“Chicago and Manhattan.”
“They won’t like the cold soon enough.”
Oliver laughed, because his parents had always loved the cold. They preferred to write and perform in isolated, chilly environments, and he inherited a little bit of that himself. “My grandmother’s just waiting for that to happen, sir.”
Mr. Bolton asked about his grandmother’s health, and Oliver answered as best he could but couldn’t keep from looking for Haley, placing her in his line of sight. Being nice and negotiating with small talk was something he had to learn, and even after years of doing this, it exhausted him. He wanted to find Haley before he inevitably collapsed from having to be nice.
“Go get something to eat,” Mr. Bolton told him, or maybe he had noticed that Oliver’s thoughts were elsewhere. “I’ll see you around.”
Haley had been helping with lunch but was simply standing there at the moment, looking at her phone.
“This is hard work,” he said, as a joke.
Haley looked up at him, smiling but distracted. He felt an instant stab of disappointment in his gut. Like what? You expected her to lay one on you in front of all of these people?
She said, “Oh. This? Yes, it can be. Have you seen Victoria anywhere?”
Not at all, but he wasn't looking. “Is this a bad time?”
It was a combination of things: a sniffle, a quick look away, shielding her eyes from the sun. Instinctively he took her arm and steered her into the hotel, away from everyone, away from the sun, if that was all she was avoiding. As soon as she made it indoors, she let out a ragged sigh.
“I'm going up,” she said.
He stayed right behind her, through the café, past the lobby, and into the elevator, not even realizing he was doing it. When they got off at the floor where their rooms were, he hung back as she worked the card on her door.
“Do you...need me to call Victoria?” he asked, not sure about this part.
“No,” she said. “You can come in if you like.”
This was something else though, not the “you can come in if you like” that he'd gotten in other hotel rooms before. He shrugged and went in anyway, because it was that kind of weekend.
***
She cried quietly for about five minutes.
There was a dignity to it. He almost offered a hug, but she asked him to stay where he was. “No, please. This'll be over in a sec. Sit, please.”
There was a love seat by her window, something he didn't have in his room. He parked himself there while she first sat on the bed and then lay on her back, brushing tears off her temples as she stared up at the ceiling.
“I'm sorry. I didn't want anybody downstairs to see me like this,” she said. “It's not very mentorly behavior.”
“What happened?”
“I got fired. Kind of. I won't have a job by Thanksgiving.”
“Sorry about that.”
She laughed a little, up at the ceiling. “I know it's pathetic to feel like this over a job. I mean, you've probably seen worse.”
“Why, because my career is over?”
That got her to look at him. “No offense, okay? I just thought, you know, more life experience and all.”
“Don't worry about it.”
“I didn't want to come back home yet,” Haley admitted. “I thought I'd have at least until Sophie left for college. I didn't want to have to come home and show them that I'd accomplished nothing.”
“Show who?”
“People. I don't know.”
“You've accomplished something. You did what you were supposed to do. Who are you afraid of?”
Haley shook her head. “How bad did it get for you?”
Ah, how bad did it get. Oliver cracked his knuckles. “I've told you about the being homeless and being dropped by the people who used to kiss my ass, yes?”
She smiled. “Yes, a little.”
“Sit back and make yourself comfortable, because I'm going to tell you a story. It's not that it was all fun and games until it got bad, to be honest. It was obviously a pattern of me being thrown into the deep end and not being able to fucking swim. Do you want the entire sordid tale?”
She picked up her phone. “Whatever you can spill before the next session starts in an hour and fifteen minutes.”
“That's not enough time. But I'm not averse to quickies.”
Haley smiled and rolled her eyes, and he congratulated himself silently. And then she stood up and squeezed into the seat next to him. He scooted over to his right to give her some room. The contact was pleasant, warm and smooth against his side.
Just like on the plane, he told himself, clearing his throat, trying to keep his mind on what he was going to say.
Oliver was not making this up, by the way, just to have something to tell a girl, even though he had done the “let me tell you a story” shtick at least once before. He didn't have as many actual friends around lately so that gave him much time to think, and this was what he had come up with.
“You were saying?” Haley said, settling in, deliberately hooking her elbow under his.
“You know how things never happen overnight? If you thought about it, you can trace something far back enough to the point when you could have walked away, did something else. I keep thinking about that lately. Guess which moment I ended up wanting to do over?”
She shifted slightly beside him. “Your last album?”
“Ouch. No. I meant when I first picked up a violin.”
“But you were really young then.”
“Five. I still remember it. I could have done that, or kicked a ball. It could have gone either way. Picking up an instrument is such a big deal in my family, that this kind of life inevitably follows. We don't play for fun, to show off for guests and have them say, oh how nice, your boy's so talented. Just showing interest sealed my fate. But it's insane to think that far back and blame a five-year-old for what my life is like. So I jump to the next moment.”
“The recital at San Antonio?” she said.
“How do you know that?”
Haley grinned sheepishly. “It was in the People article. I told you, I’m a fan.”
