The time for Noah to go home and head back to school came all too soon.

Chiara knew she would miss the blond boy who was so unlike his brother, but who already felt like family to her, very much. They ordered his favorite Indian takeaway the night before he would be leaving and sat around, eating and laughing.

"It's hard to picture you as a regular student at school, when I've only ever known you here and in London," Chiara said, smiling at Noah. "You seem too old, too worldly, somehow, to be at school."

"Thank you," Noah responded, smiling back.

Chiara could see traces of Drew when he smiled. "I am nearly fifteen, you know."

"Right, practically an old man," she teased.

From the next room, Sienna began to cry.

LeeAnne shook her head in irritation, though she did put her utensils down and rise. She'd gotten better about tending to her child's needs when she realized that her attitude wasn't winning her any friends among those staying at Langton. Drew's opinion, in particular, seemed to matter to her a great deal.

"No, let me, I'm finished, anyway," Noah said. "Tonight will be my last time to spend time with her, I'd like to."

"Go ahead," LeeAnne said, gesturing toward the lounge. "I can tell from her crying that it's her diaper, though."

"That's okay," Noah assured her. "It's something I should get used to, anyway, right?" He glanced between Drew and Chiara. "It's one of the duties of being an uncle, right?"

Drew wadded up a napkin and threw it at his brother. "Bite your tongue, brother. You've got a long wait ahead of you if that's what you're waiting for." He leaned over and kissed Chiara's temple to take the sting out of his words.

Noah returned in a few minutes with a freshly changed baby and began preparing her bottle while he cooed to her.

"I'm going to miss you so much," Chiara declared, feeling tearful.

"That's such a nice thing to say," Noah replied from his place in front of the microwave. "Don't worry, I'll be back for my mid-term holidays."

"Who says you're invited?" Drew retorted. "All joking aside, we'll have to see how the writing's going," he added.

Noah nodded his understanding. Things were fine so far, but they could hit a snag at any time.

"Speaking of which, I want to play something for you later, yeah?" Drew addressed these words to Chiara.

"Just her?" Noah asked.

"Yes," Drew answered, nodding. "It's something I've been working on, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. It might be good on the album, or it might be something I want to keep private, I haven't decided yet." He rubbed Chiara's shoulder. "It's about her, so I'm going to ask her opinion, and if she's good with it, I'll play it for the boys tomorrow."

Luke, Gary and Ned were nodding. They'd done something similar themselves, so it made sense to them.

Mara sighed. "Ah, the early days, when everything was romantic."

Ned eyed her ring. "Yeah, Mara, you're really suffering."

"Shut up, you," Mara fired back with a grin.

"I wish someone would write a song about me," LeeAnne said wistfully.

Mara turned to her, eyes wide with disbelief. "Have you looked at your wrist today?" she asked.

On her wrist was the more expensive, rose gold version of the watch Drew had given Chiara for Christmas.

"It's a push gift," she said defensively.

"I thought your house was your push gift?" Mara countered.

"Not the house, that was part of the legal settlement," Gary interjected. "It was her car, the car was the push gift."

"There's nothing that says a mother can only have one push gift," LeeAnne continued, covering the watch with her right hand. "Sienna's a beautiful baby, she's worth two push gifts, isn't she?"

"Of course she is," Noah said in a placatory tone, looking down at the baby he held. He looked around the table. "Could we please not fight like Kilkenny Cats on my last night here?"

"Sorry, Noah," Mara said, putting a hand over his.

Luke shook his head at his fiancée. "You and your mouth."

"You love this mouth and you know it," she responded with spirit.

"Whoa, whoa, there are infants present," Ned said with a laugh.

Noah pretended to cover Sienna's ears.

"Chiara? Could we switch watches for a little while? Just for fun?"

Chiara couldn't figure out why she'd want to, but she also couldn't think of a reason why not, so she nodded, and took hers off, swapping for the more showy and expensive rose gold version that LeeAnne was wearing.

After they'd cleared away dinner, Drew led Chiara into the music room and sat down at the piano, inviting her to sit next to him.

He began without preamble, with no explanation of any kind.

Chiara had always loved Drew's singing voice. It was lower than his speaking voice, with a nice, slow vibrato. The other boys had nice voices, but he was the best singer for sure, and tonight, after a full day of working and singing with them, plus talking and laughing all evening long, it had a roughness, a raw quality, that only made it more authentic and sexy.

Flying through yellow
Swimming in lavender
Floating with pink

In a bleak place
A world of black and white
You opened my eyes

My colorful girl
Keeper of my heart
Keeper of my heart

Lying in orange
Smiling through peach
Running through silver

I was half alive
Tired of life
Ready to quit

I found you
I found you
My sparkling girl

Like a waterfall of colors
Keeper of my heart
Keeper of my heart

The last chords faded, and he lowered his hands to his lap. He looked down for a few moments, then looked over at Chiara, biting his lip with nervousness.

