Playing for Love at Deep Haven (16 page)

Huh. He
remembered seeing a storefront last night in Bar Harbor advertising New York
City bagels. He owed Violet a nice breakfast after treating her to junk food
for dinner and keeping her up all night making love. If he drove fast, he’d be
able to get there and back in two hours, before nine o’clock and, if memory
served, still a little while before Miss Lazybones finally woke up. And just in
case her sleeping habits had changed, he’d leave a note so she wouldn’t worry.

 
He slipped out of bed quietly, grabbed his
clothes off the floor, and picked up his guitar by the neck. She sighed loudly
as he opened the door but quickly rolled over, breathing deeply, falling back
to sleep.

Downstairs, he
showered, dressed, made his bed, and pulled the closet door shut on his
suitcase and dirty clothes. He gathered up the notes he’d made last night, put
his guitar back into its case, and took them down to the basement studio so
they’d be waiting for him when he started writing later.

As he headed
back up the stairs, he reminded himself to leave her a note but was distracted
by the sight of several deer grazing on the back lawn. He stood and watched
them for a while from the kitchen window, marveling at their grace and beauty,
wondering if Violet had the right idea living in the country, away from the
noise and frenetic energy of the city. Without another thought, he grabbed his
keys and jacket and headed out the door.

***

Violet’s eyes
opened slowly, blinking and squinting from the bright light streaming in
through the edges of the shades. As the delicious memories from last night
flushed her body, she turned away from the windows and onto her back, reaching
her arm out for Zach.

“Zach?”

She touched his
side of the bed, placing her palm flat on the smooth butter-colored sheets. Not
warm.

“Zach?” she
called again, a little louder now, wondering if he was in the bathroom. But the
only answer was the sound of a hawk calling to its mate outside, a
high-pitched, frantic cawing sound waiting for an answer.

She pushed
herself into a sitting position, brushing her hair out of her face. A hint of
panic kicked in, but she fought to suppress it. He could be downstairs in his
room, or in the studio. Heck, he could have gone for a walk or something. Calm
down, Violet.

I won’t hurt you. I won’t fucking hurt you. Never
again.

She swung her
legs over the side of the bed and stretched. Her body felt tender, and she
smiled, remembering the last time they’d had sex, at dawn—the way he’d held her
face between his hands as they came simultaneously, staring deep into one
another’s eyes until hers had rolled back in her head. She’d been sitting on
his lap with her ankles locked behind his back, and their bodies had trembled
together, rocking, overwhelmed and then replete.

“I can’t not
have this,” he’d whispered, his breath warming her bare shoulder. His voice was
so soft, she wondered if she was even supposed to hear him. “I can’t lose it
again.”

The words were
so quiet, so full of desperation and longing, she clung tightly to him,
nestling her head into the curve of his neck as their breathing returned to
normal. Without another word, he lay down, pulling her with him, her back to
his front. A strong arm under her breasts pressed her up against him, and he
sighed into her damp hair, “’Night, Vile.”

Violet stood up
and headed for the bathroom, turning on the shower, watching it instantly mist
the floor-to-ceiling glass with steam. She stepped in and let the water course
down her shoulders, her back, hips, thighs, and calves, not an inch of which
hadn’t been touched, caressed, loved, and licked by Zach Aubrey last night.
Physically, she’d held nothing back.

Emotionally, she
wasn’t giving much away.

There was a
growing part of Violet that wanted to trust Zach’s words, that wanted to
believe him when he said he’d wanted her for nine years, and that he’d loved
her as much as she had loved him at Yale. His eyes, so steady and intense,
hadn’t flinched when he told her he regretted his actions, that he had longed
for her during their years apart, that he’d read her book and recognized it as
their story. And though she knew he didn’t want to write any more songs for
Cornerstone, he was doing that for her, to get her out of a jam and give her
the freedom to write what she wanted to. It was a romantic and loving gesture,
and she couldn’t deny how right it felt to be writing with him again, despite
his initial pigheadedness.

She wrapped
herself in a towel and stepped back into her room, pausing as she realized that
his clothes and guitar were gone. A wave of panic surged, and before she could
rationalize it, she ran out the door of her room and down the stairs in bare
feet, leaving beads of water scattered across the hardwood floors.

