“Is it?” Talia had asked, resting her iPad stylus against her orange-framed glasses. She loved turning one of Charlotte’s statements into a question. “Or do you want a musical career?”
“Of course I do.”
“Does ithaveto be a quartet? Or eventhisquartet?”
Charlotte had sighed. Slumped back in Talia’s leather armchair. She’d thought back to playing with Brighton on Ampersand’s stage in Nashville. She’d felt electric. Wild in a way she’d never felt with the quartet. She loved the quartet, of course. Loved symphony halls, the quiet and awed audience.
But she loved the singer-songwriter stage too.
And she loved directing the small ensemble she’d been asked to conduct this last semester at the Manhattan School of Music. She loved arranging and writing, performing Rachmaninoff and Charlotte Donovan originals. Brighton Fairbrook originals. She loved so many things about music, about violin.
Talia was right—her career didn’t have to be Rosalind. It could be anything she wanted.
And as winter shifted into spring, more and more she wanted Brighton.
Of course she wanted her career—that would never change—but the distance between her and Brighton felt like it was tugging at her more and more every day. Brighton never pressured her, and Charlotte never considered asking Brighton to move to New York. Sure, compromise was a part of any relationship, and she knew Brighton would try it if she asked. Which, honestly, was all the more reason for Charlotte to keep New York off the table. She loved New York, but she loved Brighton Fairbrook more.
When she started looking into possible openings in the music faculty at Vanderbilt University—she knew one of the viola professors there from Berklee—she didn’t tell Brighton at first. Moving to Nashville was something she realized she really wanted—not only for Brighton but also for herself. But she knew she had to have her own life in place before she made it a reality.
She wanted to do it right this time.
So when the director of the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt offered her a violin professorship off a phone interview alone, based on Charlotte’s already impressive accomplishments and reputation in the classical-music community, she took it as a sign.
It was time to say goodbye to New York.
Brighton was thrilled—though a bit adorably pouty that Charlotte had kept her plans a secret—and Charlotte moved to Nashville during a blistering July. They rented a small house in East Nashville, and Charlotte started at Vanderbilt in August. Since then, the two of them had played at least fifteen shows at Ampersand, to a growing crowd each time.
They’d named their duo Beach Glass.
And Charlotte…Charlotte was happy.
“I think that one’s full, dear,” Bonnie said.
“What?” Charlotte said, pulling her eyes away from Brightonand looking down at a half circle overflowing with cake batter. “Oh, shoot, sorry.”
Bonnie laughed, then glanced at her daughter as she slipped an arm around Charlotte’s waist, squeezing her tight. “No harm done.”
Charlotte laughed too, cleaned up the mess. She’d just slipped the rubber pan into the fridge to set when the doorbell rang. Pistachio erupted into a series of adorable barks, and Brighton quieted her firmly, just like the dog trainer had shown them.
“They’re here!” Brighton yelled once Pistachio was calm and settled with Hank. She flew to the front door, but she paused before opening it and turned to Charlotte in the kitchen. She held out her hand. “Babe?”
Charlotte nodded, then took off her apron and hurried to join her fiancée so they could open the door to their home together. It was a small thing, even a cheesy thing, and it made Charlotte’s heart feel as big as a snowy Colorado mountain.
She laced her fingers with Brighton’s, kissed her knuckles, then her mouth. Brighton beamed, took a deep breath, and opened the door, letting in a burst of cold December air and a chorus of greetings as Adele, Sloane, Wes, Dorian, and Manish spilled into the house.
For a few minutes, it was a flurry of noise and hugs and introductions to Brighton’s parents, but Charlotte and Brighton finally found their way to a quieter moment with Sloane and Adele by the tree.
“Okay, let me see this rock,” Adele said, grabbing Brighton’s left hand, where a pale aquamarine stone sat on a thick silver band, filigreed gold branches and leaves curling over the surface.
Charlotte smiled every time she saw it. So did Brighton, which was the whole point. When Charlotte had decided she wanted toask Brighton to marry her—well, she’d always wanted to ask Brighton to marry her, from the second she decided in that hotel bar in Paris that she wanted Brighton for herself—she knew she didn’t want to use their rings from their first engagement.
This was a different time.
A different Charlotte and a different Brighton.
She’d started looking for rings pretty soon after she moved to Nashville, hunting the corners of the internet for something unique and handmade. Finally, she found a queer metalworker in Seattle with an Etsy shop whose style felt exactly right for Brighton Fairbrook. After several emails, the ring on Brighton’s finger was born, as one of a kind as Brighton herself.
“Wow, gorgeous,” Sloane said, peering closer, her own ring glinting on her finger.
