Above us, the stars have gathered in the dark navy sky as silent witnesses, solemn and gleaming. I don’t want to break the calm, but I have to know.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I whisper. “A day or so ago, before all of this…I heard you playing.”
Beau’s brow furrows slightly. “When?”
“I was outside the music hall. I saw someone leave. You didn’t see me, and I didn’t mean to eavesdrop—it just happened, and your voice…” I pause, searching for the right words. “It didn’t sound like a performance, not even a rehearsal. It sounded as though your heart was unraveling, right there in the chords.”
His body goes still beside me. “You heardthatone?”
I nod. “It felt different. As if you were letting yourself bleed onto the strings. And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. Whatwasthat song?”
He exhales slowly. “It wasn’t…isn’t…finished. Barely even started. I never meant for anyone to hear it. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about what it would mean if you ever did.”
“I know,” I say. “But I did. And it felt…I sensed it was the truest part of you.”
Beau looks away, his voice low. “I wrote that one in fragments. After the cabin getaway. After that kiss. After Irealized I was already too far gone to pretend our relationship didn’t matter to me.”
We’ve reached Botaniqûe now, and we stand on the sidewalk outside the shop. I pause for a full breath, in, out, heart thudding against my ribs. “It felt like a message you weren’t ready to say out loud.”
He nods, slowly. “I wasn’t. Not then. But I am ready now.”
His voice caresses me, “It was about you. Every note. Every word I couldn’t say to you yet, I poured into that song.”
“I don’t need to hear you play it again,” I whisper. “But I needed to know…” My voice trails off.
The silence folds in around us.
“We hadn’t spoken in three days that night I heard you playing,” I whisper. “And I was terrified you’d already decided there wasn’t a place for me in your heart. That you’d casually discarded me.”
I slide my hands along his jaw, gently turning him so our eyes meet again. “When I heard you singing that you wanted…” I blink, feeling a burn behind my eyelids. “That you wanted the real me… I felt found.”
I wipe a tear from my cheek. “As though you’d been searching for me, desiring me. I already knew I loved you. But the moment I heard you singing then, I knew there was no going back for me. It was your music that told me you loved me, too—and somehow, it made me feel safe enough to believe it.”
He places his palm over the hand I still press to his jaw and wraps his fingers around mine, his eyes closing for just a second. Then they reopen, steady and bright. “I didn’t know if you’d ever tell me that,” he says softly. “But I hoped.”
He looks deep into my eyes with no shields. “Maisie,that song frightened me, too. Because it was confirmation to me that I love you. And I thought maybe I’d ruined it before I ever had the guts to tell you.
“It also scared me,” he swallows hard, “because it didn’t just sound like me. Itwasme. And somehow, it sounded like you, too.”
I consider that: how we’d both been carrying the same ache in different shapes.
He lets out a breath.
I squeeze his hand.
“So yeah, I was hoping. But I was also hiding. Because that song wasn’t just for you. Itwasyou. And if I got it wrong, I didn’t know how I’d live with that.”
“Beau, my love,” I pull him into my arms. He strengthens the embrace, shaking slightly with the depth of his emotion.
Then I speak into his chest, directly to his heart, “You didn’t get it wrong. You got it right. So very right.”
Chapter 18
Our First Date (Finally)
Beau
The hollow clunk of a car door slices through the morning stillness, yanking me from sleep.
