Page 62 of Symphony of Salvation

Over and over in my mind. His words. The sensations. The blasted symphony wouldn’t stop.

I sipped the cocoa and licked the cream from my lips while staring at my phone, contemplating and weighing the pros and cons. Anticipatory notes danced in the back of my mind just thinking about him.

Setting my drink aside, I pulled up his name, typed,Now you have my number too, and hit send.

Our first text.

Minutes ticked by. Nerves turned my stomach soupy. Then, a reply.Hello, August. Are you fishing for conversation?

I smiled.Yes. Am I that obvious? Are you busy?

Getting ready to go to my parents’ for Christmas dinner. Joy of joys. What are you up to?

I glanced along the street in both directions. People with high spirits and sparkling energy raced about. A profound weight of loneliness sat on my chest. Inertia kept me rooted to the bench.

Nothing much.Better he thought of me relaxing at home than hiding from responsibility.

Instead of a reply, my phone rang.

“It’s hard to type and get ready at the same time,” he explained when I answered. “Can you chat?”

“I can.” His voice alone lifted my spirits. “Dinner with the family, huh? You don’t sound excited. I sensed sarcasm in your message.”

“It’s the one time of year my avoidance isn’t tolerated.” The buzz of an electric razor sounded over the line.

“You’re shaving again.”

The noise stopped. Niles chuckled. “Yes. Problem?”

Hesitation. “You… The beard was attractive. I liked it. It suited you. It was gone at the concert, and… I missed it.”

“I like it too. January. I shave to appease the masses at this time of year. First, the school and parents. The Christmas concert demands I play the part of a professional educator—or rather, Dr. McCaine does. I represent the whole school, don’t you know?” He huffed. “And second, my mother would have my head if I showed up to dinner looking sloppy. Beards are apparently messy. If it was up to any of them, I’d likely lose the hair too.”

“Don’t you dare.”

More chuckling. “Oh, I caught a vibe that you like it.”

I flushed, remembering the aggressive way I’d fisted it the other day while we were kissing. The memory of the soft strands tangled in my fingers had kept me awake at night, yearning for more. I glanced up and down the street with a nauseating fear that the pedestrians knew my thoughts.

Facing my attraction to Niles unnerved me, so I redirected. “Tell me, what does family Christmas with the Edwidge’s look like?”

Water ran as Niles laughed. “Oh, you don’t want to know.”

“I do.”

The water shut off. “All right. Hold on. I’m putting you on speaker so I can dress.”

The sound changed, and Niles explained. “Lots of wine is required to get through the endless discussions about the lateststudies in neurology, or to endure my brothers arguing, tossing around opinions, and debating advances in medicine.

“Dad might regale us about an unprecedented surgery his team performed, how the odds were against them, and how their success would be recorded in textbooks and taught in classrooms. It will no doubt be something Andrew assisted with because he’s Dad’s prodigy and given to being lead surgeon on important cases.

“Mason will chime in with a surgical story or two of his own, trying to one-up Andrew, and Mason’s wife, who works in the same field, will augment that Mason’s accomplishments far exceed Andrew’s. Andrew’s wife, Eileen, will join the battle, and Dad will glorify the accomplishments of both his superior sons and tell them it’s not a competition, even though it’salwaysbeen a competition.

“Presley might divert to a medical malpractice case she’s fighting, which will encourage Mom to pitch in her two cents or talk about some law bullshit she’s been entrenched in lately.

“It will go on like this for the entire three-course meal, and by the time the pumpkin pie is served, I’ll be half in the bag from having used wine to bandage my feelings of inadequacy because I’ll have been ignored all night.

“At this point, seeing my inebriation, my father will decide it’s time to humiliate me and ask how school is going and are my little munchkins behaving because I’m a glorified babysitter in his eyes with no worthy education to speak of, and I certainly don’t contribute to society in any meaningful way. Perhaps if I taught at the university level, I would be more respected, but golly gee, that won’t happen unless I get a PhD, and have I considered a career change yet, and when am I going back to university?

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