.” Victor actually looked pale, drawn, worried as he leaned in, looking at Amani intently. “I’d assumed you still played to practice, at least.”
“No.” Amani shook his head. “I was afraid to.”
Because I let go of what mattered most to me. Because I walked away from a legacy I’d sworn I’d carry, as if the weight of a ghost was too heavy to bear. Because I…because I…
“Because I made myself afraid,” he murmured.
Victor said nothing for several breaths, before offering gently, “We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to. We don’t even know each other.”
“No, we really don’t, do we?” Amani smiled faintly, lifting his gaze from his hands to meet pale, solemn blue eyes. “Yet you managed, somehow, to force me past one of my greatest fears so I could finally reclaim one of my greatest loves—and it happened so easily that I almost didn’t notice it.”