Page 66 of Not Another Love Song

“Well, that was—”

But she was already gone, clicking down the hall toward the bathrooms. She heard the door to the stage open, and Nathan’s voice saying, “You could have warned us. We could have marketed the hell out of— Xander?”

She needed to think. She needed to breathe without his eyes on her. She needed just a moment without his song humming through her blood, his voice at her ear, his fingers ghosting over her skin.

But that wasn’t all she needed.

Gwen turned a corner and rested against a wall, taking a moment. Her heart was pounding a crazed dance. She closed her eyes and listened to the squeak of his dress shoes coming closer.

She was facing a family restroom. She could barricade herself in and refuse to see him. But that was the opposite of what she wanted.

They needed to have this out—one way or another.

He rounded the corner and stopped when he found her. She looked at him, in his fucking tuxedo, panting like he’d run a mile to find her, his skin flushed with more than just the spotlight.

He opened his mouth, but she held up a hand. He waited.

Gwen stepped toward the restroom and made sure it was vacant. She held it open and gestured for him to enter first.

As he passed her, she felt his body brush hers, and she trembled, catching her breath. She followed him inside and shut the door. She leaned back on it and they turned toward each other, both taking a moment before launching into their own speeches.

“Extraordinary. Absolutely—fucking gorgeous—”

“Can’t believe you did that,” she hissed.

“—something so beautiful—”

“I could have embarrassed myself in front of all of Carnegie Hall!”

“—like we were made for each other, Gwen.”

Something choked her. Some long-pushed-aside desire to belong to someone.

She watched him pace, running his hand through his hair, smiling and babbling about what they could be together. About coming on tour with him. About collaborating on new pieces. She felt the door behind her, solid and strong.

His fingers curled into fists whenever his feet brought him within inches of her. His eyes would drop to her throat or her lips or her chest and then he’d pace away, smiling about different arrangements he’d like recorded. With her.

He moved back to her. “Just hear me out, all right? Let me”—he gasped for air—“let me get my thoughts together.” His hands rose to touch her but then pressed firmly against the door behind her instead. “Give this a chance. The two of us. I’m not good with words, I’m not good at speaking things. I’m good with notes on a page. I’m good at music—and that’s what I tried to tell you on that stage just now.”

His eyes were wild on hers, and she felt the air thin, her head spin.

“If you don’t want to be with me, together with me, I can understand,” he said, and she felt her knees wobble. “But, Gwen, please make music with me. I need you in my life. I need to be in your orbit in some way, and if you don’t want me to touch you and kiss you and fuck you, then let me make love to you onstage every night because it’s the most alive I’ve felt in ten years—”

She rose up in her heels and kissed him, drinking his praise down to a place that had run dry years ago.

His lips were soft, open and unmoving above hers as she pressed herself close.

Made for each other.

Pockets in her heart that had been carved out by two different cancers and were still left vacant by Mabel and Jacob.

She moved her lips over him again, begging him to fill those voids.

And then he slammed into her, like a car crash, sideswiping her with his arms, crushing her bones with his frame, and puncturing her lungs with his lips and tongue and teeth.

She gasped. He slid his hands around her back, tugging her body close as he pushed her into the door, licking at her, rocking into her. He groaned into her mouth, twisting his tongue to map her.

“Fuck,” he hissed, tilting his head to connect with her again.

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