* * *
One cold autumn day a year after we’d first met, we sat close together in the boxcar, my breath pluming in the air as I read to Callen from the French version of The Adventures of Robin Hood. I paused when he reached forward and pulled the edge of a piece of paper out of my backpack. He studied it for a moment, his gaze moving over the page before his eyes flew to mine. “What is this?”
I set the book down, tilting my head as I turned to face him. “My piano music.”
He looked back to the paper and held it toward me, pointing at the first note. “These are notes.”
“Yes,” I said, frowning. “Haven’t you ever seen music?”
“Not written out like this.” There was something odd in his voice, and he was talking fast. He pointed at the first note. “This one?”
“Um, that’s an E.”
“An E?” he asked, bunching up his brow. “The letter E?”
I shook my head. “Well, yes, like the letter, but, um, a note. A different, er…language, I guess.” I smiled, but he was still wearing an intense look of concentration as he turned back to the music, his brow smoothing after a moment. He pointed at another E and then another. “These are all Es.”
I nodded, confused about his excitement. In the year I’d known him, I’d only ever witnessed two emotions: sullen or kinda happy. I had a moment of irrational jealousy over his sudden enthusiasm. “Yes.”
He nodded, a jerky movement of his head. I could see his pulse thrumming quickly under the smooth, tanned skin of his throat. “What’s this?”
I glanced down at what he was pointing at. “That’s the treble clef. It tells you the pitch and key of the notes on that line.”
His brow furrowed, and I rushed to explain further. “Pitch and key are…the highness and lowness of notes.”
He nodded again, his eyes wide and shining with something I didn’t know how to name. It was more than excitement. It was…disbelief. Was he that excited to be reading in a different language? I noticed the way he hummed when we were playing. He’d put music to our games—slow, dark, and creepy when we were hunting for a villain, light and happy when we were running through a meadow of magical, talking bluebells. Sometimes I’d look at him and smile at some particular melody and he’d glance at me in surprise, as if he didn’t even know the music was anywhere except inside him. He looked up and our eyes met, causing a tremor of delight to move down my spine. “Will you bring me more?”
“More music?”
“Yes.”
“O-okay. I, um, I have a keyboard, too. I could bring it? It has a carry case.”
“Yes,” he breathed. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it, and another small thrill went through me at his touch. I suddenly felt shy but glad to have given him something that obviously brought him happiness. I wanted to give him more. I wanted him to direct those clear gray eyes at me again and see them bright with joy.
So, two days later, I ran through the field and over the tracks, the keyboard case clutched in my hand and excitement filling my chest. I taught Callen which notes were which as his eyes lit with that same wonder. I’d never been very good at the piano, but I’d learned the basics, and I gave those to Callen along with the keyboard that had been in my closet unused for so long I’d almost forgotten about it.
He took to music like a fish takes to water, and I was amazed that in only a couple of months he was far better than I’d ever be, even though we had a Schimmel baby grand that I sat at each week, practicing for what felt like hours and hours, but in reality was only thirty minutes.
He showed up one day later that year looking angry, his face bruised, and sat down heavily, leaning his head against the wall. “Will you read to me today, Jessie?”
I nodded, taking the book I was in the middle of out of my backpack. “Sure.” I started The Three Musketeers, pausing and glancing up at him after I’d read a few paragraphs. His expression had settled into sadness and his eyes were closed. I gathered my courage. “Is it your dad who hits you?” I asked softly.
His eyes opened, but he didn’t turn his head toward me. He was silent for so long, I wondered if he’d answer me at all, and my heart began beating faster, scared that he would be angry with me and leave instead. “Yeah.”
My heart squeezed, and I released the breath I’d held in my throat.
He looked at me, his gaze moving over my face. “I can handle the hitting. It’s…it’s the words that…Anyway…”
I desperately wanted to ask him to say more, but I wasn’t sure how. I cleared my throat. “My dad isn’t a good man either.” I whispered it as if there were someone close by I was trying to prevent from hearing the truth. Maybe myself. I’d known it for a long time, as long as I could remember actually, but somehow saying it out loud made it an unavoidable truth. I’d never be able to pretend again. My father was weak and selfish, and he didn’t love us enough, if he even loved us at all.
Callen reached out and took my hand in his, and my eyes darted to our interlaced fingers, mine small and pale and his tanned and calloused and so much larger than my own. I kept my eyes on our joined hands and swallowed before continuing. “But the worst part is that my mom can’t stop loving him. No matter how much he makes her cry, she keeps coming back for more. I just…I don’t know how one person has that many tears.”
When I raised my eyes to his, he was staring at me. I felt self-conscious, even though he’d told me a secret, too, and I bit my lip and looked away. “Is that why you like fairy tales so much, Jessie?” His voice was soft, laced with something tender, but the question made me feel more exposed. He squeezed my hand gently. I wanted to pull away and I wanted to get closer, and the feelings running through my body were new and confusing, thrilling and scary.
“We haven’t played those games for a while now,” I answered, shaking my head. Instead of going on adventures, I read aloud or did homework, and Callen played the keyboard, his brow furrowed in concentration, creating partial melodies that were so beautiful they made my heart trip over itself. Music that often faded away into nothing, as if the loveliness had slipped right through his fingers, or he didn’t know where to take it.