He shook his head. “Not exactly the recital. Or even the blasted talent show. I would have become part of Parkland as a teenager no matter what happened, but then I was asked if I wanted to go on tour with them and quit school.”
“They asked you? You could have said no?”
His parents didn’t push him to do this. For people who were incredibly artistic, they happened to be well-adjusted and practical people. Or at least, they knew right away that they’d need to be and overcompensated by making sure their son would not have to live as a stereotypical starving artist.
And yet here he was. Some things couldn’t be planned, he guessed.
Oliver couldn’t blame them, though. He never did. “Someone was telling me I didn't have to go to school anymore. Who says no to that? Another thing that made this life inevitable. But who blames a twelve-year-old for this kind of fuckup, right?”
“I hope you don't regret going solo.”
He paused. Did he? If he had stayed in a collaborative environment, would things have gotten fucked up this badly? “No. That first year, I did so many things right. And then, that short trip to jail.”
“That was so weird. Did you hit him first?”
“Of course I did.” He was surprised that it was even a question. “He told me that my girlfriend and my manager were fucking. No wait—he didn’t even say it. He implied that he knew about it and didn’t tell me.”
“Right.” She whispered that, and he realized that she had turned her head toward him. He felt that word in his shoulder.
“It was true. But I was twenty-one then, so yes, we can blame that version of me for anything. I wasn't ready for what was given to me, and I just proved it.” That night he lost a friend (the guy he punched was doing right by him, when all was said and done), and the aforementioned manager and girlfriend. He also lost several other
things, the most important of which being time, because the next year or so was an alcohol-drenched blur. One thing after another.
She shifted beside him again, her arm slipping between his back and the seat. “I'm glad you didn't quit music at five, or twelve, or anytime after. You're so so good at it. I was playing kid versions of Beethoven and Bach, but seeing you play Vivaldi so well when I was ten…I really needed to see that.”
He felt her breath on his neck, until he could practically feel her lips on it. He had to admit, this was making him feel good. In more ways than one. “Don't tell me you blame me for how your life turned out, too.”
Her leg moved up against his. “No blame,” she said, coming even closer. “Do you want to know my sad story? It’s not as exciting as yours though.”
“Of course,” Oliver said, moving back so she would fall more comfortably into his arms.
“I told myself when I was younger that music would never be the plan A. That I’d try it, and keep trying, and keep doing it as long as I could, but I’d have to quit at some point.” Her hand went up to her cheek, wiping away moisture from her tears. “I always thought I’d reach that point when all chances ran out and I’d have to go home, but I could tell myself that at least I tried.”
“That doesn’t sound sad.”
“Because I keep moving forward, tiny steps. I tried out for Breathe that first time just in case—thinking I’d never get in, and it would be over. But I got in. I started volunteering, and then teaching music, thinking I wouldn’t be good at it, and eventually I’d stop. Even the videos…I did them for my students, and then other people got to see them…”
“Still not seeing how this is sad.”
“It’s leading me on,” Haley told him. “Music. It knows I have to quit it, and soon, but it keeps leading me on. Encouraging me a little. Pulling me in. It never gives me a break big enough to tell me that this is it, it’s time to do this for real. It’s always small things, enough to make me wonder what’s behind the door if I go through it…but then it’s another door. And another door. It’s frustrating.”
Funny how that was. Music to her was a tease. To Oliver, it had been like an arranged marriage, a fate that he simply had to accept.
Then she was quiet, breathing against his chest, and he liked that.
“I want you to know,” he said, “That if you've got cold feet about the other guy and want to have a weekend affair, I'm the better choice.”
Her eyes were brown, and the skin around them crinkled up with her smile. “What?”
“I noticed that there are several other guys around who'd volunteer if you wanted to have a warm body with you. In case you need an act of rebellion against whatever. But I think you should choose me anyway.”
“Do you think this is something I should do?”
“What?”
“Just have sex with somebody. This weekend. On the same weekend I lost my job and maybe end up getting back together with my ex-boyfriend.”
“Well. Any answer I give will be biased.”
She blinked. “You are unexpectedly odd.”
He waited for her to kiss him first. He wasn't sure how she would do this. But when her tongue swept between his lips within moments of her mouth pressing against his, that he knew what to do with, and his hand went up to her neck, fingers tangling in her silky hair.
She stirred in his arms and it made him want to take her in, move her closer, press against more of her. But then she pushed him back, and using a hand against his chest for leverage, swung her leg over to straddle him.
“There’s not enough time,” she said, almost sounding like she was giving up. “We talked too much. We have lunch, and the next session, and I have to watch Mia…”
“No, you don’t get to miss out on this because of talking. I won’t let that happen,” Oliver said. She wanted quick? He could do quick. His hand found her knee underneath her skirt and slid upward, tentatively.
She whimpered a little and let her mouth fall onto his again. It was a musical sound, he realized, or he was imagining it, but if he were then he couldn’t have trusted anything else from his senses because all of them were trained on her. The way she bucked lightly against him, anticipating where his hand would end up. The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth. The damp heat that he discovered, soft and exquisite, tightening as he slid a finger inside.
