He held onto my arms as he pulled away and stared me straight in the eye. “Now it’s time for you to go find yours.”
Chapter 20
Sebastian
My fingers didn’t just tickle the ivories—they danced recklessly and wildly while my heart staccatoed in my chest. I lived for the moments when creativity poured from my soul and came to life, filling all the empty spaces around. It was like magic, if only I believed.
By the time I was three years old, I could play all twelve major piano scales. By the time I was four, I was composing my own songs and playing for guests at my parents’ private parties like I was their own personal party trick.
“Play, Sebastian, play,” my mother would prompt me with a pat on the bum. And at the time, I was thrilled to. I learned at a young age how the piano had the magical ability to take me away to places as deep as my imagination would carry me. I could sit in front of the black box of sound for hours, days, weeks, months, until my fingers would bruise or blister or my arse would get sore. That was the only type of “noise” I was allowed to make in our house.
By the time I was twelve, I was frequenting the Broadway scene, thanks to my student discount. Twenty bucks for a front row ticket to Les Miserables—sold. I didn’t care that my peers made fun of me. They just didn’t understand. Most of the time, instead of watching the performance on stage, my eyes were glued to the conductor of the orchestra, the top half of his or her body peeking out from the pit, and their arms waving majestically through the air. If music was made of magic, then the conductor was the magician, and that was who I wanted to be.
When I first saw Moving Out, the Billy Joel and Twila Tharp musical, something clicked. That was the type of magic I wanted to create—a jukebox musical, with a set built around the musicians instead of on top of them. My musicians wouldn’t be hidden in some hole in the stage. I’d already been composing the music for Angst and Grace, but that was the moment everything clicked together.
Music continued to fill the empty theater as my fingers played a melody of love and hope in the midst of impossible circumstances. A forbidden love. A best friendship gone wrong. Secrecy. Betrayal. I could see it all so vividly in my mind—a fight scene intensifying as my fingers sped across the magic box in a crescendo. I could practically hear the screams of the strings as they played a violent accompaniment. In my mind, wind instruments whistled and buzzed with anticipation. Everything was coming alive—in my heart, in my soul. The beating in my chest might as well have been the cadence of the drums as they drove the sound home.
And then, in dramatic fashion, I lifted my fingers from the keys, halting the crescendo in heart-stopping silence. The final chord rang through the air, bouncing off the walls in a way that was almost haunting. My pulse pounded in my neck as each breath came. If anyone could see me, they’d think I just ran a fucking marathon. But that’s what good music did to a person. It was an adrenaline rush I’d never tire of.
“Holy shit,” said someone just below the stage.
My head snapped down, and I blinked, wondering if she was just a mirage like the one I’d seen dancing in my head as I played. Nope. She was the real deal, and she was standing right there. She’d heard everything, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. A mixture of rage and excitement filled my chest at her intrusion.
By the look of her outfit, she’d just taken a dance class, probably at Gravity. That was most likely where that dude, Wayne, had taken her when she left the ship. I’d only left shortly to clear my mind a bit, but the moment I reached the Shakespeare Bridge, inspiration blasted me, and I couldn’t return to the ship quickly enough. But why had Kai come back so early?
“What are you doing here?” I knew I, once again, was coming off like an asshole. But she was getting too close. She had no business pressing for answers about my past, about Dirk, about Claudette. That was nobody’s business, especially hers.
But despite my best attempt to sound every bit as annoyed as I wanted to feel, she didn’t look stricken by my words in the least. My shock value had clearly faded.
“I was going to use the theater to rehearse. I didn’t expect for anyone to be here.”
“Yeah, well, it’s booked.”
She blew out a sigh, but instead of turning around and leaving, she hopped onto the stage and stopped at the other side of my piano.
“What were you playing just now?”
I tried to look at anything but the way her curious eyes were dancing on me. “It was nothing. Just something I was fiddling around with.”
“That didn’t sound like you were just fiddling around. It sounded like you’d been playing it for years.” The accusation in her tone was leveled with something that softened something in me—interest, intrigue. I didn’t want to take the time to sort it out.
“I’ve never played it before now. It was nothing, really.”
She tilted her head and pushed away from the piano. “Play it again.”
“What?” I didn’t know why was she still there.
“You heard me. Play it again. You want to play—I want to dance. We can both use the theater. Just do your thing, and I’ll do mine.” She shrugged as if what she said was as normal as pushing Play on a stereo system.
An internal battle erupted in my mind, but my fight was defeated by the amused smile that lifted her cheeks.
“I’m not leaving, so you might as well play the damn song, Sebastian.”
I narrowed my eyes at her while the tips of my fingers caressed the keys. “Fuck me,” I muttered under my breath.
I took two seconds to remember how I’d started the tune. It was a jazzy number. In fact, I was starting to realize that everything I’d been creating lately had a jazz influence. This particular number was definitely one of the more dramatic pieces. In the story flow, it would fit right in before intermission, leaving the audience holding their breath in suspense.
While I started by playing the song the same way I had when she’d walked in, I noticed myself changing the melody some to accompany her, rather than the other way around. She was light as she moved across the floor, letting her body bend and turn like a modern-day ballerina with the body of a goddess.
I was only in the second phrase when I looked up to see Kai executing steps like the music was already inside her. I knew she was a brilliant dancer, but I had no idea she could freestyle so poetically too. Maybe she was a choreographer. The woman continued to surprise me, and I knew I’d only touched the surface.
When the crescendo came again, she followed it like something out my dreams. How she’d interpreted my story so clearly after hearing it just once was un-fucking-believable.
I watched her in amazement, knowing the song I’d just composed was no longer mine—not with the way she’d breathed life into my wildest imagination. I already needed more of it.
* * *
WATCH: Lost
* * *
My heart was pounding in my chest as she closed the distance from center stage to my piano. She was completely in the zone, feeling my song as I sang every tortured word. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, and my adrenaline spiked when she climbed onto my piano like a prowling cat, her target clear—me. Then she gripped me with her eyes and flipped around so her back was toward me.