Page 13 of Stolen Harmony
“You want some coffee? Or...” I gestured vaguely toward the kitchen, toward the living room, toward anywhere that wasn't this hallway where Elaine's presence felt so strong I could almost hear her voice. “We should sit. Talk.”
He nodded, pulling off his coat with movements thatwere too careful, too controlled. Like he was afraid that any sudden motion might shatter something important. Water dripped from the fabric onto hardwood that had seen worse storms.
“Here.” I reached for the coat without thinking, some ingrained impulse to be helpful, to take care of things. Our fingers brushed as he handed it over, just for a second, skin against skin. His hands were cold from the rain, callused in a way that spoke of guitar strings and hard work. The contact sent something electric up my arm, and I had to fight the urge to jerk away.
I hung the coat on the hook next to Elaine's, the dark wool a stark contrast to her cheerful red. They hung there together like they belonged, like this was something that happened every day instead of the first time in two years that another person's clothes had shared space with hers.
“Come on,” I said, leading him toward the living room. “Sit wherever you want.”
The space felt different with him in it. Smaller, somehow, but also more alive than it had been in months. I'd grown used to the echo of my own footsteps, the way my voice sounded when I talked to myself out of habit. Now there was another heartbeat in the room, another set of lungs breathing the same air, and it made me hyperaware of every sound, every movement, every breath.
He chose the couch, but perched on the edge like he might need to run. I took my usual chair, the one with the perfect view of the front door and the depression in the cushion shaped exactly like my body after two years of grieving in the same position.
The coffee table sat between us, neutral territory in a war neither of us had declared but both of us were fighting.
I found myself studying him in the lamplight, cataloguing the changes that time and whatever he'd been through hadcarved into his face. He was leaner than I remembered, all sharp angles and hollow places. His clothes were good quality but worn, jeans faded in places that spoke of too many washes and not enough money for replacements. There was a small tear in his sweater, carefully mended with thread that didn't quite match.
His gaze flicked to the tray on the far side of the table, stacked with neat rows of tins and mugs. A grin ghosted across his face.
“Christ, Elias,” Rowan said, plucking up a silver tin. “You running a tea shop out of your living room?”
“It’s called having options,” I replied evenly.
“Options?” He started lining the tins up like soldiers, squinting at the labels. “Chamomile, peppermint, rosehip… You’ve got, what, fifteen of these? I’m not sure that’s options. That’s a cry for help.”
“You’d prefer what? An empty fridge and a six-pack of cheap beer?”
“Obviously.” He smirked, tapping the tin like a judge passing sentence. “Normal people have two choices: tea, or not-tea. You’ve got an entire apothecary. Admit it—you’re hiding a cauldron somewhere.”
I let the corner of my mouth twitch, betraying just enough amusement. “If I were hiding one, you wouldn’t be invited to see it.”
He leaned back slightly, still smirking, eyes glinting in the lamplight. “Yeah, but I’d find it. And then I’d tell the whole town you’re some kind of eccentric wizard hoarding leaves. You’d never live it down.”
The words were teasing, but the sound of his laugh—a sharp, unexpected burst—split the tension wide open. For a fleeting moment, the heaviness cracked, like sunlight breaking through storm clouds.
But then his gaze met mine again, and it gutted me. Elaine's eyes, dark brown with flecks of gold, carrying a weight she'd never had to bear. They moved constantly, never quite settling on any one thing for long. Like he was cataloguing escape routes or looking for threats in the safe, warm space of my living room.
“How was the trip?” I asked, grasping for something normal, something that didn't require either of us to bleed.
“Long.” He rubbed his palms against his thighs, a nervous gesture that reminded me so viscerally of Elaine that I had to look away. She used to do that when she was anxious, when she was trying to work up the courage to say something difficult. “Train was delayed in Boston. Signal problems.”
“The weather's been rough all week.”
“Yeah.”
The conversation felt like walking on glass, every word carefully chosen to avoid the jagged edges of everything we weren't talking about. Why he was here. Where he'd been. What had happened in the two years since I'd watched him walk away from his mother's grave without saying goodbye.
His gaze wandered around the room, taking in details I'd stopped seeing months ago. The stack of unopened mail on the side table. The book Elaine had been reading, bookmark still marking her place like she might finish it someday. The photographs that lined the mantelpiece, evidence of a life that had mattered to someone.
When his eyes landed on the upright piano in the corner, they lingered. His face went carefully blank, but I saw his hands tighten where they rested on his knees. Saw the way his breathing changed, became more shallow.
“That isn't her old piano,” he said, not quite a question.
My throat tightened. “No. Her original one... it broke. During our move here, actually. The movers dropped it comingup the front steps, and the frame cracked beyond repair.” The memory still stung. “I bought this one a few months later and she loved it nonetheless.”
“She used to play every evening after dinner,” Rowan said, his voice quieter now, stripped of the sharp edges he usually carried like armor. “She was good. Self-taught, mostly. Always trying to rope me into learning.” He let out a breath that was almost a laugh, but it cracked in the middle. “Said the house needed more music to feel complete.”
“I remember,” I said carefully, my throat tight. “She talked about it all the time. Wanted to turn this room into a little studio. Pianos, guitars, shelves full of sheet music.” I glanced toward the upright piano in the corner, remembering the conversations, the way Elaine’s face lit up when she spoke about filling the house with music. “She wanted the house to sound alive again.”
