It does something to my body I work to shut down. She’s too young. Too alive. Too talented for a man like me.
A wreck of what I once was.
And her calm acceptance irritates me more than a complaint would have.
“Storm like this could last three days,” I add. “You need to stay warm.”
“Thank you,” she says, snuggling into the shirt and then bringing a too-long sleeve up to her nose to breathe in.
“Don’t do that,” I say.
“Do what?” she asks.
“Act okay with all of this.”
“But I am.” She says it simply, without hesitation, and I wonder if she realizes what she’s agreeing to—three days in close quarters with a man who hasn’t shared his space with anyone in years.
I set another log in the hearth, using the poker to stir and spread the blaze. But it’s the fire inside, the one that started the moment she accepted my flannel, that burns through my veins.
“Cell phone signal out,” I grunt. “Your boyfriend must be worried.”
“Don’t have one,” she says matter-of-factly.
I fight the single-syllable response.Good. Instead, I fumble for words. “Anybody else looking for you? Stephen perhaps.” The last part comes out too fierce, nearly a growl.
Her eyes widen, her lips parting. I have to look away. Can’t take anymore of her. Of this closeness.
“Play,” I order, standing near the window. Forcing my eyes outside so they’ll stay off her. The task takes more from me than I’m willing to admit.
The cabin warms slowly.
She unpacks her violin with careful familiarity, the movements quiet and deliberate. It takes me back torehearsal rooms and hours spent there. Rituals universal across orchestras.
Watching her prepare is oddly grounding. Musicians have rituals that anchor the mind: the turn of a peg, the sweep of rosin across bow hair, the slight tilt of the instrument beneath the chin.
“You said you had questions about the cadenza,” I say.
She lifts her gaze.
“I do.”
“Then play the transition.”
No warm-up. No negotiation. She doesn’t protest.
The first phrase fills the cabin. It’s clean. Too clean.
I listen with my arms folded, leaning against the window’s frame. My shoulder aches faintly in the cold, the old injury reminding me it exists. I ignore it.
She reaches the suspended passage leading into the missing cadenza.
I stop her with a quiet word. “Enough.”
Her bow lowers. “What?”
“You’re smoothing it.”
“I’m shaping it.”
