Oxygen (Romance, Completed)

Chapter 14

On Thursday evening, I went to practice prepared. As I already knew every note of the piece, I left the crutch of my sheet music in my bag and placed it near the door, next to Jude's backpack. Was he planning to run for it as well?

It appeared the answer was yes. After an hour of Jansen's mutterings, he stood up.

"Gotta go, man."

"You can't. It's the recital tomorrow, and you haven't played the last twelve bars properly once yet."

"I'll get up early and play it through in the morning. People are waiting for me in town." He turned and gave me a wink. "Karaoke night at Club Lagonda, if you fancy coming?"

I hurriedly shook my head, unable to think of anything worse than getting drunk and attempting to sing in front of hundreds of strangers. But I used the interruption to edge towards the door myself.

"I need to go too." Before Jansen could reply, I added, "I've played the last part perfectly, so no need to worry."

With two of us dissenting, Jansen didn't know which way to turn. I took advantage of his confusion to make a break for it, grabbing my bag as I got near the door and jogging along the hallway.

Footsteps sounded behind me, but I didn't stop to see whose they were. Fearing Jansen had decided to follow, I passed the elevator and ran into the stairwell. At the first floor, I hesitated. As I hadn't been sure I'd escape, my driver wasn't waiting, so I needed a place to hide until he arrived. The sound of the door above opening spurred my feet into action, and I ran down the next flight of stairs to the basement.

The place was bigger than I remembered, and without Linc to guide me, my chest tightened as my breathing threatened to get out of control.

"Just breathe," I whispered, placing my hand on my chest to calm myself. My footsteps clicked on the tile floor as I hurried along the corridor, trying to recall which of the closed doors led to Linc's palace, as he called it.

Finally, I recognised the torn poster of last year's graduation concert and pushed inside, seeing Linc's bag next to the chair. I sank onto the seat, letting out a breath I didn't realise I'd been holding.

"Didn't need my help tonight, then?"

I jumped so violently the chair shot out from under me, and the only thing that kept me from hitting the floor was Linc's arm under my back. I grabbed his other hand with both of mine to steady myself.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," he said, retrieving the seat and lowering me back into it. "I called out to you in the stairwell. Didn't you hear me?"

I shook my head. At that point, I'd only been thinking of getting away.

"Hardly surprising with the amount of noise you were making." He broke into a grin as he crouched beside me. "You wouldn't make a very good ninja."

The idea of me creeping around in black, Emmy-style, was enough to make me burst into laughter. In fact, it wasn't until I looked down that I realised my hands were still gripping his, and that his hand was resting on my thigh. Even a week ago, I'd have panicked, but today I willed myself to stay steady. Apart from a wobbly intake of breath, I managed it.

"I thought Jansen was behind me."

"Nope, just yours truly. I came to check on you, and you shot past like you had a rocket up your ass." Linc's cheeks reddened. "Sorry, uh, I meant you were running pretty fast. Il Duce was too busy arguing with the slacker to come after you, but I figured that dude could look after himself."

My shoulders slumped forward with relief. "Thank goodness."

"So why did you come down here? I thought you weren't keen on basements."