“I am so streaming this,” Jules muttered, adjusting her framing while little smiley faces and hearts started to flutter up her screen.

I hesitated a moment—then set my own phone to silent, video-dialed Dad’s cell, and positioned it against my knee, praying he would answer. Whether Dad deserved it or not, Oscar would want his mentor to be here.

“Ah, one more thing.” Oscar spun back around. “As you well know, proceeds from tonight’s benefit concert will go toward Amberley’s diversity initiative.”

The audience’s applause started nervously, unsure, given my little speech, then grew, several people shouting their approval. Oscar nodded along, then added, loud enough for his voice to be heard over the cheers,

“Yes. It is so important. Make sure it happens. You’re Amberley’s donors—if your dollars matter, so do your voices. Hold them to their promises.”

Oscar’s hands were pressed together, bowing to the room, all graciousness, so his words came across as thankful rather than critical. But in the context of what I’d stood up and said, his real meaning couldn’t have been missed.

“Hear, hear!” shouted some old man in the back of the room.

Oscar grinned. And turned to face the orchestra, letting out a long, slow breath.

“Okay, then,” he said, lower.

He picked up his baton, with a mischievous wiggle of his fingers. The orchestra leaned forward, lifting their instruments.

“Let’s go.”

A swoosh. They were off, the room exploding into sound.

I had to brace myself to keep from swaying loose and flying away as I watched Oscar ignite, electric bolts shooting from his fingers, his eyes, his smile, his every movement music itself.

And the music was immense. That flirty first movement, the Latin-tinged second, worlds warring, flirting, sinking into one another. I knew it by heart, I’d heard it fleshed out in rehearsals, but never as confident as this, swirling like a hurricane. It felt concrete now, a daydream turned solid matter, a life in a song.

The third movement was familiar until the last few bars. And the last—allegro con brio—was a revelation.

Not Mozart. Not Ravel. Not Tchaikovsky or Handel or anybody else Oscar’s mimetic tricks had touched. It wasn’t even Chertok.

This was one hundred percent Bell.

I could recognize Oscar in every lilt, every strain, every unresolved chord . . . his humor, his heart, his pain, the way he split himself, the way he tried and blustered and suffered and hid it behind a smile—his courage. I heard all of him because I knew him but there was even more there than I’d ever imagined.