Something changed in his face, in the light in his eyes. “Better to have lived and lost, then, than—well, you know how it goes. But maybe that’s how a loser thinks.”
“You’re not a loser.”
He smiled, but his thoughts were elsewhere already, she could see it. “I’m on my way back to the middle.”
The earphones came on. He reached over to use the music port on her seat, letting their hands brush against each other sometimes, but that was it. Conversation apparently over. They didn’t speak again throughout the flight.
At TPA, he pulled her toward him and dropped a light and quick kiss on her mouth before he headed on to his connection.
“You…good luck.” Because she was so smooth like that.
“I don’t see music the same way you do,” Oliver said. “You think it’s this thing leading you on. I think it’s part of me. I don’t get to cut it off or decide to attach it back. Maybe you need to think of it that way.”
“Oliver…”
“I promise not to call you.” He interrupted her then, maybe unintentionally, but she didn’t have a reply anyway. “Goodbye, Hot Piano Girl.”
It was exactly what she wanted him to say, wasn’t it? It was the rational thing to do.
And it sucked.
Chapter 31
A month, or so, later
Sophie was easily the best at her recital. Those were fighting words, and maybe not so reliable coming from her own music tutor, but Haley was going to stand by them. Though it was Sophie's night, Haley's confidence was at an all-time high too, ever since Mia from Breathe Music sent her a video of a recent performance where she was finally being herself. It was at an actual open mic night downtown, so for that alone Haley had to give her props. Still a little rough around the edges, but already so much better.
She would not say the same about Sophie, whose edges were polished and smooth as they could be. The girl was actually going to be a doctor one day, but she spent her Saturdays studying classical piano at the conservatory and practiced every day at home. Sometimes when Haley was too focused on her job, she would forget about how determined her student was. This was a lot of hard work, but the girl seemed to enjoy it. And it showed.
The Lee family wanted to go out to celebrate but Haley politely begged off, saying that she had a lot of packing to do. A white lie; she had like a pair of jeans and tennis shoes left to stuff into her bag, but she didn't feel like causing any awkwardness. It was Sophie's big night, and she didn't want them to have to talk about the fact that she was leaving the next day.
When Haley returned from Houston, she and Mrs. Lee had a longer, more direct talk about the future. Mrs. Lee explained that she wanted Sophie to focus on early admissions and didn’t mind having her cut back on piano hours; something had to give. Haley understood that completely. It had been different for the older daughter, who planned to study music in college and needed to practice all the way up to graduation. Once they had decided on what Sophie’s path would be, they had told Haley right away, and she had to appreciate that.
Haley was dropped off at the mansion, and she made her way through the garden to the pool house. It was a long walk because the property was huge. There was a golf cart that Haley could have used to get there faster, but it was a walking kind of night.
So Sophie rocked her Bach, and Haley was proud as ever, but her mind was also somewhere else, about six hundred and fifty miles off. It was also the night of Oliver's New Orleans show. Already happening, or possibly nearly over.
She knew about it, of course. She was still subscribed to the newsletter, and she saw the updates from the usual fan groups. It looked like a smaller show, a fraction of the audience he used to command, but it was work and he seemed to be getting into it.
There was also the surprise friendship with Trey that got the forums abuzz again; they were spotted hanging out in Manhattan together. People were speculating what Oliver was getting (the underage) Trey into. Alcohol? Fighting? Were they actually planning to work together?
Dear God, not a song together, someone in the Olivette group had posted. Let my memories of lusting after him not be defiled by this.
Hah. She missed that community sometimes. She also wondered what was up with them. The last newsletter had a link about Tomorrow’s Talent getting a “shortened season” order. Some people’s lives got to stay how they were for a little while longer.
She wouldn't know for sure, because she actually kept her word and cut off all contact with Oliver. And then when she found out that New Orleans was the same night as Sophie's night…Haley figured that fate had decided things for them. She wasn't going to be doing a grand rush to his stage, swooning over his music, kissing him in front of everybody. No, she was going to be alone in her pool house, zipping up luggage.
Oliver had tried to contact her a few times. First there were text messages, simple hellos, emphasizing that since he had promised not to call, texts didn’t count. And then there were calls. She kept his number on her phone so she would know not to pick up when it rang. He called the week he returned to New York, and then the week after that, but she figured he was just being polite. Not wanting to seem like the douche who wouldn't call, even though he promised he wouldn’t. Well, missed calls noted. Points awarded. What a tease.
