I bite my tongue. I can tell from his tone that he doesn’t mean it as a jab, even if it stings like one.
“Not sure what that’s supposed to mean,” I say as lightly as possible. “It’s not like we go to Michelin-starred restaurants every week. What do I need to wear? That’s all I’m asking.”
Judging by the faint color in his cheeks, he at least understands that he ought to shut his mouth. “I dunno. Nothing too fancy. The kind of thing you’d wear on…on a first date.” The color deepens.
He hasn’t forgotten what I said this morning, apparently.
“Well,” I said. “I’ve got just the thing.”
Which is a lot more confident than I actually am, because I spend the next half hour furiously digging through my closet and texting Cessy photo after photo of different dresses.
What the hell is this even FOR?she asks at one point.Please tell me you aren’t going to church????
And I text back:NO QUESTIONS JUST TELL ME WHICH DRESS.
We decide on a burgundy silk wrap dress that doesn’t quiiiite plunge low enough to be racy, because red silk plus cleavage would be a lot. But there’s clavicle and skin, and I read in a trashy magazine once that silk is a seductive textile, because it makes men think of sliding their hands along the water-cool fabric, your body a soft heat underneath.
I’ve never been good at hair—I’m more of a “wash-and-air-dry” kind of girl—so I spend a solid half hour in the bathroom trying to coax out the soft waves that look effortless but take a lot of skill and curling irons and product to actually achieve. I’m not totally sure I’ve managed it in the end, but it’s five-thirty and Jamie’s shift starts at six-thirty and it’s time togo.
He’s waiting in the foyer when I finally emerge, dinner jacket over one arm and phone in hand, scrolling through something unseen. He glances up—and as soon as our eyes meet, his are dipping down, taking in the silk, the shape of my body, the solid black combat boots I’ve paired with the dress so I don’t look like I’m trying too hard.
“You ready to go?” I ask, even though the answer’s obvious, just to enjoy the way his gaze snaps back up to mine as if caught doing something wrong.
“Yeah. I mean, sure. Are you ready?”
“All good, my man.”
The restaurant turns out to be a short twenty-minute trip away by subway. The restaurant is still mostly empty when we arrive—but as I wait at the bar, sipping on a sbagliato, it starts filling up. Jamie was right about the outfit. It’s all cocktail dresses and dinner jackets in here, the anniversary-birthday-first-date crowd eating oysters and filet mignon. The decor is aggressively Christmas-themed, fairy lights twinkling and a lush tree glittering with ornaments next to the piano. I wonder how long Jamie’s been playinghere, that they let him take such a major holiday. I wonder if anyone else at Parker knows.
Jamie takes to the piano at six-thirty exactly. There’s no announcement, no hubbub. When he starts playing, the music integrates seamlessly into the atmosphere. If I were one of the patrons, I don’t know that I would have even noticed it at first. It slides into the background, a pleasant undercurrent to the murmur of conversation.
But I’m not watching my glass, I’m watching Jamie. And even surrounded by strangers, it is in private that Jamie shows me the clench of a jaw, the held breath then sudden exhale, eyelashes fluttering against cheeks and long hands coaxing beauty out of the song, note by heart-wrenching note.
It’s like watching a man in love, his emotions held back by the slimmest ribbon.
It makes no sense. This is not the man I know from Parker, who plays like he has his heart locked away in a safe. Why can’t he play like this when we’re at school?
Right now—here, in this place—he is sublime.
If Jamie’s music fades into the background for the restaurant patrons, then I am the only one who hangs on to every beautiful note. I sit at the bar clutching my now-watery cocktail and let him take me on a journey of dynamics and codas and the sweet-smelling valleys of decrescendos. At some point, I am half-aware of the bartender getting my attention, trading in my drink for a fresh one, then another—but for the most part, I am hooked onhim.
By the time he’s finished his set, I’m so caught in his undertow that the moment he stops playing feels like having my anchor cut loose. All of a sudden, I’m adrift, dizzy in the white roar of conversation and clinking silverware—and somehow, I’ve accumulated more than one empty glass at my elbow as the bartender discreetly slides yet another sbagliato across the counter.
“That was incredible,” I say when Jamie makes it back to my side. “You sounded…fantastic, to be honest.”
“I can’t believe you’re still here,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
He shakes his head slowly. “I mean, it’s been five hours. And you’re still here.”
Five hours. Has it really been that long? The sbagliato count says yes.
“I meant what I said. That was really, really good, Jamie. I had no idea you could play like that.” Okay, that came out worse than I meant it to. “I mean—that is, it was different from—just—”
How to sayYou didn’t sound like a bloodless but perfect AI when you playedwithout sounding like an asshole?
“Don’t strain yourself,” he says with an arched brow.
