Page 55 of The Baritone's Rival

“Come on.” Julie rolled her eyes. “Both you and Oscar were gone for a long weekend. I’m not Sherlock Holmes if I solve this mystery. You left town together!”

“I…I can’t really talk about it.” Trent swung his backpack off his shoulder and unzipped it, pulling out his binder full of music.

“Whatever. But something must have happened between you.”

“What do you mean?” Trent asked.

“Are you kidding me? You two go, and then you come back, but he doesn’t. Where is he? What happened?”

Trent pulled up a nearby music stand, metal scraping against metal as he slid the black contraption to the appropriate height. “Can we just rehearse? The Manhattan Lyric audition is in two weeks, and I have to…”

“Have to do better than Oscar?” Julie asked, snarkiness creeping in.

“Yeah,” Trent said, although his heart wasn’t in it.

Trent wanted to focus on music. He didn’t want to think about what had happened. He didn’t want to worry about how Oscar was feeling. He came to New York to achieve his career ambition and get away from vampires. If that was all that he did for the next five years, that was fine. He needed to let go of the long-haired vamp with the swimmer’s build who had made his skin catch fire with his touch.

“I’m going to call Oscar after this. The two of you are my friends. We’ll go to that coffee place with the hateful baristas and you two can work through whatever?—”

“I just want to sing!”

The words came out louder and harsher than he intended. He was exhausted from being so on edge. It wasn’t the upcoming audition, or even the vampires-are-trying-to-kill-me shit. It was Oscar.

Julie nodded, her eyes wary after being shouted at. “What should we work on?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“Dammit.” Trent closed his eyes, reaching for the control that had eluded him over the last week. After a moment, he opened them, locking his gaze to Julie’s patient face.

“I’m sorry.”

“Okay…” Julie waited expectantly. Of course, she wanted more information.

“I…yes. There’s something going on between us, and I don’t know exactly what it is or how to deal with it. I just need some space. I need to focus on my singing.”

Julie nodded, then slid out from behind the piano and walked over to Trent. She smiled and opened her arms, looking up for consent. Trent nodded.

She wrapped him in a tight embrace, and Trent felt something give, a knot of tension finally loosening and giving way. He had no one he could talk to, no one he could be fully himself around. He had kept everyone at a distance.

“Thank you,” he whispered into her ear, his face buried in her honey-scented hair. “I don’t think I can…I don’t know…”

Julie pulled back and took his face in her hands. Her palms were warm against his cheeks.

“Listen, if you need space, that’s fine. But as someone who also uses her career to avoid thinking about emotions, let me give you some advice. Sometimes distance is helpful. But forpeople like us, it’s a distraction. We occupy ourselves with the mountains of work and all the internal pressures that we pile on our plates. We never actually feel the thing we say we need space to deal with.”

Trent sighed, nodding. She was probably right. Not that he would tell her that.

“I just don’t know.”

Julie smiled, wide and warm. “That’s okay. In the meantime, let’s sing.”

Chapter 19

Oscar

There were few signs that the old building had once been a church. Other than the steeple-like transom over the door and the two stained glass windows, it blended seamlessly into the city block. This was the third night Oscar and Lillian had sat across the street. Their vantage point was a long-shuttered yoga studio. It still smelled of incense and sweat.

Lillian was some kind of monster, and not because she was a vampire. She could sit there staring for hours at a time without moving or speaking. After half an hour, Oscar would get antsy and pace around the room.

Tonight was no different. They’d arrived at dusk, and now it was nine o’clock. For the third night in a row, no one had gone in or out.

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