“Zach? Zach?”

She whipped
around the newel, briefly glancing into the empty living room, then headed for
his room. She threw open the door and gasped. His bed was neatly made. There
were no clothes lying around. No suitcase. No guitar. Nothing. Zach had always
been neat, but there was no sign that he’d ever even been there.

She walked
through the kitchen with heavy steps, her eyes sweeping the counters for any
indication of Zach. A note. A used glass. Anything to indicate he’d been here
and would be back. But there was nothing.

Maybe he just went for a walk
, her foolish
heart whispered, thumping an erratic rhythm as she made her way to the living
room. Her steps slowed as she made her way to the front windows, dreading what
she knew she would find. But her eyes still flooded with tears when she saw
that his SUV was gone.

For the second
time in her life, on the second weekend of October, Zach Aubrey had run away
from her.

She heard her
heart beat so loudly in her ears, it made her dizzy as she flashed back to the
first
time.

Chapter 12

Nine years earlier

“I want to write
a song called ‘Fall Days’ but with ‘en’ in parentheses after
Fall
. What do you think?”

As they walked
through the quad, Violet glanced up at him, then back down at their laced
fingers, marveling at the way their friendship had turned into something more
serious over the past three days. But she was also conflicted. Emotionally, she
was ecstatic. Realistically, she was worried. She’d been in love with Zach for
weeks, but her feelings since Thursday night had basically hitched a ride on a
runaway train. Holding onto the words “I love you” was harder every day. She
wanted to tell him. She wanted him to know. And mostly, she wanted to hear him
say the words back to her. She wanted it to be official, to be real.

Joni Mitchell’s
lyrics floated through her head:

Picked up a pencil and wrote “I love you” in my
finest hand / Wanted to send it, but I don’t know where I stand

And that was the
thing. For all that Zach kissed her and held her hand, for all that she’d slept
beside him, making out with him for three glorious nights, he’d said precious
little in the way of sharing his feelings or telling her what she meant to him.

She tried to get
her head around what felt solid: she felt sure that he admired her writing and
viewed her as a creative equal, which flattered and amazed her since he was the
most talented musician she’d ever met. She knew that she mattered to him, that
he cared about her as a friend. But this weekend, with the advent of a physical
relationship, the waters were getting murky between them. She couldn’t get a
bead on whether he regarded them as friends with benefits or something more.
Friends with benefits simply wouldn’t work for her. She was deeply, irrevocably
in love with him. Did he feel that sort of romantic passion for her, or was fooling
around just an extension of their friendship?

She cast her
eyes down at the gravel path under their feet, remembering his eyes as he’d
stared at her this morning—unfathomable gray, as intense as ever, but they betrayed
very little about his feelings. She squeezed his fingers, trying to convince
herself that he was real, that he was really hers, that they were in love, not
just acting on propinquity.

“So basically
you want to write a song called ‘Fallen Days’?”

“No. ‘Fall(en)
Days.’” He pantomimed the parentheses. “You know, so it has a double meaning.”

“What’s the
double meaning?”

Her heart sped
up a little, hoping he would say that he had fallen for her, that he—

“Fall like the
season. Fallen like days that are over.
Fallin
’ like
soldiers on a battlefield. And the red leaves could be blood. It could work. I
have the sound in my head.”

Her shoulders
slumped, but she kept her voice light. “You writing the lyrics, Z? Because what
you’ve got so far sucks. Not to mention, you just outlined a triple meaning,
none of which blew my skirt up.”

“You’re not
wearing a skirt.” He grinned at her and it tugged at her heart. “I’m no poet,
Vile. I was thinking you could help me out.”

He pulled her
down beside him on a bench under a flaming Japanese maple. She shifted closer
to him, resting her wild hair on his shoulder. Two students passed, giggling over
a shared joke, pulling rolling suitcases toward their dorm. The sun had already
started to set. Their magical weekend was almost over, and she was flooded with
melancholy.

“They’re all
coming back,” she murmured, hating that the Columbus Weekend break was coming
to a close.

