CHAPTER THREE

VIC DIDN’T KNOW WHY HE was so nervous.

He paced the floor of his penthouse apartment, high in its glass-walled tower with a stunning view of the glittering New York City skyline. The jewels of the night sky, both man-made and natural, reflected from the glossy, pure black tiles of the floor, volcanic obsidian polished to a mirror shine and inlaid with gold between the tiles. Right now those black-mirror tiles shone his own reflection back up at him, his face agitated and tight, his eyes dark.

What was he so worried about? It was just a cello lesson. Amani was a complete stranger. Why did he want the man to forgive him so much?

Why did his approval matter at all?

It’s selfish, that’s what this is. It’s selfish, and I just want him to forgive me so I won’t have to feel bad about offending him. That’s all apologizing ever is. I should cancel this right now.

But he couldn’t.

Not when he remembered the darkness, the heaviness in Amani’s voice as he said, I still have bills to pay.

He wouldn’t make this any harder for Amani than it had to be. Wouldn’t retract an offer, when he didn’t renege on his commitments. Victor Newcomb kept his promises, period. They’d do their lessons, he’d pay Amani, and Amani would go back to his life. Vic would just be a means to an end, and he was all right with that.

He was.

But when the front desk buzzed to let him know he had a visitor, his heart jumped and rolled and tumbled through its next few beats before settling. He rubbed sweaty palms against his jeans, then buzzed Amani in and entered the lock code on the elevator that opened directly into his apartment. Seconds passed in an agony, before  a soft chime warned—and the doors slid open to reveal Amani, standing there with his expression impassive, a large cello case almost as tall as he was propped against his thigh.

Seeing him inside the cavernous elevator only made Vic realize how small he really was, when Amani carried himself with a quiet force of presence that could topple mountains with a whisper rather than a scream. It was something about his poise, the proud tilt of his chin, the way half-lidded cat’s eyes in tawny, lustrously soft amber carried such weight, such command. He couldn’t be more than five foot three, five foot four, but he carried himself with the strength of giants and the elegance of royalty.

That elegance drew him forward on a liquid stride as he stepped off the elevator with his cello case dangling by one hand, the other shrugging him out of a thick Navy peacoat; underneath he wore a sleeveless caftan tunic today, pale gray like smoke against skin as rich and gleaming as polished teak, the edges embroidered in silver, the hem falling almost to his knees and yet the sides slit up so high that a glimpse of dark skin showed above the waist of the loose, flowing white linen trousers that swished against the floor with every graceful, swirling stride. He glanced about the massive, terraced single-room space of the penthouse with unreadable eyes, delicately tucking his unbound hair behind his ear, before settling that cool gaze on Vic.

“Mr. Newcomb,” he said tonelessly, yet there was something different about the way he said Vic’s name, a shift in inflection and tone, a subtle rolling accent that turned the simple syllables of Mr. Newcomb into music of silk and sand. “This is where you live?”

“You sound different,” he blurted out, then winced and shut his damned mouth.

What was wrong with him?

“Ah?” Amani arched a brow. “Oh.” Then he shrugged diffidently, looking away, gaze trained distantly on the far wall of the apartment, where nothing but glass and slender steel framing separated them from the darkness and the cold wind of a New York November night, the moon high and chill and pale and round. “I only bother muting my accent at work. The owners don’t like it if the clients complain they can’t understand us, or that we don’t speak English.” He delivered the information with toneless disinterest, yet still that hypnotic music of inflection made every word soft and rich. “My mother and I have both learned how to make our voices sound more…well. You know.”

“That’s…shitty,” Vic said, wrinkling his brow. “Your voice sounds…real, like this. Like this is the real you.” Fuck, words were just coming out of him like he had no filter, and they didn’t stop until he’d said, “It’s lovely. Like every word is singing.”

“Flattery won’t get you a discount.”

It’s not flattery, he wanted to protest, but he shut his damned mouth and bit his tongue and kept his thoughts to himself because he was already stepping in it again, when he had no idea what Amani dealt with that would make him feel forced to silence that music to please other people.

But after a quiet moment, Amani favored him with a brief, albeit detached smile, almost wistful. “Though that’s not something I hear often. Most of the time accents like mine are derided. People only fawn over men with accents like yours.”

“But I don’t have an accent.”

“To you, you don’t.” Amani made a soft, amused sound. “Now show me your instrument.”

Vic opened his mouth.

Shut it again.

