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The bow—which automatically brings a smirk to my lips—is sitting back in her hair, perfectly straight, despite the chaos of the rest of her.

I have a lethal insult loaded and ready to fire, a viscous little remark about her dramatic entrance, but it dies somewhere in my throat. I actually freeze as I look at her, my posture locking, desperately trying not to gawk and be entirely too transparent.

Ellise Vance is in sweats.

The girl who usually wears pristine pleated skirts, crisp collared shirts, ribbed sweaters, and polished boots—so polished that you can see your reflection in them—is wearing an oversized black hoodie and matching sweatpants.

Christ. They aren’t even flattering, only oversized fabric that swallows her normally rigid frame, and somehow they make her look entirely too real. I’m actually lost for words. She looks incredible.

Stripped of the sharp, preppy costume she usually wears, she looks far too dangerous.

It’s devastating.

“Well, well.” I drag my smirk back into place with more effort than it should require. “Nice to see you left the party dress at home.” My gaze travels to the top of her head. “How many of those ribbons do you actually own, Vance?”

The familiar flash of annoyance flickers in her eyes, a tiny spark of the fire I lit yesterday. She completely ignores me, turning to flip the latches on her case. She lifts the violin from its velvet bed and reaches for the pegs to begin tuning.

Then, her expression shifts.

Not to irritation, to something else entirely. Something agonising and involuntary moves across her face before she can arrange it into anything more controlled. A sharp gasp catches in her throat as her shoulder hitches, and her whole body compensates for something that is recognisably wrong.

I stop pretending to look. What is wrong with her?

“You’re staring, Thorne,” she snaps, though she doesn’t look up from her case.

Shit. Caught.

I don’t look away. To be honest, I am still staring. I can’t get over how different she looks in a bloody sweatsuit. It’s nothing remarkable by any standard, but it is doing something crazy to my mind, and my jeans are suddenly feeling too tight. I readjust myself, casually shifting my weight to lean an elbow on the Steinway.

I notice her wince as she lifts her violin bow.

“Hard not to,” I say, nodding towards her face. “You are pulling some weird faces. What’s the matter with you?”

“Don’t concern yourself with my issues,” she snaps again.

This girl is already testing the absolute bloody limits of my patience. I am genuinely trying to stay calm and keep my temper in check, but she plays the Ice Queen perfectly. I don’t think she is physically capable of letting anyone past those frozen walls of hers. She would rather suffer in total isolation than show a single crack in her armour.

“I’m being serious, Vance.” I straighten up. “You look like you’re about to pass out, and I’m not carrying you to the hospital. So spit it out.”

She lets out a jagged breath, her shoulders slumping as she finally drops her hands to her sides. The movement is heavy, the violin hanging low in her hand, as if the instrument has suddenly gained fifty pounds and has become too heavy for her slight frame.

When she finally looks at me, the sight makes something tight and uncomfortable twist in my chest. Her ocean-blue eyes are shadowed, heavy with dark circles underneath them.

“Hospital? We aren’t in England, Thorne,” she hisses, her voice strained.

Fuck sake. Taking the piss out of my vocabulary now, are we?

“Don’t be so petty. I asked you what's wrong?” I push, refusing to let her dodge the question.

She pauses for a moment.

“It’s my hypermobility.” The words come out clipped and precise, desperate to keep me at an arm's length and guard her little secret. But her eyes are doing something that betrays her. Behind the icy blue, it is clear that pain and pride are violently fighting each other. “It’s a bad day. The cold, the stress... my joints are playing havoc with me. Satisfied?”

The word hangs in the sterile air between us.

Hypermobility.

I’ve heard it mentioned. The stories of prodigies who flame out by twenty-five because their tendons finally decide to stop cooperating. But I’ve never actually met anyone with it before.