Roz could feel his gaze on her. From where in the room, she didn’t know. It was hard to tell when it seemed like her parents had invited every person they knew to Luca’s birthday party. Oh, she loved her parents for the fact they always celebrated their children’s birthdays even now that Luca and Roz were probably beyond the age of all that.
Still, she wondered where Naz was.
She could feel his gaze on only her. It was the way her skin hummed with the strangest buzzing sensation. Like all the fine hairs lifted from the back of her neck, and her breaths came out a little shorter than normal. She loved that feeling, and yet … she still wished she could watch him, too.
She couldn’t see him, though.
Her gaze scanned the crowd even as her hands continued moving over familiar keys on the piano. She didn’t need to actually look down to know what she was doing when it came to the piano. Especially not if it was a composition she was very familiar with and had been playing for years.
She wasn’t actually supposed to play the piano tonight for the guests, anyway, but someone thought it would be a great idea. Roz got roped into it because she didn’t like telling people no, and her parents loved showing off her hard work.
Some things never changed …
Roz didn’t break stride or form as she looked for Naz in the crowd. Her smile was still firmly in place as her gaze drifted over the faces of familiar people. Back straight, shoulders loose but firm, and arms at the correct position for her hands to do all the work. She was sure everyone just thought she was smiling for them, but really, she wanted to find him.
He’d been back for a few days—things went back to normal. Just like he said. Like he hadn’t been gone at all.
If anything, that only made Roz edgier. For reasons she wasn’t even sure of, to be honest. Like she might blink, and he’d be gone again.
Even if he promised that wasn’t the case.
That fear hung on.
Soon enough, Roz had finished the piece on the piano and was standing from the bench before the clapping had even started. The guests did clap, though. The noise was thunderous. She heard the congratulations and praise, and took them all with a smile. Even the arms reaching to hug her, and pat her cheeks as people told her how much she had grown up since the last time they saw her.
People kept saying that.
She didn’t see it like they did.
Moving through the last few people while accepting their hugs, too, Roz finally spotted Naz. Finally.
She was entirely unsurprised to find he had tucked himself into the far corner of the room where he couldn’t be bothered. She found he didn’t like that very much. Hated when people interrupted him while he was watching her.
He looked like a woman’s walking wet dream standing there in a three-piece suit, his hair pulled back like he’d been dragging his fingers through the strands, and a glass of whiskey in his hands. Easy posture, lazy smile, and eyes only on her. He looked like he didn’t have a fuck to give in the world because he had everything he wanted standing just a few feet away from him right then.
Naz grinned, and winked.
Roz smiled back.
Soon enough, she was going to hide that grin of his when her lips found his. She swore … would put her hand on a fucking bible to say it … that her music was made better when this man was watching her. Something about him being there made her hyperaware, and the music just sounded better.
It didn’t have to be reasonable.
It just was.
“That was beautiful, Roz.”
Katya slipped in beside her daughter, and took her attention away from Naz for a moment. As much as it sucked, she supposed she could wait another few seconds before she could get back to where she wanted to be.
Tucked right into his side.
With him.
“Thanks, Ma,” Roz said.
Her mother looked at someone over Roz’s shoulder before her gaze came back to her daughter. “When you’re playing sounds like that, it makes me wonder why you’re still considering backing out of that audition.”
Roz sucked in a sharp breath.
Here?
Really?
Her mother wanted to bring that up right now? It was not the right time at all. It was not another argument Roz wanted to have, either. She’d been arguing with her parents about this all damn week.
Couldn’t they let it rest?
Wasn’t it bad enough that they had gone behind her back to tell her mentor what she was considering without letting her have enough time to figure it out on her own?
Apparently, no.
That had not been a fun conversation.
“We talked about this,” Roz reminded her mother.
Katya nodded. “And I still think you’re making a mistake. It’s not that you’re not ready, Rosalynn. It’s that your mind is elsewhere.”
“So?”
Her mother blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“So,” Roz snapped again, although she kept her voice at a reasonable level so that they didn’t draw attention from the guests. There was no need to go ruining her brother’s birthday party, even if he hadn’t asked for this party. “So what if that’s what it is, Ma. So what if I’m distracted, and now is not the right time?”
“Because spots in that company only come up once in a decade, and if you’re very lucky, you might get two chances in a decade. That’s why.”
Nothing Katya said was a lie.
Roz just didn’t need the fucking reminder.
“I don’t feel ready,” Roz told her mother. “And there’s nothing I can do about that except hold off on the audition. I would rather hold off than go when I’m not ready, Ma.”
Katya sipped from the wine in her hand, and sighed. “Your father thinks maybe you should go back to—”
“No.”
“And what if you don’t go to the audition, then what?”
“I don’t understand.”
“What do you plan to do? You’ll get your official diploma next week, and have the ceremony next month. If you even choose to go to that, mind you. But what about after? What are your plans?”
Roz’s shoulders stiffened at the tone of her mother’s voice. “Maybe I’ll stay in New York. Would that be such a bad thing?”
“It might be,” her mother replied, “if there’s only one reason you’re doing that for.”
“You mean to say one person, Ma.”
“You’re seventeen.”
“Eighteen next month,” she shot back fast.
Katya smiled. “That doesn’t negate the fact that you’re still young, dushka. Young, and prone to making rash decisions. I don’t want you to give up on your dreams. And if you asked that one person, I bet he would say the same thing. Wouldn’t he? If he cared, and he means to you what you think he does … wouldn’t he say the same thing, Rosalynn? Have you even asked?”
Roz found Naz was still staring at her when she glanced to the side. He grinned in that way of his again. The way that had her heart pounding, and her stomach doing the strangest flip-flops. All he had to do was fucking stare at her, and her whole world suddenly felt like it had flipped on its axis, and nothing was ever going to be the same again.
That was the thing.
She was here now.
He was hers.
Nothing could be the same.
She didn’t want it to be, either.
Katya sighed, and drew Roz’s attention back to her mother. “I see.”
“What?”
“You haven’t asked him, have you? I bet you haven’t mentioned to him at all that you’re considering scrapping the audition, and instead of continuing your career, you plan to stay here in New York. Because this is where he is. You haven’t told him any of those things at all.”
No, she hadn’t.
Because what did it matter?
“It’s still my choice, Ma,” Roz said.
“It is,” her mother agreed, “but what if it’s the wrong choice?”
“That’s for me to figure out, too.”
Katya smiled softly. “It is, you’re right. I still think you should ask him, though, and explain. He might surprise you. You know …”
“What?”
She tried to keep the irritation out of her tone, but it was impossible. Her mother acted like Roz was cool, calm, and relaxed. That was Katya—she could handle anything. Roz wished she could say the same.
“You’re allowed to be in love, and still have your own dreams, Roz. All those dreams don’t have to only be for him.”
Was that how it worked?
Right now, it certainly didn’t feel like it.
Before Roz could respond to her mother, someone dragged Katya away to talk to someone else. Roz didn’t even get the chance to slip through the last bit of the crowd in the room to get back to Naz. Someone dragged her away, too.
Someone else to tell her just how much she’d grown up.
They had no fucking idea.