They got off the bus and turned toward home.

Neither of them had said a word since Graham had shut down on the bus. Cressida was beginning to understand his moods a little bit; his silence didn't necessarily mean he was upset, it just meant he literally had nothing to say at that moment.

She snuck a look at him when he wouldn't notice. Today he was wearing a yellow polo shirt that really set off his tan. She could see a few hairs on his chest where the buttons were undone, but not too many.

Cressida was not a huge fan of men who were too hirsute.

With the shirt he was wearing khakis and loafers, instead of the usual jeans and sneakers, perhaps a nod to the fact that he went to visit his esteemed professor today.

They climbed the steps of their building, and Cressida was getting ready to just wave goodbye when suddenly Graham turned to her and asked, "You want to come in and listen to me practice?"

She briefly considered saying, no, that she was busy, but Cressida wasn't put together that way.

"Sure," she responded, nodding.

He opened his door and stood back so she could enter first.

Cressida looked around with interest. She'd lived here nearly two months and she'd never been in his apartment.

It was a little larger than hers, being on the ground floor, but it was a studio as well, with a bed tucked tidily in the corner and a dresser next to it. There were stacks of sheet music everywhere, and a scarred old upright piano took up prime wall space. A small table with two chairs sat under the window, and the walls were covered with posters and colorful prints.

"Very nice," she said as he gestured to a ratty sofa.

"You want something to drink? Water, soda?"

She accepted a bottle of water, murmuring her thanks when he handed it to her.

"Feel free to work on your laptop or whatever," he said. "I'm not much to look at when I'm practicing, all you really see is my back."

While silently disagreeing with his assessment, Cressida merely nodded and obediently opened her laptop as he sat at the bench, opening the sheet music that he pulled from the folder he had with him.

He began with his scales and exercises, as usual, and Cressida stared, transfixed, at his back. The play of muscles under his shirt as he moved his arms was mesmerizing. At the top end of every scale, she could see his fingers flying on the keyboard like magic. He set the metronome function on his phone and began exercising with it, tying his playing to the rhythm, and every time Cressida didn't think he could go any faster, he did.

Amazing.

Then he moved on to the piece itself, and Cressida couldn't look away. He turned on his laptop to the symphonic accompaniment. Sometimes she could see his face in oblique profile, and the intensity of his expression was indescribable. After a few minutes Cressida put her laptop aside and rose, going to sit in the chair, rather than the sofa, so she could see his hands better.

This piece, this Rachmaninov, was urgent and passionate, with the tricky minor key melodies and heavy treble clef of many Russian composers, by turns pounding and delicate, and, watching Graham play it, Cressida was carried along for every wave and swell.

Graham moved his head in time with the music, eyes flicking down to his fingers from time to time as they moved over the keyboard.

So sexy.

He played it straight through, ending in a blistering whirl of keystrokes, heaving for breath when he finished.

Cressida, too, was out of breath, moved beyond words by what she'd seen.

Suddenly he turned, looking for her on the sofa, and he looked surprised to see her in the large chair.

"Oh." He ran his hands through his hair. "I was going to tell you to just go. It must be boring as watching grass grow, and you can hear just as well from your apartment, you know? I don't know what I was thinking to invite you to listen to me practice, honestly."

Cressida merely shook her head, gesturing for him to continue.

"Really?"

She nodded.

"Okay, then."

He smiled at her, a beautiful smile that lit up his whole face, and Cressida realized that, while he grinned or smirked frequently, he didn't smile like that very often. And the way his hair curled over his collar was melting her bones.

He turned back to his music once more, and began working, sometimes spending up to half an hour on just a few bars of music, making notations on the music.

Eventually Cressida did open up her laptop, but only because she actually had something she had to finish for school. She looked up every so often, just to fill her eyes with the sight of him, thighs and calves flexing as he worked the pedals, this beautiful human who was producing such beautiful sounds. Far from being boring, Cressida found the sounds of Graham practicing soothing, a nice background to her own work.

He looked over once to find her looking at him.

"You're really enjoying this? Even though you're not musical or anything?"

She nodded. "I think it's amazing, I think you're amazing," she said before she could help herself.

He, too, was finding Cressida's presence a nice distraction. Sitting in the chair in her little T-shirt and capris, he found her absolutely captivating. Her hair would start to slip out of her messy bun, and eventually she'd pull the band out and re-tie it, giving Graham a glimpse of what she looked like with her hair down.

Enchanting.

Dammit.

He longed to run his fingers through it, bury his nose in it and take in the fragrance. He wondered what she looked like when she cried, when tears slipped out of those gorgeous eyes and ran down her silken cheek. He wanted to be able to comfort her, to hold her and soothe her when the world became too much for her...

WTF was he thinking?

He turned back to his music, to the keyboard which had brought him so far, though he had farther to go than he'd come.

Eventually he began warming down, seeing that he'd been at it for over four hours. He looked over at Cressida, and saw to his delight that she'd fallen asleep. He wished he could carry her to his bed and lay her down in it, then maybe take her in his arms as she slept.

Okay, enough already.

He went over and shook her gently, making sure her laptop didn't slip to the floor.

"Hey, you," he called, his voice soft. "Cress!"

She opened her eyes and looked at him, her eyes blurry and confused. "Oh, are you finished already?" She sounded disappointed. "I have to go?"

"Well, it's dinner time, and I don' have anything to feed you, so yeah, you have to go."

"Okay." Again, she sounded like a child being told they had to leave Disneyland.

