"Does it?"
He considered the question with the same care he'd given blocking notes and nervous children.
"It aches, but it's the kind of ache that means something's healing." He smiled. "Holly would probably say that's how it's supposed to work."
"Holly would probably take credit for it."
We both laughed, soft and genuine.
The parlor waited at the end of the hall, heavy curtains half-drawn, furniture draped in stillness. Alex switched on the lamp on the side table, and an amber glow spilled across faded Persianrugs and the wingback chairs his grandmother had refused to reupholster despite their threadbare arms.
He paused to remove the Santa coat, and I watched him reach into the inner pocket to retrieve the cherry wood carving. He held it for a moment—my marks and his woven together on its surface—before setting it carefully on the mantelpiece, positioned where he could see it from anywhere in the room.
The fireplace was cold and dark against the far wall. The firewood box was still stocked—quartersawn oak, properly seasoned, precisely the kind of detail she would have maintained even knowing she might not see another winter.
I knelt on the hearthstones and began stacking logs. The work came easily and automatically. Base layer for airflow, kindling arranged to catch, larger pieces balanced to feed the flames once they took hold.
Alex appeared beside me, matchbook in hand. When he struck the first match, it flared bright—gold edged with copper, throwing shadows that danced across the mantel.
He touched the flame to the kindling. It caught immediately, spreading through the carefully laid structure with hungry enthusiasm. We stayed there, kneeling together on the cold stone, watching the fire build from spark to crackle to steady warmth.
Memories of the previous day began to land.
Not all at once—more like snow accumulating on branches, each flake weightless until the sum of them bent the wood. The show's impossible triumph. Marcus reaching for the dragon with trembling fingers. Stars scattered across a hospital ceiling. The tree blazing with light no electrical system could explain. Sophie clutching her teddy bear. Ryan's letter, read aloud in a room that smelled of antiseptic and evergreen. The audience's roar still echoed somewhere in my chest.
I sat back on my heels. Alex did the same, firelight catching the exhaustion and wonder written across his features.
That's when I noticed the Steinway.
It occupied its corner with quiet authority—present, dignified, impossible to ignore despite its silence. The fallboard was closed, but sheet music still rested on the stand. I could read the title from here—Anything Goes.The pages had gone soft at the corners, edges feathered from years of turning.
Alex followed my gaze.
He rose and crossed to the piano without speaking.
The fire crackled loudly enough to make us both startle. Alex's shoulders rose with a breath that didn't quite complete itself.
I stayed where I was, giving him the space the moment required.
"She used to play this every Sunday morning," he said, so softly I almost missed it beneath the fire's crackling. "I'd come down for breakfast, and she'd be halfway through 'You're the Top,' still in her bathrobe, singing to herself like nobody was listening."
He didn't cry. But his breathing turned shallow, catching on something lodged too deep for easy release.
I pushed myself up from the hearth and crossed the room to him.
I didn't touch the piano. That belonged to Alex and his grandmother. Instead, I stood close enough that he could lean into me if he needed to, or step away if he didn't.
He did neither. He stayed there with his hand on the sheet music, firelight pooling across the keys.
"Come sit with me?" He tilted his head toward the fireplace.
The rug in front of the hearth was old enough to have forgotten its original colors. Alex sank down first, drawing his knees up and wrapping his arms loosely around them. I settled beside him.
The fire had grown confident, heat pressing against my face in steady waves. Outside, the wind had picked up—I heard it finding the gaps in the old window frames.
We sat without speaking. I watched the firelight play across his profile—the straight line of his nose and the curve of his jaw. Two weeks ago, I'd watched him fall on Holly's doorstep and thought he was beautiful. Now I understood that what I'd seen then was armor. The man beside me had shed it piece by piece across twelve impossible nights, and what remained was something finer. More real.
Alex turned his head.
