The Lion of Frenchman Street

by Teresa Noelle Roberts

  She kept saying she loved New Orleans. Why hadn’t he had the balls to ask if she loved him?

  Better yet, he should have told her he loved her, like he’d meant to before she told him about the job opportunity.

  He’d done a damn poor job of loving her, panicking and letting his old fears run his mouth for him. Opening up, admitting how he felt, might not have been enough to make her stay. The combined lure of home and full-time job, of not having to piece together a living anymore, must be strong. But he liked to think it would have factored into her decision. Knowing he loved her might have balanced the appeal of a steady job and rent-free living.

  At least she’d have known why he was so upset and tried to talk him down. And if she’d had a chance to do that, he could have stopped himself before he hustled her out like a barfly at closing time.

  He didn’t know if he could fix this. He’d been hurtful, jumped to conclusions, said things he didn’t mean even at the time because…well, because the timing had thrown him into panic mode.

  But if he was going to fix it, it would take two things.

  The right words were crucial. The ones he should have said long ago: that he loved her, that he had a few issues but they could work through them together if she were still willing. Most of all, that he was sorry.

  The problem was, he didn’t trust himself to use words well. When he was emotional, he almost couldn’t help getting flip and snarky.

  So he’d start with music. He could communicate better that way, at least to someone who knew him well. And he knew exactly how to woo her with music. He needed cooperation from people at The Dubious Concoction, but he should be able to pull that off. His group had a regular following and everyone at the bar liked the way Kelsey danced as she worked.

  Chapter Twelve

  Two days later, Kelsey hadn’t given the Peabody Essex an answer. She’d asked both her potential manager and HR what she hoped sounded like reasonable questions a person might ask before taking a job in another part of the country. She got her answers, then told them she needed another day or two to make such a major decision.

  She was stalling, plain and simple.

  For one, the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to stay in New Orleans. Peter had turned out to be a dick, but she still loved the city. Loved the aquarium, loved The Dubious Concoction, even. And ironically, things were looking up. Since she’d gotten the offer, rumors of a big grant had been flying around the education department at the aquarium and she’d gotten a callback about a position at the World War II Museum. It would be another part-time gig and only for school vacations and summer, but it was in her field. Nothing definite, nothing that would actually pay bills at this time, but maybe, just maybe, everything would work out jobwise if she held on a little longer.

  Not to mention that she had some loose ends to tie up in New Orleans so she didn’t feel like she was bolting from a bad breakup. Things with Peter had ended so abruptly that part of her expected him to call and say it had all been a horrible mistake.

  That he’d pushed her away because he loved her so much he’d blurted out raw shock without his brain getting involved.

  She still wasn’t sure if she’d get back together with him if he groveled. He’d been a complete asshat.

  At the same time, she yearned for him to get in touch. She told herself it was for closure, but knew it wasn’t that simple. She was mad, justifiably, but the anger coexisted with the love that had been growing steadily since the children’s concert. And she had a feeling he had reasons for reacting as he had, reasons that had more to do with old baggage than with him and her.

  She couldn’t wait forever for closure that might not happen, or for job possibilities that might not pan out. Much as she’d prefer to stay in New Orleans, with Peter or without him, logic nagged her she should take the job in Salem.

  Logic sucked.

  At the same time, she wasn’t going to push it. Wasn’t going to contact him, wasn’t going to hold her breath.

  Hell, she’d even traded shifts at The Dubious Concoction, taking the less desirable lunch slot today to avoid the Lions’ regular Friday night gig. No point in torturing them both. If he wanted to reach her, he had her number.

  The problem with the lunch shift was the customers were more focused on eating than drinking. Some people ordered cocktails and a lot had beer or wine, but there were lulls.

  And she could think during those lulls. Could listen to the trio softly playing jazz standards and let the music take her places she wasn’t sure she should visit, but couldn’t resist.