And just turned and walked away, the back of his neck burning because he couldn’t forget that Amani had already seen his instrument up close and personal, standing at full mast with only a towel preserving even the slightest hint of decency.

Normal reaction, his arse.

He’d left his cello propped on the stand next to the long, low white leather modernist sofa, a full 4/4 size, gleaming dark-polished wood with just enough age to it to make the tone deeper and richer, the signs of loving use and handling marked into the wood. He gestured toward it. “It’s a Ficker,” he said. “1966. Hand-made. Strings are new, but the rest is original wood.”

Amani set his case down gingerly on the sofa and draped his coat next to it, then circled the Ficker cello slowly, reaching out to trace his fingers over its curving lines. He touched it with something almost like reverence, sensuality, warmth. “Someone played this cello with love,” he said, before he shot a penetrating look at Vic. “It wasn’t you.”

He winced. “No, I…the one I learned on was a 3/4, but I left it at home in Liverpool when we moved here. I bought this one from a collector.”

“For an obscene amount, no doubt. And yet I doubt you’ve ever played it.”

“That’s what I was hoping to remedy,” Vic said quickly. “With you. Ah…may I see yours?”

Another of those arch looks from under Amani’s brows, tawny eyes knowing. “‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?’” he lilted mockingly—but before Vic could splutter a protest, Amani turned away with a swirl of his hair, moving around him in a dark cloak, and bent over the couch to unclasp the cello case. The case itself was battered, worn, but clearly cleaned and polished with utter rapt devotion, the tattered edges repaired again and again. And the cello that the lid lifted to reveal…

It might not be the most expensive, the most perfectly crafted by the world’s finest luthiers…but it was beautiful nonetheless. A 4/4 Stradivarius with beautiful red undertones to the wood, blending into a soft amber glow of glossed curves and contrasted by the rich shine of a polished ebony fingerboard and tailpiece. What made it truly gorgeous, however, was the clear signs of use and handling—those little marks of wear and affection and care that said every mark on the cello was hard-won from practice, performance, deep abiding love that made even the marred spots and the careful repairs to them part of the cello’s perfection. Someone who played this cello, he thought, would raise a sound so haunting, so pure, that it was like the voice of the player themselves, strung out into quivering and weeping notes.

“It’s…it’s absolutely stunning,” he whispered. “How long have you had it?”

“My entire life,” Amani answered, and for all his cool aloofness, there was a warmth to his voice that made it so compelling, so sweet, as he ran his fingers along the strings. “It was my father’s. He died in the First Sahrawi Intifada, only a few years after I was born. Killed by his own people for choosing to fight for those they saw as the enemy. When my mother fled Morocco for the States, what was his became mine. So I took up this thing that he had loved all his life, and loved it as he did.”

“I’m sorry,” Vic murmured. “About your father. But I’m sure he’d be proud to know that you carried on his legacy.”

“But have I done that?” Amani answered enigmatically, before lifting his gaze to Vic, eyes sharpening, pulling away from whatever dreamlike place he had entered moments ago. “Sit. Show me how you handle your cello.”

Vic found himself sitting before he knew it, something about the way Amani commanded so softly, so simply pulling at his strings and making it instinctive to obey when this shouldn’t be about command and obedience; it was just a simple cello lesson.

Where the hell was his head today?

Clearing his throat, he settled in the leather easy chair positioned between the two sofas, and carefully lifted his cello off its stand; for all its size, the delicacy of the wood planing made it a light thing, easy to maneuver as he spread his legs to flank it and propped it on its endpin until he had it positioned against his body, leaning it against his chest at an angle and gripping it with his knees. He started to reach around it for the bow tilted against the stand—only to recoil as Amani lightly flicked the back of his hand with his fingers.

“No,” Amani said firmly. “Who taught you how to hold a cello?”

“Er. I had an instructor in Liverpool, he was a former concert cellist—”

“He was a terrible one.” Amani paced closer, frowning down at him. “Your posture is absurd. You’re hugging the cello like a koala on a eucalyptus tree. Sit up straighter. Hold the cello upright, not at an angle; lean it against your chest, not against your inner arm or thigh. Relax your legs. Use your knees to steady it, not to grip it.”

Vic hurried to comply, shifting to straighten his spine and square his shoulders, adjusting the position of the cello to what he hoped Amani wanted, gripping it carefully by the neck with one hand, the other resting on the upper bout to steady it. “Like this?”

Amani narrowed his eyes, lips pursing as he tapped his finger against them again and again. “Perhaps. Can you hold that position for ten minutes without moving?”