His full lips tilted up. “Sometimes I miss playing make-believe.”
I grinned. “You do?”
“Yeah. You made me feel like a hero.”
“You are,” I breathed. “To me, you are.”
He shook his head. “No, Jessie. I’m no hero. God, I can’t even…”
“What? What does he say you can’t do?” I asked, feeling fierce and protective, knowing it was his father who put that haunted look in his eyes.
Callen laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “He only tells the truth.”
“No! I’d like to go to your house and give your father a piece of my—”
“Don’t you dare.” The words were sharp and icy, and I stared at him, my cheeks flushing and my eyes filling with tears. Callen had never spoken so harshly to me before.
“I…I wouldn’t do anything that—”
He leaned forward so suddenly, I let out a gasp, and then his lips were on mine, soft and warm, and a shimmery heat moved through my body. I paused, uncertain, for I’d never been kissed before, not even close. I had clunky braces on my teeth, and I had no idea what to do.
Callen gripped my hand more tightly and used his other hand to cup the back of my head as he pulled me even closer and rubbed his lips softly—slowly—over mine. I let out a tiny breath, and he hesitantly moved his tongue along my parted lips, causing me to instinctively open them.
He jolted as if surprised, and I opened my eyes to find that his were open, too. For a few moments we stared at each other close up, our eyes wide, and I was dimly aware that my heart was slamming in my chest, before he once again closed his lids. He tilted his head and pressed his tongue inside my mouth—just barely—and I closed my eyes, meeting the very tip of his tongue with the tip of mine, touching and then retreating. A cascade of feeling sparked inside m
e: excitement, nervousness, joy, and fear. Callen nibbled softly at my lips, and I sighed in wonder at the physical sensation, loving the taste of his mouth, the way he smelled up close like this—cinnamon, and salt, and some sort of soap. Like a boy. Like my prince.
When he pulled away, I felt dazed and half-asleep, floating in some other world. I blinked, bringing myself back to the moment, and smiled shyly at him. He gave me a crooked smile in return. “No one makes me feel like you, Princess Jessie. No one ever will.”
It was the only time he ever kissed me.
Callen never came back to the train tracks after that day. I went every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, hoping desperately he’d be there again. I didn’t know where to begin to look for him. Santa Lucinda, the city in Northern California where we lived, was far too big, and I didn’t even know his last name.
The only thing I had to remember him by was a string of hand-drawn musical notes written on a torn piece of paper I’d found in the corner of our boxcar.
As I waited week after week, I racked my brain for a reason why he had disappeared. Had I done something wrong? Had he hated kissing me? Had he felt ashamed? Had his father done something terrible to him? I felt desperate for answers I had no way to get.
Finally, one Tuesday evening in late summer, after an entire year of hoping he’d return, I sat alone in the doorway of our boxcar and said a silent farewell to my vanished hero—my broken prince—wiped a tear from my cheek, and never returned.
PART ONE
One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.
—Joan of Arc
CHAPTER ONE
Ten Years Later
Callen
I threw back the shot of tequila and grimaced as it burned down my throat. Tequila was not my drink of choice, but my agent had ordered a round and I could hardly refuse. Well, I could have. I could do whatever the fuck I wanted. But why turn down perfectly good alcohol?
I brought the slice of lime to my lips and sank my teeth into it, the sour bite of the fruit soothing the lingering burn of the tequila. The room blurred slightly before coming back into focus. I’d already had too much to drink, but I felt warm and comfortably numb, and I leaned back in my chair, enjoying the familiar sensation. Too familiar recently, a small voice said before I tuned it out.
The chatter at my table was mere background noise, and I looked around the bar, my eyes snagging on the brunette cocktail waitress standing at a table nearby, a tray in her hand. She placed a glass of wine in front of an older man, and her eyes darted over to me, widened when she saw I was staring at her, and then moved quickly away. My heart jumped, a buzz of electricity shooting down my spine, and I frowned, surprised by my reaction. The girl stood straight, said something to the couple at the table that made them smile, and then turned and walked away, not looking at me again. I watched as she moved toward the bar, entranced for some reason I couldn’t quite pinpoint. She was pretty, but not exactly my type. I tended toward tall, willowy blondes…didn’t I? For a minute I was confused by my own thought. Suddenly I couldn’t remember what I liked. I couldn’t remember actually having any preferences at all other than available.
I massaged my temples, feeling a headache coming on, still unable to tear my eyes away from the girl. She definitely wasn’t willowy. Nor was she blond. She was neither short nor tall, average height, her hair in a messy ponytail, no makeup as far as I could tell, wearing an unflattering uniform, and I…God, I couldn’t stop staring at her.
“Where have you gone?” Charlène, the latest tall, willowy blonde purred, leaning close to my ear and running her hand along the inside of my thigh. Her French accent was strong, but not as strong as her cloying perfume.
I shot her a lazy smile. “I’m right here, baby.”
“But your mind is not.” Her hand moved farther up my thigh, stopping just before she got to my crotch, and I twitched in my pants. My mind might not be on Charlène, but my body was paying attention.
