Page 62 of Counterpoint and Harmony

That prompts a small smile and a chuckle, which has me breathing easier. He adjusts his glasses with his free hand. “Yeah. I had a few texts from my parents wondering if we were okay.”

“Did you text them back yet?”

He nods. “Of course. I told them we were fine and that your driver had taken us back to the hotel, that we were going to lay low for the night after the stir you caused.”

I roll my eyes, a crooked smile claiming my own mouth. “Would you have preferred if I hadn’t done that?”

His smile dims as he grows thoughtful and withdraws his hand. Blowing out a breath, he pulls his knees up, wrapping his arms loosely around them over the blankets. “I … no? Maybe. I don’t really know. With anyone else—if you were still just Charlie Baxter, the piano major from California who took time off before going to college, then of course I would want you to be the one to bring me my flowers.”

“But …?”

He looks at me, the conflict written all over his face my only answer.

“Oh. Right. I … get it.” Slipping out of bed, I cross to the closet to grab some clothes, not giving him a chance to respond. Not that he does. When I turn back around and face him, my clothes clasped to my chest like a shield, he’s still in the same position, watching me. “I’m going to take a shower. Think about what you want me to say to the media, because I have to say something. I’ll leave it up to you to decide.”

That’s as close as I can get to asking him about the status of us. It’s been the elephant in the room every time we’ve been together, but neither of us has brought it up. We should’ve had this conversation the first time we were here. But then Lauren called, and I took the coward’s way out and answered the phone, too scared to find out that Damian just saw me as a convenient piece of ass.

Because I’ve never stopped loving him, and if I found out he didn’t feel the same way, it would shatter me.

People say I’m brave for performing in front of sold out audiences or for the way I handle the media censure that’s often thrown my way for my string of so-called boyfriends. But I’m not really brave. Not when it counts.

The bravest thing I’ve done is fire my mother. And even so, she still tries to insert herself into my life, into my career.

And once again, I skip out on this conversation, ducking my head and heading for the bathroom, hiding behind the closed door and the sound of running water.

The fact that our relationship is amorphous and ill-defined is now a bigger problem than it was yesterday. Sure, I was fine with the whole friends-with-benefits thing we seem to have going on last night when I was swept away by his performance, consumed by passion, dying for his touch.

But now?

In the clear light of day, with the ramifications of my impulsive actions splattered all over the gossip sites, I feel vulnerable. Out in the cold, picking my way across thin ice, not sure if my next step will send me plunging into icy water. Alone.

Who am I kidding, though? Damian doesn’t know the best way to handle this kind of media attention. I’ll have to figure out how to say what needs to be said with the help of my PR team.

There’s a text from Natalie that I didn’t notice come in during my conversation with Damian letting me know there’s a draft of a statement waiting for my approval in my email.

Pulling it up, I look it over. It’s sufficiently vague without being a lie, saying that we’ve been close since our time together at Marycliff and that I was in attendance at the concert to support him. People can read between the lines, of course. But it’ll buy us some time until he decides what he wants from me, from us.

Once he makes up his mind whether he’s going or staying, I’ll schedule an interview with one of the reporters I like and offer her the scoop on our relationship, whatever that is by then.

I just hope that we still have a relationship after this. Because with the way Damian’s acting this morning, I’m not so sure.

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