“…I might need to book another massage session after, but I can try.”

A flat look slid toward him. “Don’t try to be cute.”

“I wasn’t aware I had to try.”

That flat look turned into pure disgust. “Ten minutes,” Amani said, and sat down on the couch primly, crossing his legs and tossing his hair back before reaching to the side of his cello case and detaching a long leather bow tube that had been affixed with Velcro. Popping the tube open, he let the cello bow slide out into his fingers, the bow just as well-worn and loved as the cello itself.

And, while entirely ignoring Vic, he picked up a little black rectangle of bow rosin inside its wooden casing and began working over his bowstring, gaze fixed on his hands and his concentration utterly absorbed, as if Vic wasn’t even in the room.

Vic watched as deft, slim hands played over the bow, caressing it up and down again and again with a sweetly sensual touch, delicate and familiar. Stroke after stroke after stroke, creating a slow, enticing rhythm that drew his gaze back time after time, and made him remember the rhythm of Amani’s hands on his body, the way he’d stroked and kneaded, and for a minute the tension had bled from Vic and he’d just melted.

Amber eyes snapped to Vic, striking him like a knife, that stroking hand never stopping on the bow, the sound as soft as a whisper. “You’re slouching.”

Shite. Vic straightened his posture, clearing his throat. He was going completely fucked in the head tonight, and he didn’t know why. “Sorry.”

“You’re starting that ten minutes over.”

“Fuck. I mean, yes. All right.”

Amani said nothing, and only returned to rosining his bow.

Frozen silence it was, then. Right.

Vic wasn’t sure how long he let it go on. He was only focused on maintaining his posture, while that repetitive sound lulled him and made him want to just slouch and doze off. When he felt himself drifting, though, he cleared his throat and ventured, “So that was your mother, at the parlor?”

“Why are you so interested in my personal life?” Amani answered, without even looking up.

“I…I’m sorry, I’m just trying to be…”

“I know what you’re trying to be.” Words like razors, while those molten gold eyes locked on him, dissecting him and flaying him open. “You’re that type of man who needs everyone to like him, even in situations where it’s not necessary, because your ego can’t handle anything else.” Amani’s mouth thinned, and he looked down again. “Focus on your posture. Not on me.”

Well if that didn’t cut a little too close to home… “I’m starting to feel like you kind of hate me on principle.”

“It’s possible.”

“Is it just because I have money?”

“It’s because you have more money than you need. Than anyone needs. And what do you do with it?” Amani flicked his bow like a pointer, gesturing around the apartment, with its ceilings so high that the lamplight couldn’t reach, only the starlight through the glass silvering the edges of the steel framing. “You sit here in this ivory tower and waste it.”

Vic did not consider himself an impulsive man—or at least, he hadn’t until last week. Yet suddenly he was full of new things, new compulsions, new questions, and it was those new things that drove him to say,

“Tell me to quit.”

Amani blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Tell me to quit and I’ll do it right now.” Vic leaned forward, pressing against his cello, and posture be damned. “Someone else will step in, and the hundreds of thousands of jobs provided by Newcomb Textiles worldwide will still remain. The charity foundations we manage, the research we do into sustainable growing and production, the ethical sourcing programs—all of it will churn on without me. I wasn’t even supposed to be the heir to this damned company, but somehow it fell on me as the only child not in disgrace,” he said tightly. “So tell me to quit.”

Amani fixed him with a long, measuring look, then scoffed softly under his breath. “I’ll tell you to sit up straight,” he said pointedly, laying his bow across his lap and beginning to tighten the string. “Anything else is your business. Don’t put culpability for making moral choices on someone else demanding it of you. And don’t ask someone else for permission to run away, if this life isn’t what you want.”

“I can’t run away,” Vic said softly. “That’s the problem. Because maybe if I run away, someone else will step in and do all those things for me…but it’s my responsibility. It’s my responsibility to take this corporate power and use it for something good. But now you look at me like I’m complete useless filth and I wonder if I’m doing anything good at all, and if it would be better if I stepped down and chose a less comfortable life—because no matter what else the company does for others, in the end it’s just propping up a life of excess.”

“That’s not something you suddenly wonder ‘now.’ It’s something you’ve been wondering for a while. Now you only have an audience for it. Or someone who forces you to actually acknowledge it.”

Vic winced—but for some reason, he was smiling. For some reason this…this felt good. As if cutting through the layers of easy lies he told himself might bleed, but what he bled out was infection that needed to be drained. “You really don’t let me get away with anything, do you?”