“God. Oliver. Please.”
“Please what?” He slipped a second finger inside her and pumped not so gently.
She tore her lips from his and sank down on him, taking his fingers in deeper, and he adjusted his rhythm to match how she breathed. He could tell how fast he could get her there.
“Let go, Haley,” he said, not sure if he requested or ordered it, his thumb finding her clit and stroking it over the fabric of her panties. She gasped at this and came, hard, forehead pressed against his, staccato breaths on his skin. He stayed inside, feeling every spasm as it ebbed and faded, watching as it made her face flush and relaxed her shoulders. Her breaths gradually lengthened, ending as sighs against his cheek, his jaw, his mouth.
It was the best thing he’d heard in a long time.
Chapter 15
Oliver’s hand was on her elbow. Oliver’s hand was on her elbow. It was casual enough, an elbow being a normally non-sexy body part, and a hand there was not exactly indicative of anything, but her own mind was giving her a play-by-play.
You’re supposed to be working. Pay attention! She should be concentrating on the performances, but only half the people were anyway. The whole point of having the students perform first during the busy lunch period was so they could fade into the background as noise if they ever needed to. The first time was tough, for everyone, and the distracted audience meant screwing up wasn’t so epic. Haley at least managed to return to the festival with enough time to grab a bite and catch Mia’s performance. Talk about great timing.
“That’s yours, right?” Oliver asked, pointing to the platform where Mia was setting up.
“Yeah. She has a great voice. Attitude needs work.” Haley then remembered that it was Oliver’s first go at this. She spent how much time with him today and it was all about her. Her job. Her problems. Her orgasm. God, how embarrassing. “Um, you okay with your session so far? You sorted out your problem from this morning?”
He nodded. “It’s early, but I’m getting my competition muscles warmed up. Did you see the siblings perform earlier?”
Oh, them. “They weren’t…that wasn’t the best thing out there.”
“Exactly. But they wanted to go with Big Brother Trey, and they’ll get him for a bit longer.”
“Is he being difficult? He’s not supposed to be hogging other people’s students.”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” he said.
They paused because Mia opened her mouth to start singing—and it was, indeed, Time After Time. She had played with the arrangement though, and it was neither the version she had auditioned with nor was it close to the Cyndi Lauper one. Haley should have known she was going to try to pull another trick on it, and it sounded rough.
Oliver cocked his head, amused. “Did you want her to do that?”
“No.”
“I see what you mean by attitude problem. My students have a special quality to them too.”
“It really depends on the batch, I guess. Victoria does the final selection and she usually weeds out anyone who would be difficult, or is freeloading…”
He moved a little closer. “Do you remember Frida, from the show?”
She did. Frida, from Tomorrow’s Talent, the thirteen-year-old who had one kind of smile. It looked like it had been painted on her face. They made it to the finals, Oliver and Frida, and supposedly Oliver won by the smallest of margins during the vote. Haley personally argued with anyone, everyone, who was Team Frida. It wasn’t her proudest moment.
“Yeah,” she said simply.
“She had range like I couldn’t believe. During rehearsals, she
’d make other kids cry after hearing her, and they got discouraged. Parents tried to keep their kids away from wherever she was practicing.”
Haley poked his side. “Did she make you cry?”
“No. She couldn’t play an instrument. I held that over her, at least in my mind. But anyway—if you ever talked to her, at least then, she was so…it was like she would shrink whenever she wasn’t singing.” He held a hand up to his chest. “Like literally she would lose inches. She was so relieved when she didn’t win; she told me she wouldn’t have known how to keep up the act for a year. Some of these kids seem like they’re creating the act right now when nobody’s really watching. I don’t think it’s a good thing.”
“You know what? You should be a mentor and tell your students that.”
His hand moved up to brush her hair aside.
“You’re a good teacher. Don’t worry about getting a job,” Oliver said.
That. That seemed so intimate. It was hair, and words, but…
“That’s my phone ringing, right?” she said, fumbling for it in her purse.
“It’s not mine,” Oliver said, holding his hands up.
It was Logan. Right.
Haley ducked out of everyone’s way quickly, heading outside to the almost-deserted garden.
“Hey,” she said.
“I called because I knew you’d be at lunch,” he said. “We’re on for tomorrow, right?”
Tomorrow. This among the seven zillion things that were out of the ordinary about this weekend.
“About that,” she said, “I’m actually really busy here. And you know that Oliver’s here too…”
“Look, I get what you’re trying to do,” Logan said.
“Really? What is it, Logan?”
“You’re stalling.”
“I’m here with Oliver. You…you saw it.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You don’t believe he’d be interested in me, is that it?”
Logan did not watch her piano videos, as far as she could tell. He was only mildly interested in this yearly activity of hers, the hours she spent studying and practicing, and because she never really performed in public other times of the year, there was no opportunity for him to show support. But that was fine; she didn’t ask him to be her cheerleader, so he shouldn’t be blamed for leaving her alone, right?
Playing Autumn (Breathe Rockstar Romance Book 1) Page 8
