Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Get up, Roz, your laptop keeps chiming. It’s probably—”
“Fucking Kyle,” Roz grumbled under her breath. Then, she added louder, “Ignore it.”
“Roz, he’s not going to stop.”
Oh, she knew that. But he might. And she was totally willing to take that chance. All she needed to do was ignore him long enough, and maybe he would stop trying to get ahold of her this early. He’d already called and texted her phone until the inbox was full. She’d not answered any of those this morning, either.
A call to her laptop could work the same damn way.
She yanked the blanket higher over her head, and rolled over for extra good measure. She wanted to stay in bed, close her eyes, and go back to dreamland where her mind was filled with thoughts of a dark-haired, brown-eyed man. Naz was a far better thing to think about first thing in the morning instead of her fucking mentor who just wanted to drive her up the wall.
He’d been the one to send her here, after all. He was the one who thought spending a couple of months with her parents and away from the suffocating restraints of the school would do her some good before graduation and the big audition.
Technically, Roz already had her graduation in the bag. All her credits were in—her finals for the most important classes were written. The last ones she had to finish when she went back were add-ons, and not even important in the grand scheme of things. She took them because she needed something to fill the time between two o’clock in the afternoon, and four when she went in for three hours of practice.
“Roz, it’s chiming again, so—”
“Ugh, I’m coming,” she muttered, throwing off the blankets. Behind the door, she could hear her mother laughing quietly.
Kyle wasn’t going to stop until Roz got up, answered his call, and handled whatever he wanted for the day. She was supposed to be focusing on herself, on composing and practicing. Anything but him, the school, and everything there. This trip home was intended to clear her head, and get her in the right headspace for the audition.
Except that couldn’t happen at all because Kyle wouldn’t quit calling every single day. Usually, that’s exactly how he started her morning was by calling her. Asking questions. Too many questions, maybe. How long had she practiced the day before? Had she finished that last stanza? Corrected the intro like he wanted? Had she been able to pick up the pace near the middle of the composition, and had it maintained its strength?
All the goddamn questions.
Always about music, too.
Like Roz didn’t know what she was doing, or something. She damn well did know what she was doing, but it went even beyond that. She needed to be confident in this piece she planned on playing for the audition in Australia. How could she do that when even her mentor wouldn’t back the hell off long enough to let her enjoy what she was creating?
Just deal with him, her mind said, and get back to your happy place.
Yes, her happy place.
In bed.
Dreaming about Nazio.
Roz grabbed her blinking phone—Kyle’s name was right on the front screen showing the last texts and calls she’d missed—before she padded to the door. Swinging it open, she found her mother had already disappeared down the hallway.
She’d set her laptop up in the living room the night before to let it charge, and hope that if Kyle did call, her parents would just ignore it. She’d hoped for too much.
Rox ignored the murmurings coming from the kitchen as she headed inside the living room. Plopping down on the couch, she grabbed the laptop with one hand, and raked her fingers through her loose hair with the other to push the wild waves out of her face. She didn’t even get the chance to call Kyle back through Skype before his next call was already ringing through.
Jesus.
That man needed to relax.
Roz hit the answer button, and forced something resembling a smile onto her face. The second her blond, blue-eyed mentor that was edging closer to forty every day appeared on the screen, she said, “Morning.”
Politely, too.
How Roz managed that, she would never know.
“There you are,” Kyle said, sighing heavily. “You had me worried.”
Yeah, she was sure. But not really.
“You can see me. I’m fine.”
“Good thing. Wouldn’t want the next lead pianist for the Cordana Company to stop before she really got started, now would we?”
Kyle Mathus had come into the school Roz attended with the intention to mentor a cello prodigy. All she remembered was being in her favorite music room, and playing a piece she had finished after working on it for over a year. After looking up from the piano, there Kyle stood on the other side of it.
He’d been a pianist for one of the world’s largest and most successful companies. He’d played with orchestras all over the world. And then an accident irreparably damaged the tendons and nerves on one side of his left hand. He chose to mentor younger prodigies after that incident.
Roz was his third.
