Page 62 of Not Another Love Song

A black Toyota pulled up.

And because she was so, so not smart, she placed a light hand on his chest, tilting up in her heels and turning her mouth to his cheek, whispering, “Good night, Alex,” before pressing her lips to his skin. She felt him follow her down, turning his head to try to catch her. A hand pressed softly to her hip, and her body shivered.

She pulled away, not daring to meet his eyes again as she slipped into the Toyota.

Not tonight. Her mouth had betrayed her, but she couldn’t help the warmth spreading through her stomach.

Francisco tried to make small talk with her, but she couldn’t concentrate. Not when she could feel her pulse in her lips. Not when the smallest touch to her hip had lit her up, making her body beg for the car to turn back around.

Jacob wasn’t home when she climbed up the stairs. She stripped off her jumpsuit and heels and didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for lying on her bed and slipping her fingers over her clit. The memory of his hand there…his fingers so much thicker than her own. She imagined his dark eyes on her as she touched herself, the hum of Fugue No. 1, Unaccompanied under her skin. She licked her lips to chase away the taste of him and threw her head back as she came, whispering, “Alex” into the dark of her bedroom.

Her body unwound, and she fell asleep shortly after.

Gwen woke up the next morning to a picture in the New York Times of her watching Xander Thorne play Fugue No. 1, Unaccompanied.

No mention of Alex Fitzgerald. And, thankfully, not a word about Gwen Jackson’s dead mother.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

She had a week to cool off. A week to focus on the next concert. A week to spend time with Jacob and concentrate on being young in the city.

And then on Thursday, Thorne and Roses posted a #throw-backthursday on their Instagram: Mac and Xander having a push-up competition from two years ago. They were shirtless, for reasons Gwen could not fathom. She was even able to ignore Chelsea’s annoying shrieking in the background counting, “Eighty-eight! Eighty-nine!”

Mac flopped to the ground at ninety, but Xander pushed through to one hundred and two. Then he stood quickly, panting and pushing his hair back, to collect his twenty bucks as he bumped shoulders with Dom, the violinist.

Gwen had closed her app. Picked up her pencil. Twirled it for fourteen minutes. Watched the video again. And then dug through her emails to find the orchestra roster with everyone’s contact info, thumb hovering over the Gmail address next to “Xander Thorne—First Cello.”

She turned her phone off and went for a walk.

On Saturday before bed, she lay twisted up in a blanket scrolling through Instagram. She was in a deep dive, watching Xander Thorne’s reels from 2021 when he’d just bought Ruby. She still hadn’t hit the follow button out of principle, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy his content.

She listened to him show off, playing his new cello. She scrolled back to rewatch one and tried to turn the sound on.

She tapped twice.

She gasped, shooting up in bed as a red heart exploded over the video.

“No, no, no, no!”

@GwenNoFear had just liked @Xander_Thorne’s video. From 2021.

She quickly untapped, heart disappearing.

He’d still get the notification, but hopefully his 230,000 followers had been too much to handle and he’d turned them off.

“Fuck.” She ran her hand over her face.

Liking a video he posted last week would be one thing. It implied that she had just found his account. Liking a video from 2021 implied that she was twenty minutes into some grade A Instagram stalking.

Gwen groaned and pushed her face into her pillow.

She woke up the next morning to one new follower:

@Xander_Thorne.

The next rehearsal snuck up on her. Very abruptly it was time to decide what to wear, how to act, how much makeup—or no makeup.

Because nothing was different.

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