They had a wonderful and odd weekend together, but she wasn't going to demand anything more. She didn't know what she was going to ask for, anyway. She wished him well as Sophie was playing, knowing that he was too.
She wondered what his playlist would be. She used to know and keep track.
Haley sighed now, a loud one, as she walked the length of the backyard tennis court. She thought about him a lot. She wore out the play button in her mind reviewing their highlights: kisses, licks, positions…
Sometimes she thought she imagined everything. But no, she was never that explicit in her daydreams. So she ended with concluding that it had to have been real, but not lasting.
Her flight to Houston was set, and as far as her parents knew, she was going back for Thanksgiving. She was going to have to break the joblessness to them eventually. The thought was making her uncomfortable, but she wasn't as scared about it anymore.
Finally, she got to the pool house, and when she flipped the lights on she remembered that she had switched off her phone during the recital and hadn't switched it back on.
And then it started buzzing like crazy.
The wireless Internet kicked in at the same time, so she was getting all manner of notifications—email alerts, text messages, voice mail. She hadn't yet sorted it out when the screen was taken over by a familiar face—Victoria's photo, because she was calling.
“Victoria?” Haley said, bewildered. “What the—?”
“Holy fuck, Haley Reese! I've got her, I've got her!”
“What are you talking about?”
She could barely hear her friend over the noise, but then Victoria started to yell, and it was a little clearer.
“Haley! I'm in New Orleans! Oliver flew me in to watch his show! Can you hear me? Can you hear anything?”
What the—? He flew in her friend? What the. “I don't understand…”
“Haley, shut up a sec! Oliver's show is awesome and his show is almost over and he's about to do his encore and you know what he just told everyone? CALL HALEY! He said ‘Call Haley!' And everyone's like who the fuck is Haley and I'm like I know who the fuck Haley is, that's why he brought me here! You’re seriously avoiding him? Yes, shit, yes, I've got her right here! Haley, are you there?”
She was there, but her limbs were starting to go numb. “Yes, I'm here.”
“Haley.” The next voice she heard seemed further away but amplified, and she recognized it, of course she did. “Haley, I didn't want to end the show without you hearing this right now.”
“Did you hear that?” Victoria again.
“Yes,” she said.
“She's listening!” her friend shouted.
“Who's
Haley?” someone else yelled.
“Haley,” Oliver said, “is a talented, beautiful artist, and she did the new arrangement for this last song I'm going to perform. In fact, I love this arrangement so much that I wanted her to perform it with me tonight, but she wouldn’t take my calls.
“So I showed her video of it to some people, who showed it to other people, and now I have people throwing money at me because they want me and Haley to work on something new together.”
“It’s your video!” Victoria said.
“Shut up, Victoria,” Haley hissed. She could hear a piano playing a tentative melody.
“…and then I said,” Oliver continued, “I don't think that's going to work, because she's a strong and principled person, and she said she absolutely did not want to see me again. She thinks she has a real life to live and this shouldn’t be part of it. I shouldn’t make her hope for something only to let her down. And we should respect that, right? So I can’t.”
“No,” Victoria gasped. “What the hell is this? Are you stupid or something?”
“Shut up, Victoria.”
“…she won't even take my calls anyway,” Oliver was saying, “And then they said, ‘What's her number?' And I said no, I'm not going to give you her number if she doesn’t want to pick up my calls.”
Scales. She could hear him playing scales, warming up.
“But,” Oliver added, “I can’t keep thinking that she’d want to hear about this. So I told the people with money, ‘Look, she's not going to take your call. But maybe you can fly her best friend over to the Louisiana show. Maybe she’ll take a call from her best friend.’ She’s listening now, isn’t she?”
“Yes!” Victoria yelled.
“Maybe she’ll hang up before she finds out what I’m doing, but I thought we should try anyway. Even if she doesn't want to hear from me. I know this is something she loves to do. She owes it to herself to try, because she's got a gift and she knows it.”
The scales transitioned into the opening bars of that song, but he didn't start singing.
“Besides, what’s real, right? It’s what we decide to do. Every stupid thing. Every brilliant thing. And sometimes brilliant decisions look incredibly stupid, but that’s fear talking. So, people of New Orleans,” Oliver said, “I need your help. I want her to do this, to make music with me, but it has to be her choice.”
Really, Oliver. She would have been mortified at how public this was, except it wasn't, not for her. She was alone in a room in a pool house. He was putting himself out there. Without knowing what she was going to say, what she would do, if she would hang up this very second.