  To Peter’s bed, to the embrace of rope, to the way his touch conveyed emotions he’d never expressed in words. Not until the hurtful ones at the end that suggested so much more than they said.

  Her melancholy was broken by a group of sixty-something women, clearly old friends, who settled down at the bar and asked questions about the drink specials and the lunch menu. They were a friendly bunch, soon telling her the story of how they’d all been sorority sisters at the University of Illinois “back in the Dark Ages” and had been taking vacations together ever since.

  Between the chatter and mixing drinks for all of them, Kelsey didn’t notice the musicians had stopped playing.

  Not until the house manager announced, “We have a special guest performer this afternoon. Peter Lyons will perform tonight with his group the Lions of Frenchman Street, but he’s going to give us a couple of solo numbers now. Hopefully it will entice you to come back this evening. Let’s give him a warm welcome!”

  Peter walked onto the stage, wearing neat khakis and a blue polo shirt instead of his usual suit.

  Kelsey stopped dead, a glass in one hand. For a second, she couldn’t remember what she was doing.

  How did he know she’d be here?

  Antoine knew she’d switched shifts.

  Antoine must have filled Peter in.

  She was either going to kill Antoine or thank him, depending on how this went down.

  She mentally shook herself, forced herself to get back to work. She was supposed to be making a Gin Galaxy, one of the day’s specials. As a first step, she needed a wash of elderflower liqueur, a few drops swirled in the glass.

  She knew where the elderflower liqueur was. But for a second that seemed longer, she couldn’t manage to set the glass down and get it.

  “Sorry.” She shook her head to jar her thoughts loose from Peter’s inescapable presence. “Got a little distracted there.”

  The woman who was waiting for her cocktail glanced at the stage, then purred, “He’s distracting, all right.”

  “Very.” Kelsey forced herself to get back to making the drink, not sparing another glance for the stage. Not now. Let her finish making the drinks before she had a breakdown.

  Swirl the elderflower liqueur. Set the glass down. Measure the cucumber infusion, and then find the Hendrick’s gin, a top-shelf brand that really made this drink.

  Even when Peter started to speak, she resisted the urge to look at him.

  Until he said, “I haven’t played this song for a few years, but I realized the other day it was time to add it back to my repertoire. I just hope it’s not too late.”

  She looked up then. His blue gaze found her, locked her in. He mouthed something that she thought was sorry. Then he raised the saxophone to his lips.

  When he launched into “When I Fall in Love,” Kelsey froze. After a few agonizing measures, she set the bottle of Hendrick’s and the jigger back on the bar before she dropped them from her suddenly nerveless hands.

  “Are you all right, hon?” one of the female tourists asked.

  “I think he’s playing for her!” said the woman who was waiting for the Gin Galaxy. “If that’s true, don’t worry about my drink. Your life is about to get interesting and he is…” She fanned herself. “Yummy ginger goodness.”

  Kelsey managed to nod, but all her nerves were following Peter’s notes. They wove a spell, wove a net around her as
secure and sexy as the suspension bondage the other night.

  Usually when Peter played, he turned his focus inward, making eye contact with the audience only between numbers.

  During this performance, he looked into her eyes the whole time.

  Her panties melted. That was a given. By this time, she and Peter shared enough erotic history that it didn’t take much to stir her.

  Her heart melted as well, the anger and the pain transformed to joy by the music.

  She’d never heard the story behind why he wouldn’t play this song, but he wasn’t playing it like a song he disliked. He was putting everything he had into it, including a soul-deep emotion she hadn’t realized until now wasn’t always there in his music.

  And it was for her.

  Even distracted by food and drink, the audience sensed this was something special. When he finished, Peter bowed toward the bar—toward Kelsey—as the room went wild. The club wasn’t crowded, but the din of applause and whistles filled the air even more than it had with a room packed with celebrating drunks on New Year’s Eve.

