Page 101 of Crescendo

“How many times has he been here?”

“How many times has he been to your place?” she shot back. “It’s not weird having your friends over.”

“It is if you’ve made out.”

“It was one time. Get over it.”

I shook my head. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Why? You know I’d tell you if it were more than that, and it’s not. Now, we’re just friends and I’m giving him advice about the music biz over here. It’s fine.”

“Sure.”

She grinned. “More importantly, want to tell me why you’re here and not with Lydia, who you’re actually kissing on the regular?”

I let out a heavy sigh. For one minute, I’d been able to focus on something else, but here we were. “What are we doing, Sian?”

“You and me? Drinking chai and drying off, at least in your case—do you want to borrow something less wet?” She gestured to my soggy jeans.

“It’s fine, thank you. But no. Lydia. Me. That whole thing.”

She furrowed her brow. “Did you have a fight?”

“Ha. No. Not exactly. We had a… fizzle.” I held my breath momentarily, feeling the way my lungs burned from already missing her before she’d even gone anywhere. “The whole sad conversation about what happens when Crescendo ends. She can’t leave her life. I can’t leave mine. Neither of us good at doing casual… evidently.”

Sian put her mug down. “Ah.”

“Yep.”

“You caught real feelings for her.”

“Yep.”

“And she did for you.”

“Seems like it.”

“Oh, that wasn’t a question. It’s clear when the two of you are together.”

I scowled. “That’s not helpful.”

“It’s not meant to be. This whole thing is messy and complicated, but it’s not going to stop you feeling how you feel.” She laughed. “Honestly, the idea that you both thought youcould be with someone you’re living with for two months and not fall for each other is wild.”

“I’m sure some people pull that off,” I said, indignant.

“Maybe. But those people aren’t you two. And you weren’t going to make yourself into those people just by willing it to be.”

I looked down, staring at my hands in my lap. “But it’s still worth all the pain, so it’s not like I’d do anything differently if I did it all again.”

She hummed in a way that made me look back at her. “And you’re just planning to let that go?”

“What?”

“You’re sitting here, looking like a shell of a person again, and you’re saying you would do it all again just to have these few months with her, but you’re going to let her walk away.”

“Right.” I didn’t think she needed to go quite so readily for the jugular, but that was fine. I knew what I’d needed when I’d shown up here.

“How often do you think that comes along? Someone you’d willingly hurt for just to have a little bit of time with them?”

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