Of course she couldn't.
“This is also a very selfish way of finding a way to spend time with her. Maybe because I’m falling in love with her.”
That was said a little too clearly for it to be a mistake.
“Oh my god!” Victoria screamed. “What the hell happened in Houston?”
Haley fell onto her bed, one hand covering her face, the other keeping her phone to her ear. “He's crazy.”
“She says you're crazy!” Victoria not-so-helpfully shared.
Oliver laughed into his microphone, and it made her spine tingle. “I might be. I think the way to know for sure is to see me again, right? Let’s work together, Haley. You’ll teach me everything I still need to learn. Tell me which songs suck, how to make them better. Let’s go home for Thanksgiving and eat more pie. Will you help me tell her this, New Orleans? Can everyone please tell Haley to listen to me? Just do that. Everyone. Say, ‘Haley, make music with Oliver!’”
“Haley! Make music with Oliver!”
Haley heard, because that had to have been over a hundred people yelling it at the same time.
“Is that code for something?” Victoria piped in.
And then Oliver said, “Now everyone shut up so Haley will think I'm serious about this falling in love with her business.”
She regained some brain function long enough to switch her phone to speaker mode. So she had both hands free as she laughed and cried, uncontrollably, as Oliver Cabrera performed her arrangement of Your Life.
She was looking forward to Thanksgiving already.
The End
Tempting Victoria, Breathe Music Book 2,
will be available on September 29th.
About Tempting Victoria
Victoria Bennett is in control and in charge all day every day, but she needs help sometimes. Organizing a romantic proposal weekend for her client in Mexico would be that time – and the only person available to help her is Nathan Grant, notorious heartbreaker. She knows his past and shouldn’t want him, shouldn’t fall for guys like him, but that hasn’t prevented her from lusting after him all these years. It’s just one weekend on the beach, away from people they know, alone with the guy who could cause her perfectly coordinated world to crumble. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Acknowledgements from the first edition
Thank you, Mike (for everything, and time), Marian (for the crazy/brilliant idea), Jill (for fajitas and more), Tito Jay (best ribs in Tampa and the world), Jan (you know what you did), Layla (hugot ever), DC (yes you), DA (you too), CC in IAH, Continental Guy in HNL, because fiction is sometimes not really fiction, even though it absolutely is fiction.
And Houston, my family's home, sometimes mine too. I don't miss the fire ants though.
2015 Author’s Note
Playing Autumn is the longest standalone book I’ve worked on in my years as a romance author. (It’s easily double the word count of most of my titles.) This was first published as a novella in the Rock Gods of Romance ebook anthology released in 2013 by Jaded Speck Publishing, and if you’ve read that edition, thank you. If you’ve read this one and have any feelings about what’s been added and removed, I hope you let me know.
I learned a lot about romance writing, the new adult category, and myself really, in the process of revising Playing Autumn. Thank you so much, Nicole, for the encouragement and the guidance.
Mina
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mina V. Esguerra learned everything she needed to know about writing romances from Sweet Dreams novels and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series. When not working as a communications consultant, she writes contemporary romance, young adult, and new adult novels. When not working and writing, she’s hanging out with her husband and daughter. Visit her site http://minavesguerra.com.
Chic Manila series
My Imaginary Ex | Fairy Tale Fail | No Strings Attached | Love Your Frenemies | That Kind of Guy | Welcome to Envy Park | Wedding Night Stand | Young and Scambitious | Properly Scandalous (Scambitious #2) | Shiny and Shameless (Scambitious #3) | Greedy and Gullible (Scambitious #4)
Interim Goddess of Love series
Interim Goddess of Love | Queen of the Clueless | Icon of the Indecisive | Gifted Little Creatures (short story) | No Roses for Hannah (short story)
Spotlight series
The Harder We Fall | Never Just Friends | Playing Autumn
Anthology contributions
Say That Things Change (New Adult Quick Reads 1) | Kids These Days: Stories from Luna East Arts Academy Volume 1 | Sola Musica: Love Notes from a Festival
Twitter, Instagram, Facebook: minavesguerra
Wattpad: MinaVE
Contact the author:
[email protected]
minavesguerra.com
Table of Contents
Playing Autumn
About Playing Autumn
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
; Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Author’s Note
About the Author
Playing Autumn (Breathe Rockstar Romance Book 1) Page 17