"Unless you want to go out and grab a bite with me?"

"Ooh, yes, please." She brightened immediately, and went to splash water on her face first.

They went out into the relative cool of the evening, into the throngs of people out on the Lower East Side in the last weeks of September.

They went to a nearby diner where the servers all knew Graham.

"You want the usual, hon?"

"Yes, please, and she'll have a menu." Graham grinned at the stout woman who brought them their water.

Cressida perused the menu, but everything looked good to her, and she realized she'd skipped lunch.

"What do you usually get?" she finally asked Graham in desperation.

"Moussaka and fries," he answered.

"Sounds yummy, I'll have that, too," she declared, closing the menu, "only no fries."

They put in Cressida's order, then sat back, surveying each other.

"Are we maybe getting to be friends?" Cressida finally asked.

"I think maybe so," Graham answered.

"Great."

Their food came and silence once again descended on the table as they concentrated on eating.

"So how often do you see your professor?" Cressida asked after most of her moussaka was gone.

"Twice a week, two hours at a time," he answered, dipping a fry in ketchup. "It'll probably ramp up in November, though, when the competition's closer."

"When is it?" Cressida asked.

"December twenty-first," he responded with a grimace. "Merry Christmas to me."

"Are you nervous?"

"Only when I'm awake," he said wryly.

"I'd be throwing up all the time," Cressida assured him. I don't think I could get up in front of a bunch of people and just stand there, let alone do what you're going to do. I mean," she backtracked, "not that you should be nervous. You play fantastically, honest." She nodded for emphasis.

"Well, thanks for the sentiment, but so do the other four finalists," Graham said glumly. "I'm the youngest one, and the one with the least amount of formal training."

"But if you don't win, you can't go to England?"

He nodded. "Basically, the musical education portion of my life will be over, and the musical career portion will have to begin. But at the level I am now, there will be no touring, no recording, no real performing. I'll have to teach, or play in a band, or something like that."

"But you're good at teaching," Cressida told him, nodding again. "I've heard you with your students, and they're good, you're good with them."

He just looked at her.

"But it's not what you want to do, I get it," she concluded. "I want to be a writer, not a writing teacher."

"Exactly. Exactly." He looked at her grimly. "I have to win, I just have to. I get the year in England, and Ash, my brother, gets the money to go to college."

"What about your parents? Aren't they in a position to help at all?"

"No, they're not," he answered shortly. "It's just me and Ash."

"I see."

"You ready to go?"

She nodded, and they walked out into a night that had grown even cooler, with a slight breeze coming in off the river.

"You cold?" he asked, brushing her hair away from her face.

"A little, but we live close, I'll be fine."

"No, here, take my jacket."

So she put it on, and they both laughed at how it hung on her. Her hands disappeared into the sleeves, and the bottom came to the tops of her thighs.

"Now you're cold, though," Cressida said, snuggling into his jacket.

"Not at all, I'm a huge, strapping man, I'm fine," Graham said, hitting his chest as he laughed. "No, seriously, I'm okay. You're no bigger than a minute, you need it."

"Okay, thanks."

They walked on through the night, and Cressida enjoyed the people around them, walking their dogs, taking their kids home, the humanity that made up any metropolitan city. She wished they could just walk around all night while she wore his jacket, but they arrived back home all too soon.

"Well, I guess this is goodnight, then," Cressida said forlornly.

"I guess so, especially since you have a class at the ass crack of dawn tomorrow morning."

She stared at him. "How on earth do you know that?"

He shrugged. "I'm sorry, I live right next to the door, and my window to the street is always open. If it's any consolation, I know when Mikey goes anywhere, too." He didn't tell her that he went out of his way to listen for her, and that sometimes he watched her walk away. "Please, we've had such a nice evening, such a nice day, don't get mad at me. Please?"

"I'm not mad."

"Good." He tucked her hair behind her ear. His eyes flicked down to her mouth for the briefest of seconds, and the urge to kiss her was overpowering. Her lips looked so soft, all of her looked so soft, so inviting, in the soft light of the hallway with the stairs just behind her.

Very deliberately, he leaned forward, placing his hand inside the jacket she still wore, on the warm flesh of her waist where her Pikachu shirt had ridden up.

She reached for him, lifting her hand to his neck and going up on tiptoe to shorten the space. She yielded to him, letting him pull her close as his other hand found her hair.

He made a small sound of happiness as their lips met, as she opened her mouth and invited him in.

Her other hand went around his neck as he lowered the hand in her hair to her back, pulling her even closer. He could feel her small breasts pressing into his front, and the feeling was heavenly. She could feel him bending forward to accommodate her height, and smiled into his mouth as she reached behind her with her foot to find the first step of the stairs. She stepped up on it without breaking the kiss, so that they were now nearly the same height.

"Much better," she murmured with a satisfied nod.

"Cress. Cress."

"Mm?"

"We have to stop."
"We do?"

"Mm hm."

"Why?"

"Because we do. I told you, I don't do this, I can't."

She leaned her forehead against his, eyes closed. "You're doing great at it, honest."

Graham smiled, running his finger down the line of her jaw, as he released her.

Cressida reluctantly stepped away, already missing his large, warm hands on her body.

"Okay." She removed his jacket and handed it back. "Good night, Graham."

"Good night, Cress." He watched her turn and go lightly up the stairs, listening until he heard her door close.

He took the jacket to bed with him, holding it in his arms and inhaling the scent of Cressida all night long.