Page 30

Chasing Dreams

Aleks

I woke to the sound of music.

I wasn’t sure I’d actually slept at all.

It’d taken me a while to leave the living room and retreat to my bedroom, a big part of me hoping that Mia would change her mind and come back to join me. When she didn’t, I’d spent at least the better part of an hour just staring up at the ceiling in my room, my entire body tuned in to the fact that she was just a few doors down the hall.

It was like when we were teenagers, except now, I didn’t feel welcome to join her. I didn’t feel like I could just knock on her door and hop up into bed with her, tease her about whatever song she was writing or ask if she wanted to go walk down by the lake.

She was in my condo, and yet she was a thousand miles away.

I blinked in the darkness of my room, reaching for my phone to check the time as the soft sound of piano music spilled in from down the hall. It was just past three in the morning.

We must have lost power because my phone wasn’t charging even though it was plugged in and my room felt darker than usual. I used the light from my phone screen to guide the way to my door, bare feet padding over the wood floors as I followed the sound of the keys.

I needed the light less and less as I got closer to the living room. Even with the storm raging outside, there was still enough glow from those who still had power in the city filtering in through the windows. When I could see without it, I tucked my phone away, slowing my steps.

I halted altogether when I saw her.

Mia sat at my piano, her dark hair still in the braid I’d weaved, my jersey hanging from her shoulders. It sparked a primal need in me, seeing my number on her back as her hands moved over the bone-white keys. I couldn’t see her thighs, but her feet were bare where they worked the pedals beneath the bench she sat on, her delicate ankle still sporting that dainty chain she’d had on the day of our fake engagement.

Her entire body moved slowly and fluidly with the music she played, the chords devastatingly sad and yet somehow laced with hope.

For a long moment, I stood tucked away at the edge of the hall, shoulder leaned against the wall as I watched and listened. She was singing softly — so softly that I couldn’t hear what the words were at first. But as the song worked to a crescendo, her voice rose with it.

“I’m holding on to echoes, to whispers in the dark,

Wondering if you feel it, too, or if I’m just another spark.

I’m reaching through the silence, hoping you’ll take my hand,

But maybe I’m just chasing dreams in a shifting, sinking sand.”

If the lyrics weren’t enough to sucker punch the air right out of me, the way she sang them would have been. Longing and hopeless desperation were tangled in every word, and I could almost see them physically manifesting as ropes binding her body as she swayed with the song, her hands moving effortlessly as she brought that sad music to life.

I didn’t know who she was singing about.

I had absolutely no right to even think it was about me.

And maybe it was the wind and the rain pelting against the windows, the percussion of it drumming up my heartbeat. Maybe it was the tension from the night, from the last two months of wondering what was going on inside that head of hers.

Maybe it was just sheer selfish curiosity.

But I decided in that moment that I had to know.

My feet were moving me across the living room before I’d even made a conscious decision to do so. I took each step slowly and quietly, careful not to disturb her, as if she were a bunny in the woods and one quick movement would have her skittering away again.

She was so beautiful.

She was so breathtakingly beautiful.

I cataloged the long slope of her neck, the delicate outline of her shoulders, the narrow bend of her waist beneath my jersey the closer I got. My heart was racing in my throat by the time I reached her, and I knew she felt my presence only by how her body slightly tensed, by a minor skip in the music — just enough to make me stop.

I stood a few inches behind her, chest tight with anticipation as she continued playing her song. She wasn’t singing anymore, though. She was silent. And when she angled her chin just enough to offer me a subtle angle of her profile, I swore I saw the pulse in her neck mirroring mine.

Mia only afforded me that view for a moment before her attention was back on the keys, and with every ragged breath I took, my thoughts ran wild.

Say something.

What do I say?

Tell her how you feel.

How the fuck do I feel…

I have nothing to give her.

She’s too good for me.

I’m not her type.

But maybe she wants me, too.

Maybe all this pretending hasn’t been so fake.

She’s been cold, distant… she hates me.

Or does she love me?

Are the two not so close they could be one and the same?

I want to kiss her, without any cameras around.

Would she let me?

Or would she stop me, like she did in LA, like she did on the pier?

I could have spent the entire night standing there behind her, listening to her play her sad song while I thought up every excuse to not move a muscle, to not say a word.

But, like many times in my life, I said fuck it .

I swallowed past the tightness in my throat, slowly reaching forward until my hands found her shoulders. Mia stiffened when I touched her, until I started kneading the tight muscles.

Slowly, she released, head falling back slightly even as her fingers kept their pace on the keys. The music surrounded us, the soundtrack to a moment that felt so weighted.

I let my hands explore, sliding them up to cup the back of her neck, to brush my knuckles along her jaw, to destroy her braid as I ran my fingers roughly through it to massage her scalp.

Her breath was as shallow as mine when I maneuvered to sit on the bench next to her, straddling it and admiring the way the soft light through my rain-streaked windows hit the side of her face. I cupped that gorgeous face in one hand, thumb resting over her ear, fingers curling at the nape of her neck. When I ran my thumb along her bottom lip, I wet my own, and her mouth parted to reward me with a sweep of warm breath.

Her eyelids fluttered shut, head tilting to lean into my touch only a moment before she stopped playing. The silence of my apartment was jarring in the absence of the melody, a heavy quiet that wrapped around us before I noticed the faint sounds the music had hidden before.

Rain drumming.

Wind whistling.

The city outside thrummed with its own rhythm, as alive as the pulse between us.

She turned to me, eyes opening to lock onto mine.

And that’s when I realized she’d been crying.

I could just barely make out the gleaming proof on her cheeks, her watery eyes watching me as her nose flared, her bottom lip wobbling.

“Mia…” I croaked.

“No,” she whispered, her eyes falling to my chest. She wrapped her hand around my wrist, holding me steady where I still cupped her face. “I don’t want to talk about it. Please, just…” She rolled her lips together, a fresh tear sneaking free as she lifted her gaze to mine. I wiped that tear with my thumb, feeling it burn my skin like a liquid fire. “Can you kiss me?”

I frowned, stroking her cheek with my thumb and willing her to talk to me, but she shook her head before I could even ask again.

“Aleks, please . Kiss me.” She fisted her hand in my sleep shirt, twisting. “Please. Please .”

A blink, and we were kids again, alone in her bedroom, those exact words rolling off her lips.

I’d been scared then — scared of her father, of the repercussions, of not being what she needed, what she deserved. I was so hellbent on being respectful, not just of her dad’s wishes, but of her.

Tonight, I didn’t care if I wasn’t good enough.

I wanted her so badly, I’d risk being her mistake.

“Only if you agree.”

“Agree to what?”

“To let me kiss you everywhere.”

Surprise flitted across her expression for only a breath before her eyes heated, her next breath bottoming out.

“To let me do more than just kiss you,” I clarified, sucking in a breath through my nose as my hand traveled down, fingertips tracing her jaw, her chin, until I splayed my hand over her neck and curled my fingers around it. “To let me ruin you in every way I’ve ever imagined.”

A heated promise punctuated with a tightened grip.

A sweet surrender underlined with a longing sigh.

One word, riding on a breath of tentative release.

“Yes.”