"It doesn't rhyme or anything," he told her. "I didn't want it to. I wanted it to be different, like you, but I wanted the melody to be in a major key, and pretty, like you. Do you know what that means?"

Chiara shook her head. "I don't know anything about music, I'm sorry," she said, her voice soft with apology.

Drew quickly put a hand on her harm.

"No, please don't apologize," he begged. "Major key just means it sounds happy, I suppose."

He quickly played a scale. "That was C major, see how it sounded happy?"

Chiara nodded.

He played another scale. "That was C minor, could you tell that it sounded sad, like?"

Chiara nodded again.

"It's a small difference, a minor difference, if you will," Drew said with a grin. "That's all I meant. I wanted the song to sound happy, the way you make me feel, you see?"

Chiara nodded and smiled, not wanting to cry. "It's a beautiful song, Drew. Perfect, actually. I've never had a song written about me. It's about when we met? The garden? The water bottle?"

Drew grinned delightedly.

"Yes! I knew you'd know!"

"But other people won't know, will they?" Chiara worried.

"I don't want them to," Drew explained. "They'll understand the emotion, the love, and that's all they need to know, don't you think? They don't need to have the whole scenario explained to them, that will just be for us." He looked at her carefully. "Assuming you don't mind if I give the song to the band? It will get changed a bit if I do. The boys and I will work on it, arrange it for four voices and a full band? Would you care? Because I don't have to."

Chiara shook her head. "I don't mind at all. I want the whole world to hear how gorgeous it is. And if it sounds different, it doesn't matter, I still have this version in my heart forever."

Drew leaned over and kissed her. "Not just in your heart, CC. I recorded this. You can put it on your phone and keep it, yeah?"

"How marvelous." Chiara leaned on Drew for a moment. "Andrew?"

"Mm?"

"What's it called?"

He smiled at her, a gentle smile.

"Among the Roses."

❤️🌹❤️🌹❤️🌹❤️🌹❤️🌹❤️

They went into the lounge to where everyone was just hanging out, and in spite of everything she did, Chiara couldn't stop her sniffing. Drew reached for her hand as they entered, kissing it as they sat down.

"It's a go, lads," he announced. "She says we can have it."

Ned grinned at her. "That good?"

"It's amazing," Chiara responded. "You're going to love it."

"You're so lucky," LeeAnne said. "For Drew Pennington to write a love song, just for you, and then to put it on Manderley Dreams' album for the whole fucking world to hear, wow."

"Well, it's not like the 'whole fucking world' is going to know he wrote it for me," Chiara countered.

"What do you mean?" LeeAnne asked.

"It's not like it's dedicated to me, or has my name in it or anything," Chiara explained patiently.

"Why not?" LeeAnne sat up and looked around. "Can't you put her name in the title or something?" she asked Drew. "Or I know what! Why don't you name the whole album after her! Or dedicate the album to her or something? That way maybe she could get some royalties? No?" She looked around the room for reaction to her words.

"That's not how it works," Luke told her.

He and Mara were on the floor playing with the baby, who was awake and waving her little arms around.

"Oh," LeeAnne said, sitting back and looking disappointed.

"I'm going to go up and pack, I think," Noah told everyone, rising from his place next to LeeAnne.

"Oh, I was going to ask if you wanted to watch a movie with us," LeeAnne told him, sounding disappointed as she touched his hand.

"No, I still have a lot to do," he told her as he left.

Everyone decided to go to bed within an hour after Noah went upstairs, to LeeAnne's regret. "No one wants to watch a movie with me?" she pouted.

"You can watch a movie in your room," Mara suggested not unkindly as they rose to go upstairs. "Everyone's room has a telly and Netflix, right?" she asked Drew, who nodded.

"But it's no fun alone," LeeAnne said as they climbed the stairs. "Gary?"

"Sorry, love, I'm knackered," he responded with a shake of his head. "I'll keep the baby, though, if you want to have your telly on. She just fell asleep, right? She'll probably sleep straight through."

"Oh, thank you," LeeAnne said, handing the sleeping bundle to her father. "Yeah, I think I'll stay up and watch something by myself." She turned to Chiara. "You're a night owl, aren't you? Knock on my door if you can't sleep, okay?"

Chiara smiled, though she had no intention of taking the girl up on her offer. "Thanks, I will," she answered diplomatically.

Chiara shut their bedroom door and lunged at Drew, throwing her arms around him. "I'm always so relieved to see the last of her," she confessed. "Should I feel guilty about that?"

Drew shook his head as he put his arms around his girlfriend. "I feel exactly the same way," he told her.

Chiara realized when she went in the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth that she still had LeeAnne's watch, so she quickly ran across the hall in her PJs to swap back. When she knocked on the door, however, there was no answer. She knocked a bit louder, but again, no one answered. She listened, but couldn't hear the telly.

Perhaps she'd changed her mind and gone to sleep?

Chiara went back across the hall and carefully took the watch off and put it in the drawer next to the bed. She definitely didn't want anything to happen to it.