Page 13 of Crescendo

Callum had felt like that every time he had a guitar in his hands.

“You can try to win on technicalities, but I’m not going to let you,” Lydia said, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m not actually trying to.”

“Good. Because I want to know why you aren’t just staying at your own house—”

“Flat.”

She paused. “Whatever. Why are you paying all this money to stay here when you already live in London?”

I sighed. This wasn’t the clarinet conversation, but it wasn’t far off, not really. “I just wanted… to be all in on this, to be away from my regular life. I’m trying…” How much did I really want to tell this famous stranger I’d only just met? “Something. I’m trying something different. Taking a break from work, getting back into music. Plus, you know, the programme is really packed, and I could afford to stay here, so I just wanted to be… part of it. Part of something.”

The wistful tone in my voice by the end of my little speech poked at the base of my spine, prickling like I’d given away too much.

Lydia, however, just watched me for a second, taking me in, before she shrugged, nodded, and turned to the piano again. “Fair enough. You couldn’t pass up your opportunity to live beside Eliza and Hannah. Got it.”

I laughed, grateful for the break in tension in my chest. “Somehow, they’re not the part I’m excited about.”

“Piano is.”

I hesitated. “Yeah.”

“Say it like you mean it,” she complained.

“Yes.”

“Better,” she laughed. “Which key did you compose your application piece in?”

Immediately the tension flashed back into my muscles. Of course that was a question she’d ask. Of course I’d have to admit toLydia Howard Foxhow woefully incompetent I was.

I chewed the inside of my cheek for a moment. “Um… The key of music.”

She froze, hands over the piano’s keys, staring at the empty music stand. “The key of music?”

“Yep. Music. Comma, the key of.”

“You don’t know what a key is?” she asked very carefully. I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than her just laughing at me.

“I know what they are,” I insisted, feeling my face burn. “I just… I used to play the clarinet. And I just… read the notes.”

Lydia twisted as much as she could on the stool to look at me—it wasn’t much, pressed together as we already were.

I avoided her gaze, my eyes tracing the floral bird patterns on the wallpaper that adorned one wall in here.

“But you compose?” she asked, sounding suspicious.

“I try.”

“You do well enough to get into this programme.”

“I’m sure they take anyone who’s willing to pay for it.”

“Not true. There’s a baseline you have to meet.”

“So, let’s say I tiptoed over that and now I’m here with one of the world’s most famous composers, admitting I don’t know which key I’m composing in most of the time.”

“Most of the time?”

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