"Right." Charles tipped water out of his horn as the audience stopped applauding and started making for the refreshments at the back of the church. "I need a cuppa before the second half."

Pete unhooked his bassoon. "Too right."

Jack murmured agreement and rested his clarinet across his case.

"The Cambini went down well, for an unfamiliar bit of rep." Sasha left her flute on its stand and joined the boys.

"Coming, Caroline?"

I looked up from examining my reed. "In a sec, Charles. I might have a split. I don't want to break in a new one if I can help it, though." Testing the reed with my thumb, it felt OKish. I decided I'd take the risk. Putting the oboe down, I followed the others towards the hot drinks and cake.

I enjoy the provincial concert series circuit. It takes us to some unexpectedly pleasant places, and the audiences are always appreciative of the opportunity to hear live professional music. Lunchtime recitals are the best: they leave time to explore afterwards, if the fancy takes me. Or I can get home early, maybe even in time to make an evening gig if we're not too far out of London.

*

Someone'd taken our orders earlier, allowing us effectively to queue-jump the interval throng. Sasha and Charles, as the best-looking of us, were collared by some audience members. I was idly reading a monumental plaque to some long-dead local when a hand touched my arm.

"Black coffee, Caro?"

Caro? Only one person...

Jasmine looked better than ever, after five years. She seemed healthier, happier, less restless; but just as elegant. She smiled warmly. "I enjoyed the Cambini."

"Er, good." I took the mug and our fingers brushed lightly but deliberately. "It's a fun piece."

"That Larghetto." She gave a chef's kiss. "All those sensuous thirds and sixths, and sexy suspensions in the top lines..."

We'd been good, when we'd stuck to music, or sex. Living together'd been the mistake.

We eyed each other up carefully, then she held my gaze a beat too long. "Nice to see you. It's been a while."

"You too, Jas. You look great." It was, she did. The intervening years had helped me see what we'd had for what it'd been. I felt the old lust kick inside, though. "What're you doing here?"

"Teaching. Chorus work with Opera East. Recital circuit, like you." She gestured around the church. "Being Treasurer of this concert series."

Charles manages our bookings, and I remembered Jasmine and Charles knew each other from the Academy. So it was maybe understandable I hadn't known. "You live here?"

"Been here since..." She gestured between us, encapsulating everything that went wrong before. "Best move of my life." She blushed. "I mean...in some ways."

"I'm glad." I smiled sincerely, resigned to the discovery that I still fancied her like nuts. "I'm still in the studio flat. That pot plant you left is still alive, too."

She laughed and stroked my arm, moving closer. "Well done."

"I'm as surprised as anyone."

Around us, people started shuffling back to their seats. She dropped her voice. "Do you have to rush off afterwards?"

"Nope."

We held our gaze, ambushed by a mutual astonishment at the attraction pulsing between us. But relishing it, too.

Jas sighed. "Oh, Caro. I'm glad you haven't changed." She squeezed my hand lightly. "Come back to mine." She blushed again. "For lunch, I mean....we should catch up."

I squeezed back. We could treat the interval of five years like the sweet, soothing, sensuous harmony of unending parallel major sixths – and behave like the sensible thirty-year-olds we appear to be. But we both know we won't, not this once. We'll clash and yearn and push against each other like the unresolved suspended seconds Jas had so liked in the Cambini.

I reluctantly trailed my fingers out of hers to rejoin my colleagues. "Sounds good."