Chapter 2
He turned Silas’s chin with two fingers, tilting his face upward. Silas allowed himself to be moved without resistance. His mouth was slightly parted, soft and pink, the lower lip bearing a tiny faint scar where he had bitten through it when their sedan hit the concrete abutment three Novembers ago.
Noel kissed him.
It was a slow, reverent kiss, heavy with an almost suffocating tenderness. He tasted the faint sweetness of the honey-mint tea they had shared at noon. Silas didn't actively pull Noel closer—his hands remained resting limply on the edge of the Steinway keyboard—but he leaned into the pressure, his lashes fluttering against his cheeks, a soft sigh vibrating in his chest.
Every time they kissed, Noel felt as though he were stealing something that had been delivered to him by an act of terrible grace.
If Silas were whole, Noel would still be an anonymous accompanist living in a drafty flat in South London, subsisting on tuition fees from tone-deaf schoolchildren, reading reviews of Silas Vance’s Carnegie Hall debuts in week-old broadsheets. If Silas were whole, he would never have allowed Noel within three feet of his personal life, let alone into his bed, where Silas slept curled against Noel’s side every night, shivering until Noel pulled the duvet over his shoulders and anchored him against the dark.
*I saved him,* Noel told himself every morning as he brewed the tea. *The crash broke him, but I rebuilt him. I gave him this sanctuary.*
He broke the kiss gently, his lips lingering on Silas’s bottom lip for a second before pulling away. Silas’s eyes fluttered open. For a fraction of a second, Noel had the strange, disorienting sensation that Silas was looking directly *through* him, taking stock of the shape of his skull, the angle of his collarbones, the pulse beating in his throat.
Then the boy blinked, and the uncanny sharpness vanished, replaced by the familiar, glazed docility.
"Tea," Silas murmured.
Noel smiled, his chest loosening. "Yes. It's nearly four. Let’s close the lid for today. You’ve done enough."
He reached out to fold down the fallboard, but before the heavy mahogany slab could descend, Silas’s left hand shot out.
The movement was shockingly fast—not the sluggish, ataxia-marred gesture of an invalid, but the swift, predatory snap of a concert pianist catching a missed register. His thumb caught the underside of the lid, arresting its fall with a sharp crack that echoed inside the piano case.
Noel froze, his hand still hovering over the brass hinge. "Silas?"
Silas did not look at him. His jaw was set, the cords of his neck pulled taut against the collar of his sweater. With his right hand free, he dropped his knuckles onto the middle octave.
Not a chord. Not a melody.
*Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.*
It was the same three notes: Middle C, the adjacent D, and the C again. The rhythm had a bizarre, deliberate symmetry to it.
*Short. Short-short. Short.*
"Silas, stop," Noel said, his voice dropping into the firm, low register he used when Silas had his post-traumatic sensory overloads. "You’re straining the carpal tunnel. You know what the specialist in Bristol said about repetitive strain on the pinned bone."
Silas didn't stop. His fingers moved with sudden, machine-like precision.
*Clack. Clack-clack. Clack.*
*Clack-clack-clack. Clack.*
The sound was infuriating. It scraped against Noel’s nerves like chalk on a blackboard. For three weeks now, Silas had been doing this. Every afternoon rehearsal ended not with Silas slumping in exhaustion as he used to, but with these bizarre, percussive interruptions. Noel had written it down in his daily rehabilitation logbook under *Spastic tremors / Involuntary perseveration*. He had even increased Silas’s magnesium dose, thinking it was an electrolyte imbalance causing the motor cortex to misfire rhythmic discharges.
"Silas," Noel commanded, stepping between Silas and the keyboard, physically blocking the keys with his hips. He took Silas’s right hand in both of his, squeezing firmly until the boy’s fingers ceased their frantic striking. "Look at me."
Silas looked up.
His face was smooth, almost serene. There was no sweat on his brow, no frantic panting. His pulse, where Noel pressed his thumb against the radial artery, was slow and perfectly even. Sixty-two beats per minute. The pulse of an athlete at rest.
"It’s over for today," Noel said, softening his tone, terrified of seeing fear in those dark eyes. He brought Silas’s fingers to his lips, kissing each knuckle one by one. The skin was cold. "You’re safe. We’re done. Come on. I made shortbread this morning."
Silas stared at Noel’s mouth as it moved. Then, slowly, the tension in his fingers drained away, leaving them limp and heavy in Noel’s palms.
"Shortbread," Silas echoed softly, his voice melodic, entirely stripped of the percussive aggression he had displayed two seconds prior.
"Yes. With lemon zest, just the way you like." Noel stepped back, offering his hand.
Silas stood. He was tall—taller than Noel by an inch—though he carried himself with a perpetual, defensive stoop that hid his height. He took Noel’s hand without hesitation, their fingers interlacing naturally. Silas’s grip was warm now, tightening just enough to let Noel know he was tethered.
They walked together out of the music room, their socks soft against the long Persian runner in the corridor.
Foxglove Manor had belonged to Noel’s maternal grandfather, an eccentric naval surgeon who had died leaving behind dry rot, a library of damp leather-bound folios, and four acres of salt marsh. Noel had poured every penny of Silas’s insurance payout—along with the proceeds from liquidating Silas’s London penthouse—into restoring the ground floor.
He had insulated the walls with thick sheep’s wool to keep the winter wind out. He had installed triple-glazed bay windows facing the garden. He had filled the pantry with imported preserves, rich tins of Italian olive oil, and the loose-leaf Darjeeling Silas had favored before the accident.
It was a fortress. It was heaven.
In the kitchen, the Aga cooker hummed with low, steady warmth, filling the room with the dry heat of burning anthracite. Noel guided Silas to the high-backed wooden chair by the table—the chair that let Silas look out over the dead rose beds toward the grey blur of the Atlantic—and pulled out a knitted wool blanket, tucking it around Silas’s knees.
"Stay," Noel said affectionately, bopping Silas gently on the tip of his nose with a forefinger. "Don't move. I’ll pour."
Silas sat obediently, his hands folded in his lap beneath the blanket.
Noel turned to the counter, taking down the brown earthenware teapot. As he measured the tea leaves with a silver spoon, his eyes wandered to the rehabilitation journal lying beside the biscuit tin.
It was an ordinary black moleskin notebook. Over the past twenty-four months, Noel had filled nearly two hundred pages with meticulous, microscopic script:
*Oct 12: Range of motion in right wrist +5 degrees. Silas smiled when hearing Ravel’s Pavane.* *Nov 04: Successfully held a fountain pen for 4 minutes. No tremor.* *Jan 19: Silas spoke my name without prompting during breakfast.* *Feb 02: Onset of arrhythmic staccato taps during C-scale drills. Spasms localized to digits 1, 2, and 3.*
Noel picked up his pencil and opened to today's date.
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