“Why would you want to get away with things?” Amani challenged. “Why would you want to be so insincere?”

“I don’t know,” Vic murmured, and shook his head, still smiling. “I really don’t.”

Silence stretched between them, as they simply looked at each other. It was Amani who looked away first, reaching up to gather his hair back, silky strands slipping mutinously through his fingers until he finally managed to knot them and clasp them in place with a carved wooden clip he produced from his pocket. With a businesslike, brisk air, he lifted his cello from its case; it was almost larger than he was, yet he handled it capably as he slipped the endpin out, fitted into place, and settled the cello between his legs. The posture he’d lectured Vic on seemed to settle over him naturally, a certain upright straightness and poise that guided the cello just right to lay against his chest. He curled delicate fingers against the neck, and positioned the bow lightly over the strings.

“I want you to just watch, for now,” he said. “Watch my posture. Watch how I interact with the cello. You can’t just saw at it and pluck away, and the way you’re holding yours you’d think it was an acoustic guitar.”

“Ouch. Told you I was out of practice.”

“It shows.” Yet something else showed, too, as Amani shifted his position, a certain tension going through him—ready, expectant, and yet almost…afraid, as well. As if playing the cello frightened him, and Vic couldn’t help but wonder why. And he couldn’t help but admire, too, as Amani breathed in deep, clearly intending to push past it anyway, and said, “This is Brahms, Cello Sonata No. 1. While I lack piano accompaniment, it should still be sufficient.”

Yet still he hesitated, a moment longer—the bow trembling briefly in his fingertips, before it steadied as he closed his eyes, composed himself…and sent the bow sailing across the strings in a quivering glide, and called forth a voice like pure passion itself.

Amani made the Stradivarius sob in throaty, groaning notes, deep and sonorous and echoing to the high-ceilinged rafters of the penthouse, taking the cavernous space and filling it with haunting sound at once mournful and joyous. He hardly seemed to need to touch the cello to make it cry out for him, his skilled, caressing fingers playing over the strings and fingerboard, bow rising and falling in a lyrical lilt, until the cello seemed to have not one, but two voices, one weeping, one whispering, coming together in a harmony that created push and pull between them, this lament at once joyous and sorrowful.

Every note seemed to catch up Vic’s breaths and tease them from his chest until he couldn’t hold on to them, because they belonged to this music—part of it, sweeping through each breathy note, leaving him shuddering and struggling to breathe and yet willing to give up every panting gasp if it would fuel this melody as air fueled flame. He felt it with his entire body, quivering and vibrating down to his bones, working its way into the beat of his heart until he became tempo, became time, became part of it with the thunder of his blood. And throughout it all…

Amani was a portrait of rapture, that careful, detached distance melting away to leave only grace, beauty, and what Vic could only call pure and devoted love.

And Vic couldn’t look away, when in this moment Amani was as beautiful as the music he called forth from strings and fingertips and echoing wood.

When the melody slowly trailed off into a soft and shivering whisper, then nothing, the silence that fell was a reverent hush. Amani sucked in a sharp breath, hitching in his throat like a repressed cry, his eyes glistening damp, and he gripped tighter to the Stradivarius for a moment before loosening his hold, bowing his head. Vic realized he was staring and pulled from his trance, looking away to give Amani a moment to pull himself together, reaching up to rub at the ache in his own chest.

“You’re amazing,” he murmured, his voice rough, his throat tight. “I don’t…I don’t have words.”

“I’m out of practice,” Amani said, almost inaudible, husky. “And your posture is still terrible.”

Vic managed to crack a smile, almost a chuckle, but it eased some of the stifling heaviness left behind in the wake of things. “I…yeah. Yeah, it’s pretty bad.” He carefully set his own cello aside, lifting it onto the stand. “I started shadowing my father at the company my freshman year in uni. With that and studying, I didn’t have time for practice. Or for much else. Boarding school wasn’t much better, before that.”

“No wonder you’re stressed.”

“Is it that different for you?” Vic risked a glance at Amani again, but Amani wasn’t looking at him. He still held his cello like a lover, but he was once again staring pensively out through the glass walls, at the glittering city skyline. “I mean, you’re working your way through uni, too.”

“For my own goals. Not to run a major company.” Amani shrugged with forced diffidence. “I’m the only one putting pressure on me. Not that I don’t do a lot of that.”

“So what do you do to relax?”

Those soft, dark pink lips quirked almost sadly. “Nothing you’d be interested in.”

“You sure of that?”

