It’s beautiful.

I just stand here listening for a really long time, the music wrapping around me like a warm blanket, sending shivers down my spine.

He’s so good it scares me a little. I mean, why are there some guys sitting in pits on Broadway, or onstage at Lincoln Center with the Philharmonic, and this guy, who’s so damn good that just listening to him makes me want to cry, is sitting here with a beat-up sax on the cold cement floor of the subway?

What if I’m not good enough? What if I’ll never be good enough?

I root through my bag for a five and toss it in the open case with the filthy, torn red velvet lining, then slide down the yellow tiled wall to sit next to him. He doesn’t look up. He just keeps playing. I wrap my jacket tightly around myself and close my eyes. Like my butterflies, the music is free. I picture all the notes fluttering in the air like wings, then floating away on the breeze.

But that only makes me sadder.

Finally, after five or six songs, I drag myself off the ground, sift through the bottom of my bag, and come out with my last three crumpled dollars. I toss them in the case, then head up the stairs into the cold drizzle.

I stop at the bar for my paycheck on the way home. When I open the door, a wave of warm, humid air, full of the smell of stale beer and moldy things, hits me in the face. I applied for this job two and a half years ago, while I was basking in my fifteen minutes of American Idol fame. That and my rockin’ bod are the only reasons I got the job. I’d never bartended in my life, but Jerry looked me over and decided I had “potential.” He handed me a fistful of tiny white T-shirts with the bar logo—a curly Filthy McDermott’s across the chest—and asked if I had any ass shorts. Said if he gives the guys something to look at they stay longer and drink more. He also told me not to wear a bra, at which point I told him to go fuck himself. As much grabbing as goes on in this place, you better believe I’m keeping the girls strapped in.

Jerry keeps the place dimly lit, just in case the occasional cockroach makes its appearance. Between that, the dark wood paneling, the mahogany behemoth of a bar in the back of the room, and the perpetual scent of sweat and rotting things, the place has a distinct caveman appeal.

There are a few regulars swaying on their barstools at the end of the bar, and a group of loud college kids playing quarters in a booth near the back. Not bad for a Thursday night. The stereo is on Jerry’s favorite eighties rock station, but the TV over the bar is also blaring some ESPN sports recap show, so between that and the yelling kids, it all just blends into a lot of white noise.

“Hilary! Baby!” Jerry bellows when the bells over the door jingle. It makes me feel like that Norm guy on that old Cheers show. “How’s it hanging?” Despite the fact that he clearly knows I’m a girl, he always asks that.

“Low, Jerry. It’s hanging really fucking low.” As I move deeper into the room I catch the distinct smell of burnt cheese and know Jerry must have forgotten a batch of nachos under the broiler again.

“Sorry to hear that, sweet pea. You here to drink your sorrows away?” He’s always trying to get me to put my paycheck back into the till.

I lean up against the bar. “Nah. It’s the fifteenth. Just stopped in for my check.”

Half his face pinches, like he’s only half sorry for what he’s about to say. “I ain’t quite got it ready for you. Hang around and have a drink and I’ll get it.”

“On the house?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

He blows a laugh out his mouth, spraying down the bar with enough spit that he has to wipe it with the dirty rag in his hand. And that’s all the answer I get.

Jerry has never touched me, but given the opportunity, I have no doubt he would. Overall, he’s a pretty decent guy, but I think he must be kind of fuzzy on sexual harassment law. Pretty much any night he’s here after shift, he throws out the loose suggestion that we could “catch a drink” or “try out some new rum recipes.” I think he’s still harboring the illusion that getting me drunk is the key to getting into my pants–a strategy that generally works fairly well for him when he’s not using it on me.

He’s got to be forty-something, but even so, he’s not hard on the eyes—a dark buzz cut, strong, square face, and incredible blue eyes. He’s ex-military and still takes decent care of himself. Despite the staggering volume of beer he consumes (all on the house, of course), he doesn’t have a beer gut yet. He catches his share of the clientele and he’s got a few regulars who come here to flirt with him. What he doesn’t seem to have figured out yet is, I’m not going to be one of them.

I walk around the bar and pour myself a glass of water, then plunk down on a bar stool. “I’ll wait.”

He gives me a cocky, sideways grin and disappears into the office in back. “Hold down the fort.”

“Hilary!” one of the guys down the bar shouts with a wide grin, like we’re old friends. He’s probably sixty, with graying hair and a bad comb-over. Every Tuesday and Friday night since I’ve worked here he’s come in—something about his wife having book club or Bunco or something on those nights—but I can never remember if his name is Bob or Bill. “Can I get another?” he asks, lifting his empty mug.

I’m off the clock, so I have no intention of holding down anything. I jerk my head at the tap. “Help yourself.”

He grins wider and slides his fat ass off the stool. “This going on my tab?” he mutters as he waddles past me.

“Not if you haul your sorry ass,” I say with a deliberate glance at the office door.

He hurries around the bar and pours his beer, then pats my butt and winks on the way back to his seat. “I knew I liked you.”

He grins at me again a few minutes later when Jerry comes back, waving a check in my face. “I counted your last shift as full even though you clocked out fifteen minutes early.”

I snag the check out of his hand and stuff it in my bag. “Thanks, Jerry. I owe you.”

He wiggles his eyebrows and grins. “And don’t forget it.”

I roll my eyes and slip off the bar stool. “See you tomorrow.”

“You’re closing, don’t forget.”

“I’m closing,” I reassure him. “See you at five.”

I stop at the ATM and deposit my check, then head home. The drizzle has picked up and by the time I get there, I’m pretty soaked, but I don’t really mind. I like walking in the rain. It’s one of the few things that I find really calming. Puddles are starting to form on the sidewalk and I walk right through them, splashing up as much water as I can without full-out stomping like a four-year-old. I’m actually smiling when I get to the door of our apartment and look up.

And then I’m not smiling anymore.

There’s a guy standing in my doorway. A tall guy in black cargo pants, army boots, and a dark blue hoodie. A gorgeous guy. And he’s staring at me with wide eyes.

“Hilary?” he asks, and he’s got a light accent that I can’t identify with just that one word. Something European, maybe?

“It depends,” I say backing off a step. He looks familiar, but he also looks a little dangerous. He’s tense, his hands twitching at his sides, and there’s something dark in his intense gaze.

I feel like I should know him, but I can’t place him. He’s got shortish wavy black hair that’s combed back from his forehead, and dark eyes set in one of the most beautiful man-faces I’ve ever seen. His skin is olive, no darker than mine, but a totally different shade. He’s got to be an actor or something. Maybe I know him from an audition? “Who’s asking?”

“It’s me, Hilary. Alessandro.”

His face blurs and the streetlights above my head spin. I feel myself wobble on my feet before I brace my hand on the building and get my bearings again. “Alessandro?” I’ve only known one person with that name.