Chapter 9

Two of the four walls of the office were covered in blackboard, lines of staff permanently drawn on for convenience. Raymond drifted over to the one on his left, noticing for the first time that there was a clef, a key, and a sloppily written time signature on the staff at the top of the board. Notes and bars followed after, covering the length and height of it. The chalk was smudged and faint and he wondered how long it had been up there, who had left it. He took another deep breath and started to run through the music on the blackboard in his head, humming it carelessly in an effort to relax. His arms began to move as if of their own accord, his right hand setting a steady andante tempo and his left gently sculpting the air as he quickly built a dynamic concept in his mind. Two, three... Raymond turned, following the music as it curved around the room, continuing onto the blackboard on the adjacent wall.

"What the f-" A sharp voice came from his right, halting abruptly into a frustrated, strangled noise. Raymond jolted back to the present, his hands stilling in mid-air. He swiveled his head quickly in order to see who was speaking.

"What - what are you doing in here?" Taylor Leung stood glowering at the door, clutching its handle in a white-knuckled grip. Her eyes looked slightly manic and almost alarmed before they darkened, narrowing at Raymond, her brows slanting in disdain.

Raymond's head jerked back. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of Taylor, small and smoldering in the doorway. A wicked pulse of indignation ripped through Raymond's body, cracking like a whip as it ran up his spine and tingled out into his extremities. It mixed with a twinge of distantly familiar humiliation, hot and low in his belly, and Raymond felt his face flush as blood rushed past his ears.

"What am I-?" he finally managed in shocked disbelief, his own brows knitting. He shook his head in bemusement, and when he resumed speaking it was deliberate and slow, as firm as he could make it in his agitated state. "This is my office."

"Your offi-" Taylor cut herself off with an outraged huff, her jaw jutting out, two delicately formed fingers pressed to her left temple. She gave a quick shake of her head and grabbed the eraser from the ledge of the closest blackboard, barging right in and furiously erasing the music that Raymond had just been running through, muttering angrily under his breath as he did so.

Raymond let out an aborted bark of laughter, his heart pounding. He crossed his arms and regarded Taylor incredulously.

Taylor whirled around to look at him after she'd completed her task. The black of her eyes seemed to slash through the room as they darted about, moving over Raymond's face like electricity and making his cheeks heat up. Taylor kept standing there, her chest rising and falling visibly, clenching and re-clenching her left fist around something in her palm. She'd pushed back the sleeves of her jumper, and Raymond watched as the tendons in her forearm shifted under her skin. Raymond raised his eyebrows in a silent prompt for some kind of an explanation. It appeared that one would not be forthcoming.

Okay," Raymond said after several more beats, rubbing his forehead and giving another little laugh, not sure how to proceed. "Um." He shifted his weight and thumbed a stray lock of hair off his forehead. "Well, I'm Raymond Chan," he said slowly, leaning forward with an outstretched hand. "I'm, um. The - the new interim conductor…"

Taylor snorted and rolled her eyes. "I know who you are," she snapped, ignoring Raymond's hand. Raymond burst into outright laughter at that, finally pushed into genuine amusement by Taylor Leung's ridiculous behavior and not knowing what else to do. He didn't fail to notice the little stab of satisfaction he got from the pink it brought to Taylor's cheeks.

Raymond leaned back against his desk and crossed his legs at the ankles. "Oh. Okay," he said, hand scrubbing at the back of his neck, still laughing a little in disbelief as he waited for Taylor to make the next move.

Taylor was just a bit uneasy now, standing awkwardly before Raymond. She was still tense, her slight frame pulled taut like a bowstring, but the manic fury that seemed to have propelled her into the office had died out. She looked ever so slightly contrite (but also irritated at having to feel that way), and gave a rather exaggerated sigh before stepping forward and finally extending her hand for Raymond to shake.

"Taylor Leung," she said, grudgingly. "Concertmaster." Raymond felt a low-level buzz in his bones as their hands slid together. Taylor was making eye contact with him, but it felt detached and distant, like she was actually trying to stare through Raymond to the dusty green metal bookshelf on the opposite wall. A surge of annoyance replaced Raymond's amusement when he realized. He was strangely incensed by it, really, suddenly consumed by an itch to make Taylor look him right in the eye, to make Taylor fully acknowledge his presence. He tightened his grip on Taylor's hand just a shade as they shook, enough that he saw something flicker in Taylor's gaze.

"I know who you are, Ms. Leung." Raymond kept his tone purposefully arch, letting it rumble out slowly, his eyes trained directly on Taylor's face. "Believe me, I remember."

And then there they were, Taylor's vivid eyes, flashing up in surprise to burn right into Raymond's. Making Raymond's heart beat even faster as Taylor snatched back her hand.

"I'll see you at rehearsal, sir," she said tersely, moving toward the door. She paused when he saw the score that Raymond had plopped onto the desk earlier, her gaze moving quickly over the title. She looked back up at Raymond and raised her eyebrows, clearly unimpressed, rolling her eyes one last time as she turned on her heel and swept out of the room.

Raymond sat stunned and breathless on the edge of his desk in the empty office, unable to stop seeing the contempt in Taylor's last look. He let the shame it aroused in him squirm into his stomach and swirl together with resentment... and something that felt dangerously close to desire.

"No bite," Raymond repeated with a bitter chuckle. This was going to be interesting.