Page 101 of Not Another Love Song

“Happy? I saw you play tonight. You were more in tune with the music than I’ve ever seen you. That—tonight—was happiness.”

She shook her head, refusing to let his praise reach a place deep inside of her. She reached for her clothes. “You know, I was finally feeling confident as first chair—finally feeling comfortable—”

“Comfortable,” he repeated. “You’re not supposed to feel comfortable, Gwen. You’re supposed to feel challenged!”

“Don’t—” She huffed, pulling her shirt over her head. “Please stop explaining to me what I’m supposed to be feeling when I play music. You’ve been doing that since the first moment we met, and it’s insulting, even when you don’t mean for it to be.” She grabbed her underwear and tugged them on, trying to push all of Mabel’s warnings out of her head. The things she’d said about Nathan and Ava—so many times he treated her like a pupil instead of an equal.

All the parallels Mabel had seen from a distance that Gwen couldn’t possibly pick up on when she was inside of it.

“Why are you getting dressed?” he asked.

“I can’t fight with you while we’re naked,” she muttered.

“We’re not fighting, we’re discussing this.”

She snorted derisively and flung his boxer briefs at him. “‘Discussion’ implies that we’ll come to an agreement.”

He caught his underwear in one hand, eyes digging into her. He slipped them on and said, “Why aren’t you considering it? Why won’t you leave the Pops? What’s keeping you there?”

“The Pops is the first place…” Her throat closed. Memories flashed before her—her mother in a hospital bed, her grandfather hooked up to a respirator. She swallowed. “I have family there. I have consistency. I have Henry, and Mei, and even fucking Diane! I can show up and know I belong.” She looked up at him. “You have actual family there, Alex.”

“They’re not my family,” he said with a shake of his head. “They haven’t been in a long time and—”

“I was at your mother’s house this morning. She misses you. She was hoping you would show up, like she’s always hoping for you. Waiting for you.”

“Waiting for me to fail,” he snapped. “Waiting to take the dangling carrot away. That’s what they do, Gwen. Has Mabel even told you what they did to her?”

She stuttered and refocused, unwilling to let him change the subject.

“Did you even want first chair?”

“My entire life,” he said sharply. “That’s what they raised me to want. ‘Three videos a week, Alex, and then you’ll be special. Just one year in cellos, Alex, and then it’s yours.’” He looked like he wanted to kick something.

“And you would have given up ‘Xander Thorne’ to return to violin?” She shook her head at him. “They gave you a year to prove yourself, and you were late, hostile, and unprofessional. If you really wanted out of your contract with Lorenz, you would have tried, Alex.”

He stepped toward her. “I was running two different careers—”

“You didn’t have to be! You could have cut ties with Lorenz and come to the Pops. Were you really so afraid of being no one for just a little while?” She stared him down, and his hesitation was clear. “You were. You were scared to leave Xander Thorne behind.”

“Do you have any idea how hard I’ve worked to get where I am?” he said. “How much I had to leave behind already—”

“You mean your family? Your name? Those things that could have opened any door in the world for you?” She felt her top lip curl.

“It was suffocating, Gwen!” His hand went to his chest. “I was drowning for years! The need to be perfect, the need to be better. None of it was for me, it was for everyone else!”

“That’s not true, Alex,” she said softly, trying to make him see. “I know you. I know how you play. You start over when it’s not good enough. You can’t stand it when you feel you did less than perfect. You might have thought you were trying to be perfect for your parents, but it was for you as much as for them.”

She moved to him, hoping she could convince him to stay. To give it up. His jaw was tense and his eyes locked on hers.

“I know you put in a lot of work and time to the Roses. But it doesn’t belong to you, Alex. It belongs to Lorenz.”

He blinked at her, brows furrowing.

She placed her hands on his arms. “You think you got away from the need to impress people, but Lorenz is still in charge. He owns too much of you. Come back with me. Finish out the season. Fulfill your obligation, and then choose something else.”

He swallowed. “And what are you returning to, Gwen? When you first picked up a violin, was it your dream to tune an orchestra and notate the score? To step aside when a guest soloist blew into town?”

Gwen bit her lip, her breath moving quickly. She thought back to watching videos of the New York Philharmonic when she was twelve. To asking Mabel why the first violin had to step aside for Hilary Hahn when she was the one who did all the work. Was an entrance and a bow really what she wanted? Or was it the hum of the crowd tonight, the deafening noise from hundreds dancing that still overpowered the acoustic applause of thousands in velvet-lined chairs. The lights. The thrum.

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