evening, dear.”
“Until then.” Blake smiled and bowed slightly as she left.
The moment she disappeared into the hall, his smile dropped and his body sagged. His friends and neighbors meant well, truly they did. He’d worked his fingers to the bone for ten years to convince them all he was the happiest man alive and the life of every party he attended. They were all good people in their own ways and he did enjoy their company to a degree. But not one of them knew the man he truly was. Not one of them guessed at anything beneath the polished veneer he presented.
Heart aching over the prospect of adding a return to society to everything else gnawing at him, Blake moved to the piano. Playing was the only thing that gave him even a shred of peace anymore. He brushed his fingers over the keys for a moment, seeing Niall’s smile in their brightness as he did. Then he began to play one of his own compositions. Not just any composition, but the one he’d been working on while rehearsing Niall’s play. It was the song he’d begun when he saw Niall for the very first time, before they’d ever spoken. It started smooth and haunting, then built to an emotional crescendo. He’d penned that part after they’d met, after rehearsals had started, after they’d become lovers. It was rich and full of feeling, but that theme fell away into a faded replica of the original theme toward the end. He’d written that bit afterwards, after his heart had been shattered. It was almost too poignant to play, and as its final, hollow notes lingered in the air, he closed his eyes and bowed his head, consumed with grief.
“You finished it.”
Blake snapped his head up, gasping so hard that this throat hurt, and whipped around to find Niall standing in the doorway.
“It’s beautiful.”
Chapter 12
Blake stood so fast, a strangled cry ripping from his lungs, that he knocked the piano stool over. When he turned to reach for it, he slammed his toe hard into the seat. Pain radiated up his foot and he yelped before grabbing the stool and setting it upright. When he jerked around to face Niall again, every part of him was in agony.
Niall stood framed in the doorway, looking tired and worn from traveling. They’d seen each other a month earlier, but that utilitarian reunion hadn’t felt like a reunion at all. Niall had been busy with Everett Jewel and his friend’s investigation. They’d spoken for maybe an hour then. Seeing Niall in his home now, shoulders bunched and expression wary, was the sort of reunion Blake had longed for these past ten years. Niall. In his home. In the flesh.
“You came,” he breathed, stepping forward, then immediately falling into a limp as he crossed the room.
“I almost didn’t,” Niall confessed in a low, stiff voice.
The sting of that admission couldn’t penetrate Blake’s overwhelming joy at seeing Niall again. Niall’s suit was finer than the sort of things he’d worn at university. He’d matured, grown more muscular. He combed his hair differently, but he still didn’t wear a beard. His jaw seemed squarer than it had before, and his blue eyes were definitely more steel than sky. All the same, Blake ignored the palpable shield he felt around the only person he had, or ever could consider a lover, to stumble into his arms.
Niall was as rigid as a statue as Blake embraced him. Their bodies crushed together awkwardly, all elbows and edges, but Blake didn’t care. He closed his eyes and buried his head against Niall’s neck for a moment, breathing in the scent he’d only dreamed of for years.
Niall remained silent, and far too quickly, their embrace turned uncomfortable. Blake wasn’t forgiven. He could feel it in the brittle way Niall held himself, in the gaping chasm between them, even as their bodies pressed together. He kept a bright smile firmly in place as he stepped back, though. The world thought he was a golden boy, blessed with title, wealth, and unending happiness. By God, if he could pretend for his neighbors, he could pretend for Niall too.
“You look well,” he said, throwing everything he had into keeping his voice light and welcoming. “London suits you.”
Niall’s jaw was clenched so hard Blake worried his teeth would shatter. “You grew your beard in,” he said in a stilted voice.
Blake ran a hand over the bottom half of his face. “It tends to do that all