Staccato (Magnum Opus #2) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,92
CDs Adam played when he was feeling low, but then he heard the music abruptly stop, and Adam curse softly under his breath.
Nik became profoundly aware that his lover had followed through on his promise. The acoustic guitar sound carried far, which meant Adam had also hooked it up to an amp. It meant he was giving Nik this glimpse into the life he’d lived before he’d set foot in their little town. His heart raced, pulse thrumming in his neck, and he reached up to touch it before coming to a stop in the doorway.
The strumming stopped again, and the only sound Nik could hear as he entered the room was the soft rise and fall of Adam’s breath—just a bit quicker than it usually was. What he wanted in that moment was to drop his tea and fall to his knees and curl this moment around them forever. What he wanted was to pause time and remove the pressures of life and the fear that this all might be ripped away from his scrabbling fingers.
Instead, he crossed the room to his piano, and he set his mug down, and then lowered himself onto the bench. He said nothing, the silence speaking loud enough for the both of them, and he waited. Adam’s breathing picked up another notch, but before the desperate need to fill the room with music washed over him, Nik heard another faint strum on the guitar.
He wished he was closer, close enough to touch, to feel the way Adam’s delicate fingers touched the strings, letting metal dig into soft flesh. He wanted to put his hands to the side of the guitar and let the vibrations of the music rush through him just as powerfully as the sound. But he knew if he moved, the moment would shatter.
The first recognizable set of notes hit Nik like a freight train—powerful and startling. A sound he’d first absorbed and memorized before he could read complicated words in his thick braille books. Such an amateur, beginner piece, and yet gripped him in a way that left him turned around and upside down.
Für Elise.
The notes, powered by electricity, played on an instrument never meant to make sounds like that, crashed through the room. It wove around him and made him want, made his throat tight, made the space behind his eyelids burn with unshed tears. Adam was playing for him—playing in his world.
And he loved him.
God, he loved him.
It was clear Adam didn’t know the whole piece. The notes faltered, then died, but Nik was on his feet before either of them could think the silence mattered. He hit the table hard with his hip, the corner of the wood scraping across his flesh, but the pain was nothing when Adam’s warm skin was under his hands.
Want you, need you, love you, please don’t go.
The words didn’t find voice, but he hoped the desperate way he kissed Adam conveyed it. He needed him—Adam had crashed through all of Nik’s barriers and made him need. It was terrifying and thrilling and…
And it was everything.
“When did you learn that?” Nik asked, his voice a ragged whisper.
Adam laughed, dragging kisses along the top of Nik’s shoulder. “Years ago. We had a temporary drummer—guy was a total dick, said classical music was pointless, so I taught it to myself to prove the asshole wrong. I don’t know all of it. I can’t believe I even remembered that much.”
“It was beautiful. You are so…” No more words came, but Nik held the side of Adam’s face and felt his grin.
“I have something to tell you,” Adam said after a beat, and Nik felt his heart slamming against his ribs. This felt like a moment—overwhelming with its importance. He was choked with a need to ask him not to say anything, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Maybe this was an I love you, or a stay with me forever. Maybe this was how the road opened up to ask Adam to go with him—wherever, anywhere. Just as long as they were together, he could escape this place. “I got an apartment.”
The words rang like the echo of a gong—powerful and all-encompassing. Not a disaster, not an ending, but not a beginning. “I…why? When?”
Adam let out a sheepish, nervous laugh. “A couple days ago. Monday, actually. Jay called me that morning and told me a friend of his was looking to sublet his place because he’s moving to California.”