“Hey,” he called up. She looked down at him as he gestured at the booth. “Do you want to sit down?”
“I’m guarding you,” she said stiffly. She seemed pale.
“You can rest your legs at the same time,” he said.
She just shook her head and went back to surveying the space. “Later,” she replied quietly.
It was all she needed to say to tell him that something had gone wrong tonight. He looked around, trying to guess what she knew that he didn’t. Tems was nowhere to be seen on the dance floor—in fact, it didn’t look like he’d made an appearance here at all.
Dameon’s voice made him turn away from Sydney and look across the firepit to his friends. “Wasn’t I right?” he said with a serene smile. “Making you include ‘Eyes on the Prize’ in our set list tonight? Did you hear the crowd?”
“You’re always right,” Winter replied as he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees.
Dameon took an egg roll off of a tray that a waiter offered to them. “‘Meditation’ was a surprise, though.” He looked archly at Winter. “Did you have that in your catalog? I don’t remember it.”
“I found it several days ago,” he said. “Thought it made a good interlude.”
“It was nice,” Dameon agreed.
Beside him, Gavi leaned against Winter’s shoulder and tapped her glass against his. “To a good concert,” she said.
Winter toasted her back and took a sip of his drink. “Glad you enjoyed it.”
“I always enjoy your concerts. You just don’t invite me to enough of them.”
“Well, it gets a little awkward when we haven’t spoken in over a year.”
“Does that mean things have changed now?” She smiled curiously. “Or are we going back to silence when we return to the States?”
Winter shook his head and looked at the fire. In his head, “You Are My Meditation” was still playing, and he could still feel Sydney’s quiet presence nearby. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Fine.” She shrugged. “Then I’ll have to catch the rest of your concerts on the screen, like everyone else.”
“They’re all going to be the same, anyway. Besides,” he added, looking at her, “you hate repeating a concert.”
“It’s true.” Gavi laughed idly and brought her drink back up to her lips. “As much as you hate cigar smoke.”
Winter glanced at her with a blank look. “Cigar smoke?” he said.
Gavi looked at him, then gave him a quick smile. “What?”
But Winter had known her long enough by now to recognize the hesitation in her voice, the first hints of a secret hidden in her words. She had let something slip by accident. “How do you know that?” he asked.
“It was always pretty obvious, Winter.”
He angled his body toward her. “No, it couldn’t have been, because we’ve never been anywhere together with cigar smoke. I know I’ve never mentioned it before. So how do you know I hate cigar smoke?”
“I can just tell, all right?” She tossed her hair. “Don’t get so worked up about it.”
A memory was already resurfacing in his mind, though—the cloud of cigar smoke that would surround his father when he sat in the kitchen, the way Winter would avoid coming to dinner whenever he smelled it downstairs, the way the smoke clung to his father’s coat.
He looked at Gavi’s face. She was lying to him. But he had caught her by surprise this time—perhaps she’d misremembered where she’d learned it. Perhaps she thought Winter had been the one who’d told her.
“Did my mother tell you?” he asked.
Gavi looked at him, and he could see the answer in her eyes.No.His heart twisted with dread. There was only one other person who could have told her.
“Did you find out from my father?” he asked.
