Page 135 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“That’s a re­lief,” Kyran said. “I thought my bow was go­ing to need work.” He leaned for­ward. “Hey, Gabriel, I lis­tened to some tapes of you play­ing af­ter this meet­ing got set up. You are one hell of a gui­tarist.”

“Gra­cias,” Gabriel mur­mured.

Quinn’s heart twisted when he lifted his hand to touch his ear.

“It got me started on an idea for a new song, but I can’t play fla­menco like you. Would you be will­ing to do a few riffs? You can record it in Cal­eva, and we’ll mix it in. You don’t even have to come into the stu­dio with me.” Now Kyran was coax­ing.

Gabriel dropped his hand. “I would be hon­ored to work in the stu­dio with you. I am not sure what I can con­trib­ute, though.”

Kyran leaped up from the chair and jogged over to open the of­fice door. “Hey, Pinky, bring me a cou­ple of acous­tics, would you? Yeah, those are good.” He re­turned with a gui­tar in each hand and of­fered one to Gabriel.

For a mo­ment, Gabriel looked at it as though it were a poi­sonous snake. Then he took it, han­dling the in­stru­ment like the ut­terly fa­mil­iar ob­ject it was. He slipped the strap over his head and rested the gui­tar’s curve on his thigh be­fore look­ing at Kyran with a ques­tion in his eyes.

“Okay, man, here’s what I’ve been fool­ing around with.” Kyran played some chords on his gui­tar while he hummed a melody sat­u­rated with long­ing.

Quinn watched in fas­ci­na­tion as Gabriel’s gaze nar­rowed in con­cen­tra­tion, and he brought his hand up to his in­stru­ment’s strings. “Af­ter that first phrase, how about some­thing like this?” The sound that rip­pled from his gui­tar was so sad that Quinn wanted to cry.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s good!” Kyran pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket. “You mind if I record this? To re­mind me what we’re think­ing about?”

“That’s fine,” Gabriel said.

Af­ter that, Quinn was pretty sure the two mu­si­cians for­got that she and Aaron were in the room. In fact, they prob­a­bly for­got that they were in a ho­tel room in New York City.

They tossed the mu­sic back and forth, play­ing to­gether, play­ing sep­a­rately, hum­ming, even adding a phrase of lyrics here and there. They spoke to each other in a lan­guage Quinn didn’t un­der­stand, but she could see how they sparked each other’s imag­i­na­tion.

She tore her gaze away from Gabriel and Kyran to see how Aaron was re­act­ing. He ap­peared to lounge in his chair, while his face held a fo­cused in­ter­est that be­lied his ca­sual pos­ture.

Her at­ten­tion was pulled back to the mu­si­cians when Kyran said, “Man, can you show me how you do that?”

“The ras­gueo de aban­ico? Like this.” Gabriel slowed his fin­gers down so that the hu­man eye could fol­low what he was do­ing.

Kyran im­i­tated him at the mea­sured speed, then tried to play faster. “Shit, that’s go­ing to take prac­tice.”

Gabriel looked up with a smile. “Years of it.”

“I feel you, man.”

Quinn hoped Gabriel heard the re­spect in Kyran’s voice.

“Okay,” Kyran said, fid­dling with his phone be­fore set­ting it down again. “Let’s try it from the be­gin­ning and run all the way through.”

Quinn for­got where she was as the mu­sic wove around her. The en­ergy vi­brat­ing be­tween Gabriel and Kyran crack­led in the air. Kyran blazed with the white bril­liance of a klieg light, while Gabriel burned with a dark fire that tempted and se­duced. To­gether, they were elec­tri­fy­ing.

The two men’s bod­ies shifted and moved with the mu­sic, but their gazes were locked on each other, tak­ing cues, giv­ing cues, nod­ding at some­thing that worked es­pe­cially well. When the song ended on the crash of a tri­umphant chord, a feel­ing of loss hol­lowed out Quinn’s chest. She wanted to live in the mu­sic for­ever.

“Wow! That was ex­tra!” Kyran said, hold­ing up his hand for a high five from Gabriel.

Both Gabriel and Kyran slumped back in their seats, their hair damp with sweat. Quinn had come to un­der­stand from watch­ing Gabriel that mak­ing mu­sic at that level was hard work, both phys­i­cally and men­tally.

“That was good. Re­ally good,” Aaron said. “Now write the lyrics so we can get it recorded.”

Kyran laughed. “If Aaron thinks it’s good, it will go plat­inum. He knows his stuff, even though he can’t play a note.”

“I’ve got a golden ear,” Aaron said, mak­ing Quinn wince in­wardly. She stole a glance at Gabriel, but he was still re­laxed on the love seat.

“Your peo­ple.” Kyran pointed at Gabriel, then at him­self. “My peo­ple.”

“We’ll get a record­ing ses­sion sched­uled.” Gabriel lifted the gui­tar strap off and laid the in­stru­ment down be­side him. “So, I can count on you for the Fes­ti­val de las Artes de Cal­eva?” He looked first at Kyran, then at Aaron.

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