“I am.” When Amani finally looked at him, it was with wry cynicism, but at least it was some kind of honest emotion instead of the cold façade of before. “You’re straight, remember?”

“Oh,” Vic said—then when it hit him, repeated “Oh.” He meant…oh. Well then. Vic grinned. “Okay, but you can’t tell me that and then expect me not to be curious.”

And just like that, Amani closed over again. He set his bow down gingerly, then lifted the cello to lay it with tender care across the case so he could begin working at the endpin. “You’re still prying into my personal life, Mr. Newcomb.”

“…sorry. I really am a louse.”

But rather than a cutting look or a stern command for him to mind his posture, that only earned him a faint smile, a slight gentling of those fierce and hawklike eyes. “It’s fine.”

Amani slipped the endpin back inside the cello, then flexed his hands, opening and closing them several times before stretching his fingers out into the points of a star and rotating his wrists. Vic leaned forward, watching him with concern.

“Are you all right after…?”

“Playing again?” Amani finished, curling his hands once more. “I’m not in any pain, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You sure of that?” Vic lingered on the set of Amani’s mouth, the melancholy that seemed to haunt his eyes, turning them liquid as bottomless wells of deep golden whiskey. “Not all pain’s physical.”

Amani stilled, and gave him another of those looks. “Please don’t try to be deep. It doesn’t suit you.”

Vic was prepared to retort with a laugh—but Amani continued on smoothly, diverting the subject with such abruptness that he left Vic fumbling for words.

“So you’re really curious about what I do to relax?”

“Um.” Now how was he supposed to answer that without sounding like a massive bloody pervert, when Amani had hinted his particular form of “relaxation” had something to do with sex? Vic looked away, trying to be casual about shrugging. “Curious, nosy, same difference.”

“And if I said it involves collars, cuffs, and chains?” Amani tossed back.

“I’d say everyone’s got to have a hobby,” Vic answered. “So you’re a sub?”

“I can confidently say there’s nothing submissive about me, and I’m a little offended you’d assume that.”

Yet if anything Amani sounded amused, and suddenly Vic felt like the mouse once more with a cat who liked to play the long game with his food before he devoured it. Amani was stringing him along, he realized—keeping him at a distance by maintaining control of what they talked about and why. And if he was a Dom, if this pretty, femme, slender little thing with his graceful elegance and regal ways liked to dominate and control people…

Heat crept up his throat, his jaw. He glanced back at Amani to find those half-lidded eyes watching him with a predator’s patient calm. Was…Amani enjoying this? Flustering Vic, throwing him off-kilter? Was that why Vic had been such a mess since the day he’d walked into that parlor, because Amani had just been casually pulling his strings and he’d unconsciously responded to it?

“So you…dominate people,” he said carefully. “You’re a Dom.”

Amani shrugged one pretty bare shoulder. “You could say that. Personally, I don’t really like words like ‘Dom’ and ‘sub,’ though I’m often stuck with them for simplicity’s sake.”

“Why not?”

“It’s complicated. And I don’t think you’re interested in hearing a master’s thesis on why the BDSM community as a whole is rather unfriendly to people of my pigmentation.”

“I’d listen, but I doubt I’d understand it,” Vic admitted.

“You’re fairly nonplussed, though.”

Is that what I am? When my mouth is dry and you’re looking at me like you want to eat me, but you want to bleed me a little first?

“I haven’t gotten around much, to be honest, but I’m not a complete nit,” Vic deflected. “People have kinks. It’s normal.”

“Not a bad way to look at it,” Amani conceded, draping an arm along the back of the sofa and curling his knuckles against his cheek, regarding Vic thoughtfully. “You don’t date?”

“I don’t have time. And…” Vic looked down, tangling his fingers together, tapping his thumb against the side of his finger. “I tend to meet high society women either on the hunt for a husband of appropriate status to fit into their social circles, or social climbers who know exactly how much I make per year and where my company’s assets are allocated. Maybe some of them are genuine, but I have no way of knowing. I can never tell if people want me for my money, or myself, so it feels…one-sided, when I start to fall for these women and don’t know if they’re just humoring me or if the feelings are real. So I don’t bother dating.” He laughed briefly, humorlessly. “At least you’re honest enough that you despise me for my money.”

Soft lips quirked. “I despise your money. I don’t necessarily despise you.”

“Yeah?” Why did Vic feel such an odd surge of hope, at that? “Too bad I’m not gay. I might be able to live with that.”

