Page 43 of After Midnight

“You know those are bad for you, right?” I smile at him around my bite of pizza. “What are you doing?”

“Just fucking around.” He picks up the phone and moves it so I have a wider view, and I see now that he’s sitting at a piano—one of the big ones, all heavy wood and gleaming keys. It’s beautiful, and it looks like he takes care of it. Somehow, I’m not surprised. That feels very Sebastian of him.

“I didn’t know you played the piano.” I take another bite of pizza as he pushes some of the keys. “Will you play me something?”

At first, I expect him to get shy and tell me no. Instead, he gets a serious look on his face.

“What do you want to hear?” he asks.

There’s only one piano song that I know off the top of my head.

“ ‘Claire de Lune.’ ”

Sebastian’s lips lift into a small smile, and he shifts on the piano bench, stretching his fingers out to drape them over the keys.

And when he starts to play, a weird feeling comes over me. I settle deeper into my driver’s seat, knees pulled up to my chest, eating my pizza, and I listen. I listen to the slow movement of his fingers pressing the piano keys, to the gentleness of his breathing, to the sound of him pushing the piano pedals. I close my eyes and lean my head back against the headrest. For this moment, it feels like I’m in a different world, like I’ve been picked up in a spaceship and am flying through another dimension—maybe one that just he and I exist in.

With my eyes still closed, moisture starts to gather along my lashes.

And it startles me. All of this is startling: the way I feel when Sebastian smiles at me, the desire I have to strip my armor off instead of shoring it up against attacks. He makes me want to strip everything back, to leave Mirage and just be Remi.

No one has ever made me feel that way before, like I don’t have to make sure I’m safe, don’t have to always wait for the second shoe to drop.

But that’s dangerous, because it could get my hopes up, make me want something that might not even be real—and I’m the expert in fantasy.

His fingers move across the keys more quickly now, the muscles in his forearms flexing as he plays. His eyes narrow, mouth pressing into a focused line. And while he’s not looking, I reach up and quickly scrub the moisture from my eyes, taking some of my makeup off with it.

I don’t want him to see me tearing up like this, over him. It’s stupid and way too much. We’ve only known each other a few weeks; I shouldn’t be feeling like this.

Sebastian fumbles one of the measures, tries again, fucks it up again, and then lets out a low laugh as he drops his hands into his lap. “Guess I need to practice more,” he says, turning his attention back to the camera.

I give him a smile, wondering how much he can see of me in the dim glow from the streetlights in the parking lot. “It was beautiful.” I pull my knees more tightly against my chest and add quietly, “You’re so talented.”

Something flickers across his eyes, like a mixture of surprise and joy and pain all wrapped up into a brief second of reaction. And he says softly, “I’m glad someone thinks so.”

His words pierce me. Does no one ever tell him he’s talented?

Then I recall what he told me about his father thinking his music is a phase, wishing he’d played college football instead.

What an asshole.

I clear my throat and sit up in my seat. “You wanna stay with me while I drive home?” I ask.

The sad look vanishes from his eyes, replaced by a broad smile, and I can’t help but to be reminded of a golden retriever who’s just been asked if they want to go run at the park.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“All right,” I say with a little laugh, cranking up the engine. “Let’s go.”

Sebastian stays on the video call with me the whole drive home. He asks me how work was, and I consider telling him about James, then opt not to. Probably best to keep these two worlds separate as much as possible.

I ask him about LGC’s new album, and he gushes to me about it. There’s one song he’s really excited about, called “Fractals,” and he gets to play the piano and the drums. I decide that when the album comes out, I’m going to be the first one to listen to it, curled up in bed with my noise-cancelling earbuds in, as close to the sound as I can get.

When I get home, I park in my condo’s attached garage, then carry all my stuff in: heels, bag of lingerie sets that need to be washed, the big pizza box with one piece of pizza left. Sebastian is still on FaceTime with me, though sometime during my drive home, he moved from the music room to what looks like his bedroom, and he’s reclining against a big headboard now, one hand propped behind his head, watching me as I put all my stuff down.

“It’s cool seeing you like this,” he says as I kick off my sneakers and put them in the hall closet.

“Like what?” I grab the pizza box and carry it to the kitchen, then pick up the last slice and lean against the countertop while eating it.