Play On (Play On 1)

“What do you think was wrong here?” Quentin, to my utter surprise, entertained Aidan’s overstep.

“Now she’s not giving enough emotion. I need emotion to write music.” He cut me a sneer. “This one needs more practice than the others.”

This one? This one!

Quentin frowned. “It’s the first rehearsal, Nora. You’ll get there.”

I nodded, grateful for his kindness, but my cheeks blazed with mortification at Aidan’s hurtful critique. As I walked offstage, I heard Jack hurry to catch up with me. He threw his arm over my shoulders and squeezed me into his side. For once he wasn’t smiling; he actually looked annoyed on my behalf. “Ye did great.”

“Thanks. Apparently not.”

“What the fuck does he know?” he whispered. “He’s just some jumped-up music producer.”

Whom I used to be in love with until he left me.

Which apparently wasn’t enough damage.

Furious, my eyes went to Aidan as Jack walked with me, his arm still around me in comfort. Aidan was glowering at me with such vitriol, my muscles locked as if preparing for battle.

Dazed, I couldn’t even remember getting into the seat next to Jack. I couldn’t take my eyes off Aidan, not even when he whipped his fiery gaze from mine to turn back to the stage. But I knew him. His body was stiff with tension, with anger, and I was a mass of confusion.

How Aidan had treated me on that stage, deliberately humiliating me, was so out of character. It was like I was faced with an entirely different man. A stranger, like he’d made himself out to be. The only time in our past that Aidan had been truly angry with me was when I’d deserted him at lunch after he’d confided in me about his sister’s death.

He’d treated me with cool aloofness then too.

With cold anger.

Looking at it rationally, the Aidan I had known would only be this angry with me if he thought I had done him wrong.

Cold sweat prickled under my arms.

“Yesterday after you left, he suddenly started making arrangements to leave the country. He took a job in LA so he can be close to Sylvie but it meant leaving early this morning.”

I’d taken the word of a woman I didn’t trust over a man I’d grown to trust more than anyone.

What if Aidan hadn’t left? What if Laine had orchestrated the lie somehow?

No.

That was too ridiculous, right?

But then why was Aidan so furious with me? That kind of fury could be born of the fact that I had left him the day after his kid was taken from him. Right?

Yet … Aidan had texted me.

Aidan had texted me, right?

I tried to put the pieces together, the entire theater falling away as I thought back to that time eighteen months ago. I had left that night. My phone didn’t work in the US so I’d left it, and I got a new number and cell when I returned months later. The old contract had ended and I threw out the old phone.

So if Aidan had tried to contact me, I wouldn’t have known.

But he knew where I lived. He knew where Seonaid worked because I’d told him. Wouldn’t he have gone to Seonaid when he couldn’t get in touch with me?

And still, what about his phone? If he hadn’t text me, if it had been Laine all along, then why didn’t Aidan know about it?

Nothing made sense.

But something was wrong.

I looked at him, fear coalescing inside me, and I realized I was more afraid of discovering it had all been a huge misunderstanding, a deliberate manipulation on the part of his jealous friend, than I was of being faced with an indifferent, cold Aidan.

The Aidan I’d loved terrified me more.

Because I was finally in a good place, taking care of me, and I was nowhere near ready to face the kind of volatile emotions Aidan Lennox brought out in me.

The sound of girls’ laughter drew me out of my concentration, and I glanced over at the group of eighteen-year-old freshman giggling under a tree. Like me, they’d decided to make the most of the beautiful spring day and were sitting out on The Meadows behind the main campus.

I was by myself. As usual.

It wasn’t that people in my classes hadn’t made overtures of friendliness toward me. They had. Because of my height, some had even mistaken me for their age, surprised when I told them I was twenty-four. Six years didn’t seem like a huge spread, but the difference between eighteen and twenty-four was massive, especially for someone like me who’d been married, widowed, and lost a child and a man I’d loved.

As if conjuring her ghost, a little blond girl dashed by the students, turning to laugh behind her. A woman, presumably her mother, hurried after her. She was much younger than Sylvie had been when I last saw her.

God, Sylvie.

I didn’t often let myself think about her because all that came with it was longing and worry. She’d be twelve now. Was she happy? Was Cal taking good care of her?

Looking beyond The Meadows to across the street, I felt a sudden urge to go to the hospital. I hadn’t visited since returning to Edinburgh. It was too full of ghosts. But I found myself packing my books into my shoulder bag and getting to my feet. My steps took me out of the park and across the street and up.

Maybe it was Aidan’s return in my life that finally pushed me toward the hospital. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for as I walked toward the red brick building. All I knew was that before Aidan came back, I was feeling pretty sure of myself and of life, and now I felt like I was floating untethered again. Totally lost.

Aidan’s cruel behavior at rehearsals wasn’t helping.

I’d had two more rehearsals with him and each time, he’d found something to criticize in my performance. I wanted to believe that Quentin was getting as impatient with him as I was. Jack definitely was.

Tomorrow I had rehearsal again and I’d have to see him. I longed for Quentin to tell us it was Aidan’s last day in the theater.

Pushing through the hospital’s entrance door, the familiar smell brought with it a wave of memories.

Sylvie running to hug me. Grinning up at me with a mouthful of mac and cheese. The kids laughing as I prowled around the room like Count Olaf in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Aidan’s face close to mine as we braced on the Twister sheet, his sexy smile making my heart flip in my chest.

I wrapped my arms around myself, as though to keep my insides from falling out. Why did I come here? It was stupid.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I muttered, turning away.

“Is that you, Peter Pan?”

I spun around, coming face to face with Jan.

She smiled at me tenderly.

And I rushed her.

Jan laughed, rocking back on her feet as I hugged her. She returned my hug and then pressed me gently away. Concern and fondness mingled in her expression. “What brings ye to my doorstep, Nora?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

Twenty minutes later, Jan had me seated in the quiet cafeteria with a cup of coffee, and I told her everything.

Absolutely everything.

It blurted out of me, uncontrolled, word after word.

“It doesn’t sound right,” Jan mused. “That definitely doesn’t sound like Aidan. He’d never treat someone he cared about so poorly.”

“Well, he is.”

“I think ye’er right. I think his friend must have deliberately misled ye. As far as I’m aware, Aidan never went to California back then. He certainly still lives here.”

“It doesn’t matter.” I said. “We’re better off as we are.”

“Then why do ye look so sad?”

I gave her a strained smile, my fingers gripping my coffee tightly. “I miss Sylvie.”

“Sylvie’s doing fine.” Jan patted my hand.

Stunned, my heart rate sped up. “You’ve heard from her?”

She exhaled slowly. “Aidan drops by every now and then to let me know how she’s doing. I … uh … knew something had happened between ye because when I mentioned ye, he clammed up. Everything makes sense now.”

“And Sylvie?”

“She likes California. She’s doing well. Her dad let her stay with Aidan for a month last summer, and he brought her back to Scotland at Christmas so she could see Aidan then too.”