“Too bad, then,” Amani answered mildly, glimmering eyes lingering on him. “You keep bringing that up. That you’re not gay. I am. Are you having a little bit of a gay panic around me, Mr. Newcomb? Little frightened flutters in the pit of your stomach that the gay is contagious?”

I’m not sure that’s what those flutters are.

“Not at all. I’m not panicked, I’m…I don’t know. I’m a little weird, huh? I know. I know. I just…” He slumped forward, hanging his head. “I’ve been acting like a complete tool since the moment I met you.”

“Oh? You mean this isn’t normal?”

Even if everything in that lyrical, silken voice mocked…Vic couldn’t help but answer sincerely. If only because he needed to clear the air; if only because he couldn’t forget Amani asking Why would you want to be so insincere?

Because that was what he was, wasn’t he. All easy, insincere smiles.

“This isn’t me,” he confessed quietly. “This person you’ve met. I keep sticking my foot in my mouth and talking out my arse and saying completely ridiculous things, and…” His hands spread, helpless. “This just isn’t me. I don’t know why I’m like this around you. I’m not around anyone else.”

Amani lingered on him, those deep eyes giving away nothing; simply considering, seeming to measure the weight of his soul. “What are you like around anyone else?”

“I don’t know. I feel like I’m…” He searched for the right words, but he could only find inadequate approximations. “Calmer. More in control. I can choose my reactions and make sure I say the appropriate things. Be pleasantly charming when I have to be, stern at other times. Sometimes I have to be that way. When people have to respect your power to make decisions, you have to have a commanding presence.”

“That sounds like living life at one remove. You’re so detached from it that it’s easy to pick and choose responses you have no real investment in,” Amani pointed out softly, yet every word was a lash flaying at Vic, peeling away his carefully constructed façade. “So why are you not so detached from me?”

“I don’t know.” He leaned back in the chair, letting his hips slouch forward, and tilted his head against the chair back, staring up at the stars through the glassy roof, a billion glittering little secrets that seemed to whisper his every failing back in tiny echoes. “You’re completely outside the realm of my experience, Amani.”

“Is it because I’m Black, because I’m poor, or because I’m not here for your bullshit?”

Definitely option three.

I just never thought I’d like it this much.

“It’s because you’re you,” he said, letting his head roll to one side, leather cool against his cheek. In the faint lamplight Amani was all burnished shades, like a sleek sculpture of copper and bronze and ebon and brass. “And there’s this magnetism you have that makes me forget who I am.”

“Do you even know who you are, Victor Newcomb?”

“Maye I don’t.”

Once more silence fell between them—a silence that seemed to have weight, have meaning, a language bridging two strangers, one of them neither understood but with time, they could learn. There was something, Vic thought, in this moment; something that trembled inside him as if everything had been emptied out save his heart to leave it alone and strange and quivering, this soft beating thing exposed and raw. No, he didn’t know who he was. He never had, and he didn’t now.

Especially not in this moment, when he could think of nothing but wanting to be devoured by the beautiful young man before him.

It was Amani who broke the quiet—Amani who ended this, cutting it as if he’d snapped it through with razor wire. “Maybe you should figure it out,” he said crisply, straightening to rise to his feet and begin packing his cello and bow away properly, strictly business, eyes on his hands. “I have homework to finish. We’re done for the day.”

Victor rocked forward, draping his arms over his thighs and watching. “You’re not going to have me play today?”

“No. There’s no point.”

“Why not? Am I that hopeless?”

A scathing look. “Until you do something about that posture, you are.” Amani snapped his cello case closed, affixed the bow tube to the side, shrugged into his coat, then picked the case up and slung it lightly over his shoulder with a stern look for Vic. “Practice your posture. If it’s better the next time I see you, I might let you play.”

“Let me?” Vic laughed.

“Let you.” A flinty up-and-down look slid over Vic, before Amani turned away with a flick of his fingers and a flare of his hair, airy strides taking him toward the elevator. “I’ll text you my PayPal,” he tossed over his shoulder.

Vic hurried to his feet, trailing after Amani to at least see him out like a proper gentleman. At the elevator, he leaned one arm against the wall, unable to help how he gravitated toward Amani, how that magnetic presence pulled him in. “Monday?” he asked.

The doors slid open. Amani flashed him a warning look, one that stopped him just as he’d started to lean closer, as powerful as the strongest blow.

“Monday,” Amani said simply.

Then stepped into the elevator, the last glimpse of golden cat-eyes cutting into Vic before the doors closed and he was gone.