Page 69 of Absolutely Not in Love
Felix
Assoonaswe’rein the apartment, Gracie’s warm hand wraps around mine, and I let her lead me into the living room. She sits me down on the couch, her hands falling onto my shoulders like she’s guiding me down.
“Okay,” she says. “I have to go change first because I can’t play my cello wearing this dress. So you just wait here, and I’ll be right back.”
I watch her walk away, my eyes lingering on the sway of her hips and the curve of her slender waist. The woman has mad curves, and I am here for it.
She’s back in less than five minutes in a loose black tank top and a pair of jeans that are just as flattering as the dress she wore to dinner. I wipe a hand across my face and focus on Gracie’s intentional movements as she pulls her cello from the case and gets ready to play.
I’m not sure she’s ever looked so beautiful.
“Okay, so I’m just going to qualify this by saying I had to transpose this piece into bass clef, so there are a few places it might sound slightly different than what you’re used to. Still. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.”
She tilts her head to either side, stretching her neck, then lifts her bow to the strings. “Ready?”
I swallow against the knot in my throat. I thought I loved watching Gracie all dressed up, playing on stage with the rest of the Harvest Hollow Symphony. But here, in my living room, playing for me—onlyme—I just hope she doesn’t need me to talk. Because my words are gone. Disappeared.
Or maybe there justaren’tany words.
Not for this. Not for how she’s making me feel right now.
I nod. “Whenever you are.”
The first notes ring out into the quiet living room and immediately fill my soul—then I realize what she’s playing. It’s a few octaves lower to fit the cello’s register, but I recognize the melody. It’s the only piece I know completely by heart. Every note. Every dip and swell of the music is as familiar to me as my own name.
She’s playing Bach’s first violin sonata—my grandmother’s favorite piece.
Myfavorite piece.
I’m not prepared for the onslaught of emotions this brings. It feels big that Gracie would do this for me. It’s incredibly thoughtful and touching, but it’s also incredible to hear my favorite piece played on my favorite instrument. I’ve always loved the deeper, rich tones of the cello, so this is something I never would have thought to ask for, but now, I’m not sure I’ll ever want to hear it the original way again.
Even more than that, I can’t stop thinking about how much my grandmother would love this. How much she would loveGracie.She’s only been gone a few years, long enough that missing her tends to come in waves. I’ll go days, even weeks without thinking of her. But then I’ll hear a certain piece of music and she’ll pop right into my mind.
I don’t have particularly strong feelings about what life after death might be like. But I do know that in those moments, I feel like she’s close by, like I’m thinking of her because she swung by to say hello.
Right now is definitely one of those moments. Maybe it’s silly, but I’d like to think she’s here, listening right along with me.
Gracie finishes the piece, the final notes echoing into the silence, and then takes a deep breath. “That’s only the first movement, but…” Her words trail off, and I can hear a question in her tone.
I’m still sitting on the couch, my elbows resting on my knees, my head down. I want to look up, tell her how beautiful it was, but if I do, she’s going to see the tears in my eyes, and that just feels…are we ready for that? We’ve only been on one date. Do I really want to cry in front of this woman?
“Hey,” Gracie says, and suddenly she’s in front of me on the floor, her hands sliding over my knees as she tilts her head, trying to meet my eye. “Felix, I’m sorry. I didn’t think about the possibility of the song being emotional for you, but of course it would be. I should have asked before I just played it like that—”
I shake my head, cutting off her apology. “That’s not it. I’m glad you played it,” I say shakily. “It was perfect.” I sniff and clear my throat with a gruffarrgh,turning my face away from Gracie. I don’t want her to see me like this—to feel responsible for making me feel this way when what she did was so thoughtful, so incredibly amazing.
I clear my throat again, a little more forcefully this time, and try to rein in my emotions. “Would you—do you think you could record it for me?” I ask.
Before she responds, she reaches up and takes my face in her hands, her fingers brushing over my beard, her thumbs sliding across the moisture under my eyes. “Of course I’ll record it for you,” she says. “But Felix, please don’t hide how you’re feeling right now. Not from me. You feeling this way about someone who meant a lot to you doesn’t make you look weak.” She licks her lips, then lifts them into a coy smile. “It does make you sexy as hell.”
This makes me chuckle, and I close my eyes, relaxing into her touch. “Men really don’t know how badly we get it wrong sometimes, do we?”
“I won’t speak for all women, but as a romantic at heart who is driven by passion and love stories, I’m totally into this,” she says. She pushes off the floor and settles onto the couch, sitting sideways so she’s facing me, and immediately pulls me into a hug.
I didn’t really know I needed a hug, but as her smaller body melts against mine, her arms threading around me, tension eases out of my shoulders. My nose presses against the exposed skin of her neck and shoulder, and I breathe her in. She smells incredible—a little citrusy, but more like the Carolina jessamine that grew on the trellises outside my grandmother’s Hilton Head beach house. Her body is warm, yielding, arching into me as I pull her closer.
There is a moment—aspecificmoment—when the hug shifts from an offering of comfort to something else entirely. I feel it in the way Gracie’s movements slow, her hands sliding over my shoulders to the base of my neck. I feel it in the air, the tension crackling between us. And I see it in her eyes when she pulls back and looks at me, her eyelids heavy, her lips parted.
“Gracie?” I say on an exhale—because I need to make sure we’re on the same page.
