Blue Notes by Carrie Lofty Page B

signals for another drink to match the other, and the guy hops over to her like he’s been summoned by a queen. I don’t know how to deal with her. I hate being so unsettled, even though it was freeing to break that plaster mold.
    Down from the sky , he’d said.
    Because for a few unforgettable moments, I’d been flying.
    “You were incredible,” I say, sorta lamely.
    Adelaide shakes her head. “Jude says that a lot. It’s hard to believe sometimes, though. You know?”
    She waves across the rectangular bar at the center of Yamatam’s and catches the eye of my now familiar stranger. He joins us in a minute. Already, mere hours into the most bizarre night of my college life—because, really, I’d made it through way worse—I recognize Jude’s shining hair and easy, lanky yet intent way of moving. A lithe wildcat. In gentleman’s clothing. Seeing him isn’t necessary, not really, when I feel him moving closer, then closer still. He’s a force at my back, like the clouds parting and the sun rising, hot and unrelenting.
    I shiver and work to find some calm. It’s down in the soles of my shoes. I have to dredge it up and hold on tight.
    He hugs Adelaide with an arm around her lower back, then kisses her temple. “Enthralling as always, Addie.”
    I knew it. It stabs needles under my skin, but I knew it.
    Adelaide smiles, but she looks at me with an expression that says, Toldja .
    Self-preservation isn’t about putting up shields to protect one’s possessions. It’s about having few possessions in the first place. Let the marauders take what they want; they won’t find much. Emotions are like that too. So I work on that dissociative thing the court shrinks talked about when I was a teen. Forget about pigeonholing Jude as a player. I lock him in a box and bury it deep.
    “So here I find one little cozy duo,” he says, eyeing me while leaning his shoulder against hers. “You can teach Addie some discipline, and she can teach you how to get onstage without needing a crowbar.”
    “Is that it?” Adelaide asks. “You get stage fright? No way.”
    I shrug.
    “Oh, good! I mean, not good, but good that I can do something for you in return. I’ve never had a problem with the performance part.”
    Jude rolls his eyes toward the bright lights that line the top rails of the bar. “That’s putting it lightly.”
    “You know.” She pushes away from Jude and starts talking a mile a minute. Her hands move as if she’s still playing piano. “Franz Liszt used to perform so wildly and with such gusto that he was banned in some cities. He was considered obscene. Women threw underwear at him. Probably big Victorian bloomers. He’d work himself so hard that he only stopped when dehydration got the better of him. That’s what we call making an impact.” She smiles. “After seeing you tonight, how many people are really going to remember me?”
    “Enough so that you leave your lessons aside,” Jude says. “The lights are your flame, and you are a moth.”
    “Butterfly, thank you kindly.”
    “I stand corrected.”
    I smile at their lighthearted words and playful smirks. It’s like they learned a language of snarky expressions from each other. I laugh, but I want in that circle of two—especially if I can’t have him. Can I at least be near them both? Two people so radiant?
    Jude kisses her on the temple again. “You girls play nice. I’ll see you back at the house.”
    He turns away, only to stop and glance over his shoulder. “You were good, sugar. Real good.”

 Eight 
    B y the time I get back to my dorm, I feel like a cat that’s been run over in the rain. My tank top and shirt and hair are a wreck, all damp with sweat and soaked through from the humidity. I smell like the bar. I’ve lost the echo of Jude’s scent. That’s the worst of it, because I know it’s all I can have of him.
    After hours of flirting and taunting me with that arch smile, he winds up attached lip to temple to the girl