Page 102 of Not Another Love Song

Shaking her head, she closed her eyes and willed away the thoughts and wishes that could take her off course. She plucked up her socks from the floor.

“This is off topic. It’s a moot point, because, unlike you, I don’t break contracts.” She grabbed her shoes and swiveled to him with acid in her veins. “Sorry, Xander breaks contracts, doesn’t he? Because Alex certainly never would.”

His eyes narrowed at her. “You think they’re different people?”

“I know they are!” she said. “Xander is a stage name. A persona. It’s someone you like to dip into for a bit.”

“And who is ‘Alex’?” he asked, and she noticed he was perfectly still, waiting for her answer.

She stepped into him and reached her hand up to his jaw. “Alex is who I fell in love with.”

“They’re…they’re both me, Gwen.”

“Your closest friends call you Alex,” she argued. “You told me you liked when I called you Alex!”

“But I didn’t say you could choose one over the other,” he said. “You think Alex is who you fell in love with, but you wouldn’t have noticed me if I hadn’t been Xander Thorne.”

A frustrated laugh popped from her throat. “Xander Thorne doesn’t exist! It’s a stage name. And it belongs to Lorenz!”

Alex flinched, like she’d struck him. He stepped away from her, looking down at the hotel carpet.

“So…you’re asking me to choose you over my career. But you won’t do the same for me.”

Gwen opened her mouth, a squeak of sound coming out. “But…but you’re so much more than Xander Thorne. You’re a composer, you’re a classically trained musician. You even told me you want to conduct! Xander Thorne isn’t your whole career, Alex.”

His face was stony. “The Pops shouldn’t be yours.”

Her skin itched. She wanted to scream at him that just because he owned a Stradivarius and a Porsche and a twobedroom apartment on the Upper East Side, he didn’t get to tell other people how to make a living. Because that’s what a career was to her—what the Pops was to her. It was a living.

He ran a hand through his hair and stepped back. He looked like he was about to say something else, but then just turned to disappear into the bathroom.

The shower ran. Gwen stared at the closed door, wondering if she should push into the bathroom and force them to fix this. But she didn’t know how. Would he always be searching for the better opportunity and abandoning projects and people along the way? What if one day she was one of those abandoned people?

She grabbed her bag and squeezed through the hotel room door.

No long goodbyes.

The Boston bus station at two in the morning was officially Gwen’s worst nightmare. She’d received a few texts from Alex in the past hour asking—

What room are you in? I’ ll bring your toothbrush and makeup.

I can ask Carlos to drive you back so you don’t have to be in the car with me. Just tell me what room?

Gwen let them pile up, read but unanswered.

When the bus finally took her away from Boston, two hours into the ride, the bus driver announced that the roads were too icy for them to continue, despite the plethora of cars that Gwen could see still driving on said roads. They pulled off to a rest stop with a Motel 6, and for fifty bucks Gwen spent two hours sitting in a chair by the window, waiting for Mabel’s ratty old Civic to pull up.

She said nothing as Gwen placed her bag in the trunk and took the lukewarm coffee thermos she’d offered. It wasn’t until they crossed into Connecticut that Gwen asked, “What haven’t you told me about Ava Fitzgerald?”

It was quiet. She thought maybe Mabel wouldn’t answer.

“I told you we were writing music together,” she finally said. “One day we landed on a really nice idea for a symphony. We were transcribing and writing for about ten years— through her first marriage, the birth of her son, my father’s death, her divorce. We had a lot of bumps along the way, but we kept working at it.

“But she showed Nathan our score and asked if it was something the Pops could do. He said it wasn’t a good fit for the Pops, and maybe he was right.” Mabel’s voice grew tight as she said, “But one day when Ava was playing a showcase in DC with him, he encouraged her to play one of the violin sections. There was a video posted to the internet. That’s the only way I found out about it. Because I definitely wasn’t credited. Not in the newspapers, not in the orchestra chat rooms—yes, those were a thing.” Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “‘Ava Fitzgerald Plays First Original Composition,’ it said. We co-wrote that section. It was probably more like sixty percent mine. I picked up the phone and asked Ava why I wasn’t mentioned—anywhere. She told me, ‘Don’t worry, Mae. It was just a bit of fun. There’s no money in it, so it wasn’t worth going into detail.’”

Gwen’s heart was choking her, watching as Mabel navigated the icy roads.

“It didn’t sit right with me, but it seemed a moot point because we hadn’t worked on it in a year. He wanted Ava focusing on performing, not writing. About five years later, Nathan was doing an interview, and the interviewer brought up that performance. I remember Nathan’s exact response: ‘Ava is a truly talented composer. It’s a shame she doesn’t get much time to work on more projects, but that violin solo is one I was very happy to hear again. We’d worked on it a lot.’ Still no mention of my name.”

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