It opened with woodwinds percolating—a sylvan glade, alive with birdsong. Strings slid along in the background, a breeze. I smiled in recognition as the bass line crept in, rumbling slowly higher as dawn started to break.

And then more than dawn. Heat, longing. The sense of a body . . . waking up. A tiny tremor rippled through me at the rising sound.

The gentle melody swelled and strained. Beside me, I could hear Oscar let out a slow sigh, his hands falling to rest beside mine on the cool floor. Not touching. An inch away.

Voices joined in, a wordless chorus, and the strings became sweet, pleading, everything swirling into absolute ecstasy. You didn’t need to have seen the ballet to recognize the moment of connection—Daphnis and Chloé discovering each other.

I closed my eyes. Oscar’s fingers slipped gently onto mine. The music dwindled into a burbling hush, the oboe’s refrain pierced by violin. And then it ended, that final note lingering, unresolved . . .

My head lolled on the wall, facing Oscar. He was looking at me. We both laughed, a little breathless.

“There’s something in this. Something I’m trying to get at. The way it gets into your bloodstream.”

“The park? Is that what you’re trying to put into sound? I . . .”

“Not the park.” He watched me, fingers still tangled in mine. “Something else.”

“Play it for me.” And I meant it. I couldn’t believe it, but I did. I had to hear his piece.

He swallowed, eyes flicking away, returning. “I hate this keyboard. I need a piano . . . I can play it for you in the—”

I grabbed his hand tighter. “Now.”

He frowned. “Your dad . . .”

My mouth grazed his ear. “We can be quiet.”

He wasn’t breathing now and neither was I. Then, abruptly, he stood, pulling me up with him. We raced for the door, up into the cool rain, up to my stoop, where I fumbled for keys in my cardigan pocket.

He pulled me to the piano bench and physically sat me beside him, like he needed me that close. Then he raised the cover, pressed his fingers to the keyboard, and began to play.

It wasn’t quiet. But once it started, I didn’t want it to be. It was too gorgeous. The melody came in—I knew it by heart by now—solid as flesh, and then the countermelody, a firefly sweeping over it, inside it, below it . . . and then he stopped.

“That’s all I’ve got so far.”

Our knees were touching.

“What do you think?” he whispered, his expression almost pained.

I let one of my hands rise to his shoulder while the other found his fingers on the keyboard. “You know what I think.”

My eyelids shut, all systems down. I felt his slow drift, the heat of him—

The light came on.

Dad. Garden of Eden angry. He was going to smite us where we sat.