She tries to avoid my eyes again, but I won’t let her.
“Maybe.”
“Don’t be,” I say firmly. “She’s what I thought I wanted. In another time and another place. But now I know better.”
“What do you know?” she asks, looking at me.
I tip up my head, kiss the tip of her nose. “That I don’t want the snow ever to end. Or…” My throat tightens, and I fight to get out the last part, “Or the music ever to stop between us.”
“Then we don’t let it,” she says with a soft smile.
Later, after we take a shower together and then eat dinner, she leads me to the piano bench, her eyes begging me to sit. Then, she straddles me, nothing beneath the flannel she wears.
Her arms grip my neck, her hips finding friction, making me hard until I tuck down my jogging pants and take her on the piano bench.
When she arches back, gripping me tight, her elbow hits the keys, notes spilling into the space between breath and heartbeat.
And when I finally surrender, gripping her waist and driving deep, I finally understand that fracture doesn’t have to be an end.
With her, it can be the beginning.
Epilogue
REED
Three Days Later
The snow is lighter now.
Not gone. The mountain never releases winter entirely. But the road is clear, the ridge carved open by my own hands before dawn.
I wake her with coffee and a kiss.
She murmurs against my mouth, warm and unguarded, hair spread across the pillow like sunlight against fresh powder.
“I’ve spent the morning digging us out,” I tell her.
Her eyes flutter open.
“Are you ready to perform?” The question lands differently now.
No pressure. Invitation.
She studies me, searching for hesitation. For retreat. For the old fracture.
There isn’t one.
“Yes,” she says with a faint smile.
I nod once. “Good.”
The town hall is small.Always has been. Wood beams, folding chairs, the faint scent of pine and wool coats damp from melted snow.
I arrive early. Not to hide. To breathe.
The orchestra tunes quietly on stage. The mountain festival has always been modest, more devotion than spectacle. The kind of place where people clap with mittens still on.
I take a seat in the back. Anonymous for now.
