Page 33 of Strings Attached
Oh god. My heart seizes even as I rise to my feet. I should have worked more. Should have at least maintained the pretense of progress. Instead, I’ve been discovering a completely different music, one that has nothing to do with perfect performances and everything to do with raw, honest emotion.
Still muscle memory is a powerful thing. As he strides toward me, arms thrown wide, I fall into the familiar choreography of our friendship. Like a well-rehearsed duet, my body remembers its part even as my mind stumbles over the changed melody of my heart. Hugging Jules feels like hitting play on an old favorite song. Maybe I wouldn’t pick it anymore, but there’s still something nostalgic about it when it comes on.
“What are you doing here?” I ask against his neck.
His embrace carries the ghost of a hundred post-performance celebrations, the echo of late-night rehearsals and shared triumphs that once defined my world. I breathe him in, because there is comfort in the familiar. Even if familiar smells like posh bergamot and oak-moss cologne.
“Visiting my wayward cellist, of course!” His laugh resonates with that particular Jules cadence—part showman, part conspirator. His grip tightens and he whispers, “This autumn has been unbearably dull without you, Missy.”
He lifts me off my feet until I laugh, another familiar gesture that suddenly feels wrong instead of reassuring. Only as Jules sets me down does my world tilt on its axis. There, framed in the doorway like a stark charcoal sketch against autumn light, stands Dean.
His face is a careful blank canvas, the kind he wears when answering people’s requests to bend the rules. But I know him well enough now to read the subtle tells—the tick in his jaw, the way his shoulders have gone rigid, and the tight clench of his teeth like he's biting back words he doesn’t trust himself to say.
I’m achingly aware of every point of contact where Jules still touches me. My skin feels too tight, like a cello string wound past its breaking point. At this moment, my two worlds aren’t just colliding—they’re shattering against each other.
Dean’s dark eyes meet mine for just a heartbeat, but in that fragment of time, I see something I’ve never witnessed there before: uncertainty. It flickers across his carefully composed features like a shadow across water, there and gone so quickly I might have imagined it. But I know I haven’t. Just as I know that the careful walls he’s lowered for me these past weeks are rising again, brick by brick, with every second Jules’ hands linger on my shoulders.
I want to run to Dean. To explain that this isn’t what it looks like. But Jules is already talking rapid fire and I can’t get my brain to think.
“The recording studio in Vienna is holding our slot through December—” His fingers tap a rhythm against my shoulder and I realize he’s still touching me. “Absolute miracle, consideringtheir waitlist. But when I played them the rough cut of your solo in the third movement?—”
I catch the exact moment Dean turns away. The space he leaves feels hollow, a music box without its melody.
“—and Marketing thinks we can leverage your ‘small-town sabbatical’ angle. Very relatable, very human interest—” Jules’ hand still rests on me, heavy as a judge’s verdict. “The critics are already buzzing about our bold artistic evolution?—”
His energy hums like he’s downed a trio of espressos before striding in here, but I feel like the breath has been stolen from me. I’m not sure he’s even realized I’ve yet to reply to a thing he’s said.
Alex wipes her hands on a tea towel and walks from behind the counter. She smiles as she reaches out her hand. “Mr. Bouchard, great to meet you again.”
“Jules, please.” His smile shifts to something warmer, less performative. “And your cafe is absolutely enchanting. The exposed brick, the lighting—” He gestures with elegant fingers, finally dragging them away from me. “Like a piece of Manhattan tucked away in paradise.”
I remember once he’d referred to Magnolia Cove as a ‘cultural wasteland.’The memory sits sour in my mind.
“Where are you staying?” Alex flicks the towel over her shoulder.
“The most darling inn just up the hill.” Jules’ eyes sparkle. “Though I must say the decor is…. enthusiastic. I’m sharing my room with no less than three different floral patterns on the walls alone, not counting the bedspread or the dozen framed botanical prints. I believe I’ve reached my quota of roses for the year.”
“A shame,” I hear myself say, “considering how many bouquets you get after performances.”
His laugh carries the theatrical quality that used to make my heart flutter. “Too true, darling. Too true.”
“Oh yes,” Alex says, “That’s where I stayed the first time I visited The Cove, as well. Mrs. Haversham is lovely.”
They continue chatting, their voices weaving together like a familiar duet, but I’m suddenly aware of every discordant note in my life’s composition. I haven’t told Jules about potentially leaving touring. I haven’t told Alex about Dean. I haven’t told Dean about Jules trying to push our relationship beyond professional. I’ve been living in a bubble that’s about to pop.
Alex’s brow furrows as she picks up on my expression. Jules doesn’t seem to notice at all, going on about the ‘quaint charm’ of the island and how he simply had to come see where I was ‘hiding myself away.’
Each unspoken truth sits heavy in my chest like a held breath before a difficult passage. The magic that now colors my world in shimmers and whispers. Dean’s constellations dancing across my skin. The way music has transformed from precise performance into something wild and honest in our lighthouse sanctuary. All these secrets press against my ribs, changing the rhythm of my breathing, altering the melody I’ve been pretending to play.
Jules gestures with elegant fingers as he describes our upcoming schedule, each movement precise as a conductor’s baton. But I’m no longer the instrument I once was, no longer tuned to his particular frequency. I’ve been restrung by starlight and possibility, my heart keeping time to a different sort of music entirely.
Through the window, autumn leaves dance their subtle magical choreography. If I squint, I can almost see the shimmering wards that protect the island. The same wards that keep Jules from seeing the true Magnolia Cove, just as I’ve always kept him from seeing my true self.
Dean
The festival grounds are a patchwork of autumn colors and carefully constrained chaos. Vendors arrange displays while magical wards hum beneath my feet—steady, constant, predictable. Unlike the rest of my life lately.
Yesterday, I saw Jules wrap Missy in an enthusiastic hug. She smiled—wide, easy, familiar. It shouldn’t have meant anything.