The campus had
been so quiet over the last four days. Many times she and Zach had walked from
their dorm, through the quad, all the way out the gates and onto the sidewalks
of New Haven without passing another soul. It was as though they were the only
two people on campus, in the world, and she’d loved every intimate minute.

“Yeah. All the
rich, preppy assholes.” His fingers tapped rhythmically on his thigh. He was
playing something. She couldn’t tell if it was guitar or piano. Either. Both.
“Look at that one.”

A tall,
blond-haired, blue-eyed boy dropped his duffel bag near a tree trunk and pulled
his lacrosse stick out of the bag handles, joining a game already in progress.

“I’m open! I’m
open!”

He caught an
incoming ball, cradling the basket with ease before tossing it back. She knew
the boy. Shepherd Smalley. He was in her English lit class, but scholarship
student Violet Smith and Shepherd Smalley, as in Smalley Hall, didn’t exactly
move in the same circles.

“I know him. We
take lit together.”

“My
condolences.”

She grinned at
Zach’s dry, condescending tone. Looking down at the rips in the knees of his
jeans, she could see the dark, wiry leg hairs. She thought about reaching out
to touch his skin, to rest her hand on the warmth of his thigh, but she didn’t
know the rules yet. She sensed he was cautious of whatever was between them,
and despite her impatience for answers, she didn’t want to do anything that
might pressure him or push him away.

Because it felt
so right to sit beside him, to be with him, as his girlfriend, not just his
friend—not that he’d ever used the word
girlfriend
.
They were two artists, two rebels, two regular, middle-class kids marrying
words and music into something beautiful. They understood each other. In her
heart she was sure they were meant to be together. She just wasn’t sure if Zach
was on board with her heart.

He put his arm
around her, and it surprised her and made her tummy flip-flop. It made her feel
hopeful.

“Zach?”

“Hmm?” He didn’t
look at her, but his index finger slipped under the edge of her peasant blouse,
caressing the skin of her shoulder lightly, and she shivered.

I had a great weekend.

I want you to call me your girlfriend.

I need to tell you how much I love you.

 
“I, um, I . . . I thought I’d do some writing
tonight.” She sighed, her lost nerve expelled with her breath.
Coward
.

“‘Fall(en) Days’?”
He grinned down at her, and her breath hitched as she took in the cool beauty
of his steel-gray eyes.

Without any
warning, he dropped his lips to hers, and although he’d kissed her countless
times over the last three days, she still wasn’t used to it, and it jolted her
like a shock of something wonderful. It still felt like a miracle. Her blood
rushed to her head, making her dizzy and pliant. She turned to lean into him as
his hands trailed down her spine, over her bra, to rest in the concave small of
her back. She felt his tongue touch hers, setting off fireworks in her head and
between her hips. She was still a virgin (although barely, after last night),
and she wondered if sleeping with Zach would seal the deal between them.

If sleeping with
him would coax the words “I love you, too” from his mouth, she’d sleep with him
every day and every night for the rest of her life.

He pulled back,
leaning his forehead against hers.

“Violet-like-the-flower,”
he murmured.

Her eyes popped
open, her heart racing at the sound of the new endearment. His were still closed.

“Something
beautiful. Write me something beautiful,” she whispered.

“I will, I . . .
I . . .Violet, I think . . .,” He panted lightly against her lips before
opening his eyes. “I think we should go write that song.”

***

Coward. You’re a fucking coward, Zach.

He watched
Violet force a weak smile and nod at him, pulling away. He took a quick second
to adjust his hard-on into his underwear waistband before standing up and
pulling his T-shirt down over his jeans. She stood up beside him, and it pissed
him off that she looked back over at the blond, lacrosse-playing frat boy.

You should have tried to tell her how you feel. You
should have just said it, for
chrissake
.

He told his
heart to shut the fuck up and pushed the powerful words away. His hands sweated
as her shoulder brushed his arm, and he shoved his hands in his back pockets.
Zach didn’t have any personal experience with love, but everything that he’d
read, everything he’d ever seen or listened to or understood, pointed to the
fact that he was falling in lo— No. He wouldn’t let himself even think it. He
clenched his jaw, fiercely wishing away the seriousness of the words, the
pressure of them, the finality.