I tore my eyes from the girl, who now leaned over the bar, talking to the bartender, and returned my attention to Charlène. The contrast between the simple, clean prettiness of the girl I’d been staring at and Charlène’s sophisticated beauty struck me, and I was surprised that I wanted to look away from Charlène and back to the cocktail waitress. I resisted the temptation, my eyes moving downward as Charlène crossed her legs and the split in her black evening gown fell open, revealing smooth, tanned thighs.
I raised my eyes from her legs and smiled, turning toward her and focusing back on our conversation. She wasn’t going to let me fuck her later if I didn’t put in at least minimal effort.
“Did you see this?” Charlène asked, handing me her phone. I recognized the logo of a gossip website she had pulled up that featured a photo of the two of us from earlier that night at the award banquet where I’d met her. “Look what they called you,” she said, laughing softly and pointing at the caption beneath the picture.
I brought it closer and smiled wryly as I handed it back. “I’ve been called worse.”
“I’d have thought you’d like that one.”
You don’t even know me. How the fuck would you know what I like? I looked around the lounge, feeling suddenly claustrophobic. Idiot. Dimwit. Moron. “Sure,” I murmured.
Charlène sighed, smoothing her hair back. “You are strange, Callen Hayes. Any man would love to be called the Sexiest Man in Music.”
The male server who had been bringing us drinks suddenly appeared with another round, placing a shot of something amber in front of each of us, and I was grateful for the interruption. “Jesus, more?” my agent, Larry, asked, though he didn’t hesitate to pick his up, sniffing it and smiling appreciatively. There was a smear of white powder on the side of his nostril from his recent trip to the bathroom, and I considered letting him know in some subtle way but decided against it. No one here cared.
“It’s not every day a new classical composer wins the Poirier Award,” Larry’s wife, Annette, said, shooting me a tight smile that was closer to a sneer. She gave Charlène a frosty look and then raised her glass. “To Callen, who is…très bon at everything he does.” She gave me a suggestive smile and then raised her glass and threw the shot back, her long, elegant throat moving as she swallowed. I glanced at Larry, but he was laughing at something the guy next to him was saying.
I raised an eyebrow and nodded at Annette, throwing my own shot back, loosening the bow tie at my throat and attempting to take a full breath for the first time in what felt like hours. Dinner had been tedious, the award ceremony had been boring, and sitting here with these fawning, superficial people was completely tiresome. The catch was: I was one of them. No better. Fuck, I wanted nothing more than to ditch them all and go back to my hotel room alone. But the thought both lured me and filled me with clawing terror. I needed to start the new compositions I’d been hired to write, and so far I hadn’t come up with a single note.
I pushed the fears away as best as I could, the alcohol aiding in that effort. The same way sex would later. At least long enough to shut the words out—his words. Long enough to get something on paper. Please, God. But God had never answered me before, and I didn’t figure he would now. No, I’d have to do what I could to quiet the demons myself. Just as I always had.
Long enough to let the music play.
Three years ago I’d sold a composition I’d written to a small French indie film studio that had used it for one of their movie’s theme songs. The piece had gained so much popularity that a larger film studio in Hollywood hired me to write several songs for a movie they were producing—a movie that became a blockbuster hit. Close on the heels of that success, I put out an album of compositions to more critical acclaim, and then a second that received only lukewarm reviews, but even so, I’d suddenly found myself a sort of celebrity, with people snapping pictures of me in restaurants and on the street and b
eing offered interviews on high-profile networks. It had been a fast and furious whirlwind, and I hadn’t always reacted well to the constant invasion of privacy.
As it turned out, that only made me more sought after, news-wise, as the “bad-boy composer.” They thought they had me pegged as some sort of dark creative who sat alone in his apartment, tearing at his hair and scrawling notes on paper in a mad frenzy before hopping into bed with three supermodels who simultaneously indulged my wicked sexual appetites. Which, actually, wasn’t completely off the mark. Although recently the music scrawling part had eluded me while the wicked sex had not.
The sex and alcohol had once offered the mind-numbing blankness that allowed the notes to take shape and form. I was able to lock myself away and write for days and days—weeks sometimes—whereas now I was lucky to get a few good hours of creativity. Which was unfortunate, considering I’d signed a contract to write a soundtrack and was expected to deliver something ingenious to the largest studio in Hollywood for a movie slated to come out the following year. I needed to produce something great, something that wouldn’t give the critics cause to say my talent was slipping and my initial success was nothing more than a fluke. Of course, that pressure was my own, but it was weighty nonetheless.
“So, Callen, what’s next now that you’re an international sensation?” the guy who’d been talking to Larry a moment before asked.
I shot him a look. International sensation? For the love of Christ. Who talked like that? Yes, I’d won a damn award, and I was proud of it. But why did everyone around me always sound like they were interviewing me for some article?
“Grégoire’s with Le Célébrité,” Larry said, nodding to the man, who had his phone out and was aiming it at Charlène’s hand still on my thigh. I glanced at her, and she was shooting the reporter a pouty smile, knowing damn well he was taking our picture for his French tabloid.