  When the room quieted again, Peter smiled, a wan imitation of his usual “chatting up the audience” expression. “Thank you. I have one more piece. It’s so new only one person has heard it before, and I hope to God she understands what it means that I’m playing it here and now. I’ve gone back and forth on the title, but for now I’m calling it ‘Kelsey, Wherever She Lands’.”

  The music moaned, then soared, then whispered. When she’d first heard it, Kelsey had recognized it as an extraordinary piece of music.

  Now she knew it was more. It was an extraordinary love song.

  She didn’t realize she was holding back tears until one of the Illinois women pressed a napkin into her hand and whispered, “Let it go. And whatever he’s going to ask you after this number, say yes.”

  That did it. She let the tears come, even though she was making a spectacle of herself at work.

  Not much of a spectacle, though. Except for the older women, who’d gathered closer as if to protect her from prying eyes, everyone was focused on Peter.

  Peter was focused on her.

  The music teased. It caressed. It wept and laughed.

  And then, abruptly, it stopped.

  “I don’t know how this one ends,” Peter confessed. “I thought I’d found the ending. Then I added false notes that twisted it into something no one was going to like. So for now it’s unresolved, until I can get some help finishing it.”

  He bowed to the audience this time. “Thank you, and thanks to Dave, Molly, and Bobby-Ray for letting me use a little of their time.” Then he turned to Kelsey. “Kelsey, I’m so sorry. The only thing I said the other day that wasn’t stupid was that you need to do what’s best for your future. But if you’re still willing to talk to me, I’m ready to listen. Call me. I may not deserve it, but please…just call me.”

  He walked off the stage.

  ***

  Somehow Kelsey managed to finish making the Gin Galaxy. Managed to finish her shift without disaster, although she was getting a lot of inquisitive looks from both customers and staff.

  As soon as she was off, she called Peter.

  His first words were, “I’m an asshole.”

  She couldn’t help responding, “Yeah, I know.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you. The music…oh Peter…” Tears were welling up again and she couldn’t finish the thought.

  “Come over as soon as you can.” He added, “Please?”

  She’d never heard him so uncertain. If she’d had any doubts—and she didn’t—that quavering voice would have defeated them.

  She rode her bike so fast to his apartment she was panting for breath when she knocked on the door.

  The little house was silent. No music at all, which seemed even stranger than the way he hesitated as she entered, obviously wanting to kiss her as much as she hoped he would, just as obviously not sure it was a good idea.

  Instead of sitting in the music room, he led her to the tiny kitchen, encouraged her to sit down in one of the wooden folding chairs by the little table.

  They’d never had sex here, she realized. Had spent little time here except for that first night when she shared her erotic history.

  Maybe that made it the right place to talk.

  They didn’t say anything at first, though. They sat in silence, hands resting on the tabletop so they almost touched, but not quite.

  Finally Peter began to speak.

  He told her about his first love, Deneice. They’d made music and explored bondage and spanking together when they were both teenagers. And then Katrina destroyed her home and her parents’ livelihood, destroyed her faith in having a future in New Orleans. “We tried to stay in touch after she moved.” Peter frowned and shook his head. “But she needed to get on with her life in Chicago, where they’d ended up. It fell apart pretty fast. I understand now, but when I was eighteen, it felt like a betrayal.”

  “So when I talked about moving out of the city…”

  “I lost it. Stupid echoes. My reaction doesn’t make sense now. Didn’t make sense then either. But sometimes feelings don’t.” He moved his hand closer to hers.

  She clasped it. “This must be about more than Deneice. High school sweethearts can leave scars, but they’d be faded ones by now.”

  “My first sub… I’d had playmates and girlfriends who enjoyed a little kinky sex, but Alison was the first one who identified as a sub even before we met. We were sex-drunk and got serious fast. Started talking about love too soon. I thought she was mine, forever: my sub, my lover, my future wife. Then she got offered a promotion and transferred to Pittsburgh—she worked for an airline and they had a hub there, so it was a big deal. Besides, she’d never been comfortable in New Orleans. She missed cold weather and fall leaves and people who talked a mile a minute. I already knew long-distance relationships were tricky and I was sure she was the one, so I moved with her.”

