Page 83 of Not Another Love Song

Staring off over her shoulder, he tightened his jaw, the muscles jumping. “It doesn’t matter now.”

But it did. Realization cracked over her. He’d wanted first chair so he could get away from Lorenz. And she’d taken it from him.

“Why did you agree to return this season?” she asked, voicing an unanswered curiosity. “If they weren’t going to give you first chair, I still don’t understand why you came back. Lorenz couldn’t have been happy about it.”

Alex’s gaze locked on her, eyes burrowing into her own. He lifted his hands and placed them gently on her jaw. “Because my apartment still smelled like you.”

She blinked against the sunlight, her pulse pounding in her ears as she bit back a smile. “Didn’t Mabel ever tell you never to let a girl get in between you and your instrument?”

He leaned forward and kissed her softly. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve ignored her good advice. Can we go upstairs? I have to make dinner and ask my girlfriend if she’d be my girlfriend. And then I want to tell the whole world she said yes.”

Gwen’s face was on fire, her smile bursting from her lips even as she pressed them together. She nodded into his shoulder and let him take her hand to lead them inside.

Gwen woke up the next morning to the drifting melody of a violin, the smell of an iced vanilla latte, and the blinking of a very active phone screen. Two missed calls from Jacob. A text from Ava, asking for coffee. Seven emails from Nathan. And a bundle of Instagram notifications.

Around midnight last night she’d been tagged in a photo that @Xander_Thorne had posted.

From their pancake adventure. Pancake mix all over her cheeks, her face mid-laugh, reaching out to swipe batter into his hair.

You make me so happy @GwenNoFear.

She slapped a hand over her mouth, choking back a laugh. They really were together now. A public announcement that no one could ignore.

Grinning down at her phone, she watched her follower count rise and her notifications continue to ping.

The number of comments under the post was in the thousands.

CELLO SUITE NO. 4

Before their divorce, his father used to joke that Alex had his mother’s eyes, chin, and fingertips. His father was a guitarist for a one-hit rock band in the eighties, and was always trying to find his footing among the Fitzgerald musicians in the house, but he always loved to hear Alex play. He kept a violin tuned at his house in Jersey, and when Alex was no longer playing violin, he bought a cello.

The first morning that Alex found Nathan Andrews in his mother’s kitchen in only his pajamas, Nathan had tried to cut the tension by asking fifteen-year-old Alex to play for him. He had the audacity to give him notes. Barefoot and critiquing him, while Alex’s mother showered.

By the end of his first year at Juilliard, Alex was over it. The intense stress, the life-or-death stakes, the professors who hadn’t worked in ten years but still preached like they knew the business. One of his friends—or “partners”—pointed out that he would never feel the need to prove himself there because he could always just go be Alex Fitzgerald. He started looking into how quickly one could graduate, and when that didn’t give good results, he started booking engagements on his own.

His mother cautioned against it. He had to go over her head to the board of directors at the Pops to ask if they had any need of a soloist in any of their upcoming concerts. Nathan shot it down. They both FaceTimed him and explained that his education should take priority for these four years. When he replied, “What if I’m not learning anything?” his mother’s lips pursed and Nathan sighed. “The only way you’re not learning anything is if you think you are qualified to be the dean of the program. Do you think you are qualified to be the dean of the program?” Nathan said.

The next day, Alex sought out the dean of Juilliard’s classical music program, made an appointment for the following week, and prepared to submit his resignation from the school if the dean didn’t think he could teach him anything.

The day before the meeting, he and his duet partner played Schumann’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in a rented music hall, all paid for out of pocket. Calvin Lorenz, one of the music history professors, was in attendance. He pulled Alex into his office on Monday morning, just an hour before his meeting with the dean. He stared at Alex over thin-framed glasses, tapping the tips of his fingers together in silence.

“You don’t want to be here, do you?” he’d asked.

Alex shook his head.

Lorenz thought for a long moment, then said, “Who chose the violin for you?”

“My mother.”

“Ah. The famous Ava Fitzgerald.” His eyes twinkled at Alex, but he thought he might have heard a lick of derision there, something Alex had never heard directed at his perfect mother in his life. “And you? When did you choose the violin?”

Alex blinked at him. “I never did.”

Lorenz nodded. “And you’re satisfied with that answer?”

Alex never showed up to his meeting with the dean of Juilliard. Ava took it as a win, since she’d been contacted immediately by her friend the dean when the meeting was scheduled. But she couldn’t have guessed that she wouldn’t hear from her son for another six years.

Lorenz asked Alex to pick a new instrument. Alex picked cello, and Lorenz’s lips twitched, like he’d won something.

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