All his other students had gone on to be amazing things. They did amazing things. And his life—on paper—as a pianist was everything she thought she wanted to be. She was also seventeen—almost eighteen—and couldn’t remember a time these last few years where she didn’t look at this man’s face at least once a day.
She couldn’t just be a young woman when she was also this man’s student. She had to be all the things he told her to be instead.
“Did you shut your phone off, or what?” Kyle asked, dragging Roz back to the conversation.
“Did it keep ringing, or just go right to inbox?”
The man’s brow dipped. “What?”
“What did my phone do when you called—ring and ring, or go to inbox right away?”
“Rang and rang,” he said.
“Then, I didn’t shut it off.”
Kyle frowned. “So, I am to believe that means you were purposely ignoring me.”
“Or trying to sleep.”
“You don’t need more sleep, Roz. Not when you’re going to bed at nine every night, and waking up at eight.”
Yes, because even her sleep schedule was determined by this man when something as important as the Australia audition was coming up. She was pretty sure if she suggested he take over prepping meal plans for her, he would go ahead with that, too.
It was crazy.
“You need to prepare,” Kyle continued on, repeating the same shit he said each time they talked. It wasn’t new shit, and Roz was already starting to daze before he even really got going with his tirade. “As much and as often as you can manage. With and without people watching. At different times each day. Did you record your final session of the day yesterday for me to hear it?”
Shit.
She had meant to—it was the one thing she did like to do for Kyle. Even if she didn’t take all of his suggestions when it came to changing her piece for the audition, he had a good ear. Better than good, really. He could hear her missteps when even she couldn’t pick them out. He could hear—even through a recording—where she might have hit the keys a little harder than was necessary. He did make her music better.
He did.
And that was the whole reason why, despite a lot of the nonsense, Roz was grateful for Kyle. He was making her a better pianist.
She wanted to be the best.
He was giving her that.
“Can I assume by your face that your answer on the recording is a no?” Kyle asked.
Roz gave the man on the screen an apologetic smile. “I had a thing yesterday that I forgot about. A family friend had an engagement party. I was working on the piece, and meant to record the final run through … but someone interrupted, and I forgot by the time I got back.”
Kyle raised a brow. “Are they?”
“Pardon?”
“Interrupting you often. Distracting you, Rosalynn. You know why you’re there. This is supposed to be—”
“My parents are great,” she interjected fast, wanting to put that to bed before Kyle got that on his mind. The man had a habit of running with nonsense when he got something in his head that he believed to be true. “I just forgot I had other obligations yesterday, and didn’t get home until late.”
Actually, she had gotten home at a fairly decent time. Sure, the sky had been dark, but if she had cared enough to sit down at the piano once she was home, she absolutely could have recorded her doing a run through of her piece for Kyle. But her mind had been on something else entirely.
Naz.
Certainly not in the right place to play.
At least … not with the piano.
Kyle sighed in that way of his again. “Do be sure to record it today. Do not let anyone take your focus away right now. Live and—”
“Breathe the music,” she finished for him. “I know.”
The buzzing of her phone in her lap made her glance down to see who the caller was. The name flashing on the screen caused Kyle’s voice coming through the laptop to be nothing more than a buzzing noise in the back of her mind.
Better things are here.
Nazio.
Roz grabbed the phone, and glanced up at the screen. “Talk later, okay?”
She didn’t even know what Kyle had been saying. It didn’t even matter. The man’s furrowed brow almost made her laugh.
“Wait, what—”
“Later,” Roz said, reaching to close the laptop before he could protest. Once the laptop was closed, she answered her phone with a grin. “Naz, hey.”
His voice was a dark, rich tenor coming through the speaker. A low note of music that danced over her skin with nothing more than two words.
“Morning, beautiful,” he said.
Roz’s heart jumped, and her smile grew wider. “That’s … quite a greeting.”
“Yeah, but true.”
This guy was something else.
“And I just wanted to say that,” he added. “You busy tomorrow morning?”
She should have said yes, she would be busy. That she had to practice, and get her head back in the game. Focus, focus, focus. It should be her mantra.
Instead, she said, “Not busy at all.”
“Great,” Naz said, “I know a place.”