  He swallowed hard. Kelsey could see his Adam’s apple bob. “Only I couldn’t make music in Pittsburgh. I could still play the notes, but there was no heart to them. I couldn’t improvise. I couldn’t compose. And I couldn’t get gigs to save my soul. It turns out I become a cranky depressive with no interest in sex and no brainpower to be a decent partner, let alone someone’s Dom, when the music isn’t working. The only saving grace was we went to hell so fast I could work my way back into the music scene here pretty easily. But I thought I’d learned important lessons. If a woman I was seeing left New Orleans, we’d make a clean break and move on. And no love was forever.”

  “Let me guess. Both Deneice and Alison liked ‘When I Fall in Love.’” She squeezed his hand.

  He nodded. “It was one of the first songs Deneice and I performed together, and the only song I could play for months after she left. Alison begged for me to play it way too often, even after it was obvious we weren’t a forever item. I don’t think she really got it. She just thought it was a pretty song.”

  “Then I won’t ask to hear it again.” She managed to smile. “And I’m honored you played it for me today.”

  “I think I can play it for you every night. Because you know what? Neither of them inspired a song. You did—even before I knew I was falling in love with you.”

  “I should have known by the song, but I kept waiting to hear the words.”

  “I was scared,” he admitted bluntly. “I’d finally made up my mind to say it, and to ask you to move in, the day you came in with the news about the job in Massachusetts. Maybe talk about playing more with dominance and submission as well as the physical aspects of kink. When you sprang your news on me, my brain froze up. All that excitement just turned to stupidity and meanness because I was sure you were going to leave. I am so sorry. I’m scared to ask you to forgive me. But I hope you can.”

  Her heart cracked open and reformed, healing itself stronger than ever. She managed to smile. “I forgave you with the first notes
you played today. I didn’t know what had gone through your mind, didn’t know about your history, but the music let me know you’d lashed out because you felt too strongly to think it through.”

  “I don’t want you to leave New Orleans, Kelsey. I’ll miss you like crazy if you go. I understand why you may need to, though, and I’ll try to make it work long-distance. I don’t think a little town north of Boston is a place I could live, but I’ll visit a lot. Who knows? I might even learn to enjoy the frozen north.” He hesitated. “That is, if you still want me, asshole moments and all.”

  Her heart swelled. “I do. But don’t pack your bags yet. I haven’t accepted the job.”

  “Even after I…”

  “Even after that. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I wasn’t sure this was the right job for me. I may be broke here, but I’m happy and having fun. The penny-pinching isn’t great, but it would be worse to give up on a place I love and work I enjoy to realize in a couple of months that I’d made a mistake. Besides, it looks like the money situation at the aquarium may be looking up.” She cupped his cheek with her free hand. “And I admit I hoped we could work something out whether I stayed or left. I was mad as hell, but I believe in love, Peter. And that means working through problems, making compromises, letting go of anger. I was willing to try and hoped you would be too—even if you won’t admit there’s such a thing as true love.”

  He reached forward and reeled her in until she was perched on his lap. The kitchen chair seemed rickety for two, but Kelsey was willing to risk it.

  She’d already risked a lot more by coming here than a collapsing chair and an awkward fall. She’d risk more by staying in New Orleans. But she’d made up her mind.

  With his arms around her, Peter spoke in a voice laced with intoxicating sweetness. “I still don’t believe in true love like in songs and movies—the kind where you ride into the sunset and live happily ever after. The first time you’re unhappy, that kind of idealized love falls apart. I’ve had it happen—I helped make it happen with Alison—and that was why I didn’t trust love at all. But I can get behind love that you have to work for, the kind that’s beautiful and hard and sometimes painful, but worth it. Anything important is like that. Music. Living in New Orleans. Us, even if it took me taking the coward’s way to see that.”