I don’t know what I feel. I’ve barely been allowed
to feel anything in my life.
I
just know it feels good. It feels so fucking good, it’s scaring me to death. It
was a lot safer to be numb. Can’t we just be friends who fool around too?

The reality was
that Zach simply didn’t have much experience with personal relationships. From
an early age his parents had filled every unclaimed moment with musical
instruction, practicing, and summer camps devoted to nurturing his talent. He
wasn’t permitted to play team sports or attend social events. He was expected
to be practicing, composing, or performing when he was not in school. He spent
every summer, from age twelve onward, at Juilliard, and while he’d met some
very kind and devoted instructors, the other students were competitive, driven,
and unsocial. By the time he reached adolescence, he was a veritable virtuoso
on piano and guitar, but socially awkward, especially around girls, with whom
(except for his twin, Cora) he’d never spent much time.

His freshman year
at Yale, he hadn’t been able to break the conditioning of his upbringing and spent
all his time in class or in practice. He’d
notice
girls—smart, artistic girls, especially—but he wouldn’t have known the first
thing to say to them. Not to mention, he didn’t exactly come from some rich
family or drive an expensive car or have much else to recommend himself. He was
utterly clueless about how to strike up a conversation with them. Besides,
there wasn’t any one particular girl who had captured his imagination—until
he’d read a poem by fellow freshman, Violet Smith, in
The Yale Literary Magazine
, and it had ripped his heart out. It was
as though she’d written it about
him
.

It was a poem
about an old man about to play a guitar. She described his gnarled fingers, his
yellow teeth, his hairy nose, and Einstein hair. She rhapsodized about his
ugliness, about how painful it was to behold him. And then his fingers moved
over the strings, and she wrote that her heart had shattered, and suddenly
everything,
everything
, about the man
was beautiful, and in an instant, he wasn’t her bane but her muse. He was
beautiful and magical, like heaven had opened, deigning to share something
utterly perfect with her. The first time Zach read her words, his eyes burned
like someone had thrown sand in his face. Because music had made the old man
worthy of love somehow, and in a weird, pathetic way, it was almost as though
she’d written the poem about
him
.

Soon after, he’d
caught a poorly-attended poetry reading at the University Commons, sitting in
the back row, bored as hell, until she’d gotten up to read “Mr. Guitar Man.” As
his lips soundlessly recited her words in unison with her reading, he could
feel something shifting inside of him. She was the first person he’d ever
longed for, yearned for, and her Maine accent had figured prominently in his
fantasies after that night.

For the rest of
freshman year, he’d watched her surreptitiously, interested in who she was,
where she came from, and how a girl like that saw the rest of the world. She
didn’t cluster with a big group of other girls but seemed to get along with
everyone, light and cheerful, offering smiles and waves like they didn’t cost
her anything. Her wild, wavy hair framed her pale face, and she dressed like an
escapee from 1967. But Zach didn’t give a shit what she looked like or how she
dressed—her words had thrown a net over his heart. He was in love with her soul
from afar. And now, by fluke or fate, here she was, with him,
with
him. And he was so terrified of the
growing feelings he had for her, feelings he barely recognized, let alone could
name, he didn’t know what to do about it.

He opened the
outside door for her and followed her into the imposing Gothic dorm to his
room, where she had lived with him, for all intents and purposes, like a sister—until
last Thursday night.

He hadn’t meant
to kiss her when she returned from the bus depot. He’d done such a good job of
keeping any deep feelings for her at bay. Violet was his friend. Her lively
presence in his life had made Yale a whole new world. She’d dragged him to
parties and made him eat pizza on the floor with her. She’d show up after his
classes and tease him into a good mood, her ridiculously wild hair trailing
down her back in soft waves that he longed to touch. He’d blow off practicing
and composing just to spend time with her, and he reveled in his new freedom. At
night, in the intimacy of his single room, she wrote poetry on his bed, let him
school her in various genres of music, made him live life, took his breath
away. For the first time that Zach could remember, he felt normal. He felt like
a regular college kid, and it was all because of Violet, because he finally had
a friend.