"See?" Harper said, delighted. "Fun. I knew you were fun." She glanced at the stage, where the Steinway gleamed under its spotlight, untouchable. "Come on. Let's go look at the auction stuff. I want to bid on the ski trip with Monopoly money."
As they walked away, Darius glanced back at the piano. The keys glowed in their white-gold line. His fingers itched.
Hands off, he reminded himself. He'd promised.
But promises, he was learning, were easier to make than to keep β especially when what you'd promised to avoid was what you wanted most in the world.
Chapter Six
The Smirk
Founders Hall didn't so much welcome a person as evaluate him. That was the feeling Darius got as he drifted back toward the middle of the floor, the borrowed blazer pulling at his shoulders with every step. Crystal chandeliers hung overhead like frozen fireworks, and the marble floor threw their light back up in long, shivering ribbons. Waiters moved through the crowd with trays of things Darius couldn't name. Everything smelled like lemon polish and fresh roses and money.
And there, at the center of it all, beneath its own small sun of a spotlight, sat the Steinway.
Harper had been pulled away a minute earlier β "Mingling duty," she'd said, rolling her eyes at her mother's wave across the room β so Darius stood alone at what he judged a safe, respectful distance, hands tucked deep in his pockets. Up close, the piano was even more impossible than it had been from across the room. Its black finish held the whole hall in its curve: chandeliers, gowns, Darius's own small round staring face. The fallboard was closed. The gold lettering along the side caught the light like a signature.
His fingers itched. Not a little β the way they always did near a piano, like they were humming a note only he could hear. His mother's voice floated up from somewhere under his ribs: Stay out of trouble tonight, Darius. I mean it.
He was staying out of trouble. Looking wasn't trouble. Looking was free.
"Careful," said a voice behind him, smooth as the marble underfoot. "It bites."
Darius turned. Preston Hale stood there with that same smirk from across the room, close enough now that Darius could see the details: hair combed like a magazine picture, tie knotted perfect, cuff links catching the light. A half step behind him stood another boy, sandy-haired and already laughing a little, as if laughter were something you did before you knew the joke.
"Hey," Darius said.
"Hey." Preston's eyes traveled down and back up, unhurried, the way a person might inspect a car he had no intention of buying. "You're one of the staff families, right? I saw your mom setting up the first-aid table. The nurse."
Darius felt his shoulders tighten. "My mom's name is Tanya."
"Sure." Preston smiled. It was a bright, expensive smile, and it didn't reach his eyes at all. "It's really nice, you know. That they include everybody."
The sandy-haired boy snorted. Preston didn't look at him.
"I'm Spencer," the boy said, like an apology.
Darius nodded at him. "Darius."
"So, Darius." Preston rocked back on his heels. "What's your connection here, exactly? Scholarship? Legacy? Or β" he tilted his head toward the first-aid station, where Tanya was arranging bandages in neat rows, her badge catching the light β "family business?"
The word scholarship landed like a pebble in a pond. "I'm here with my mom," Darius said.
"Right. The help." Preston said it lightly, almost fondly, the way you'd say the dog. "Nothing wrong with that. Somebody's got to keep the Band-Aids coming."
Spencer laughed β too loud, too fast, like he'd been holding it in.
Something warm and prickly rose up Darius's neck, but he kept his voice level. Mr. Banks had a saying for moments like this, delivered in that gravel-road voice of his: You don't owe anybody your temper, son. That's yours. Keep it.
"My mom works in an emergency room," Darius said quietly. "She saves people's lives. And this blazer is my brother's. He lent it to me." He met Preston's eyes without flinching. "Anything else you want to know, you can ask me straight."
For a heartbeat, Preston's smile flickered β surprise, or something rawer underneath it. Then the polish slid back into place, only thinner now, sharper.
"Touchy." Preston's gaze dropped to Darius's hands, still in his pockets. "I was only making conversation. But since you ask β don't touch the piano." He said it the way you'd tell a toddler not to touch a hot stove: patient, superior. "They'd hate to have to wipe the fingerprints off before the real performance."
Spencer made a small sound that might have been a laugh or a cough.
Darius's fingers curled in his pockets. He thought of the upright at the community center with its chipped middle C and the way it sang anyway. He thought of his mother's hands, quick and gentle over a stranger's skinned knee. He thought of everything he could say, and he said none of it β because saying it here, to these two, would be like throwing a ball at a wall.
Then, bright as a struck chord: "Darius! There you are!"
Harper Quinn materialized at his elbow in a swirl of green dress and barely contained energy, and before Darius could blink, her arm was looped through his like they'd been friends for years.
"You've got to come settle an argument," she announced, loud enough for the whole hall. "I told Becca the dessert table had exactly eleven kinds of chocolate and she says twelve, and you look like a person who counts chocolate." She turned her grin on Preston. "Preston! Your dad is telling the lake-house story again β the one with the fish. You're missing your big moment."
Preston's smirk thinned. "I'm in the middle of something, Harper."
"You've been in the middle of something since third grade," Harper said sweetly, and tugged Darius's arm. "Come on, chocolate expert."