The Roses of Elysium
By Misha and Boneandfur
Disclaimer- Not ours.
Misha’s Author’s Notes- This is one of those stories that has a fun backstory. I was tossing ideas off my friend Phoebe (boneandfur) and one of them was a line from a modern AU about how he’d want her in any lifetime and then that got us talking about the idea of them finding each other over and over and Phoebe made some amazing suggestions, including a 1920s AU. I knew I couldn’t do it justice all on my own, so I asked if she wanted to co-write it with me and this is the result (at least the first part). If you play Lovestruck, this is a crossover with Speakeasy Tonight, Vince’s Route. Regular readers of my fics might recognize the first few lines of this story and which fanfic universe of mine we are borrowing from.
Rating- PG-13
Chapter One
1926 ~ Chicago, IL
“The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.” ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay.
He had lived many years without her, her memory fading at times, enough that he could live with and love other women, and yet… Now, at the end of it all, she was all he could think of. Not his newly dead lover, the mother of his youngest children, not any of the other women he had loved in the intervening years, but her. The Princess of Gaul.
“I’m waiting for you…”
…
“My love,” he whispered, the noise and the confusion fading and the vision becoming clearer this time when he reached for her, he felt something solid. The pain disappeared, along with everything else. Everything except her…
•••
Marcus Antony’s eyes snap open, heart pounding as it did back in France, just before the sergeant screamed for them to go over the top. His thoughts are muddled, racing, one stacked atop of the other like the layer cake his mother used to serve every Christmas. His hands shake, waiting for the inevitable whistle of the shells, bracing himself.
But the room is silent, and the stillness breathes.
Antony… Come to me. He can hear her voice in the room, clear and crystalline as lark-song, the red poppies opening their petals to the first rays of morning, gentle as death’s first kiss. A woman, standing in Belleau Wood, like an angel…
Outside, a jalopy backfires, and then he is on his feet in the dark room, reaching for a rifle that isn’t there, the same one that did for that Hun sniper in France, the kill he got a Victory Cross for.
Antony closes his eyes, lying back down in the bed, and sleep comes again, but it is not restful.
He closed his eyes as he slid the sword into his flesh and sure enough, she was there again. Back in the red silk, her eyes warm and tender, holding out her hand to him… There was pain, but it faded at the sight of her, and he reached for her, yet he couldn’t quite touch her…
Sand… so much sand it could fill a thousand hourglasses, a thousand lives in each grain. A sword, red and sticky with his blood. An old man, a conquerer, at the end of his life. A life lived for nothing, for no one except himself, and no one to share it with, except… her.
“I’m waiting for you…”
Already fading, with the sounds of the night. He reaches out to grasp her, but the red silk dress slips through his fingers, and his hand is covered in blood. There is pain, and a lot of it, he looks down and the wound in his side seems to bloom, blood obscuring his vision.
She is waiting… The woman in the red dress.
“My darling Antony.” Her green eyes are wide, her smile soft, dark curls framing her face. “Let go… Let go of it all and come to me…”
Antony stumbles from the bed, gripping the washbasin and splashing cold water on his face. He does not know what he expects to see when he looks in the mirror. Sand and sun, and an old man’s face, a man who has seen war.
But the War didn’t change anything.
Back in Chicago, he was still the same dirty immigrant who had gone off to the trenches of France, young, dreaming of glory. And he’d come back a broken man, to a house full of shadows, and Lucius… Antony throws the cup at the mirror. It bounces off, splintering the shining glass.
Lucius never came home.
Buried somewhere in an unmarked grave, just another dead boy who died for Country, for Glory, for nothing, for nothing that mattered. And once Lucius — Luca — was dead, Marcus died too, and became Antony, rising up through the ranks of Caesar’s outfit to be his top lieutenant and right-hand man, the war and everything in it put behind him.
“Antony? Come back to bed.”
Antony does not look back at the mirror. Wherever she is, whoever she was… He straightens his back, and walks away from it, the dream fading into the city night.
••
~Portia~
“Where does Mama think I’m taking you?” My brother wonders as I slide into the passenger seat, looking at me expectantly, reminding me of his condition: he’ll give me a ride but he won’t help me lie to our parents.
“Marcella’s, of course,” I tell him with a shrug as the car springs to life beneath us, the sound filling the otherwise quiet street. I know that the neighbors are muttering in their houses, about that “German boy” and his loud car. I’ve lost track of how many complaints Papa has gotten about it in the months since Cal, Ciginerix if Mama is in earshot, bought it.
“And does Marcella know that?” Cal asks as the houses that make up our neighborhood speed by us.
“She does,” I confirm, “this is Marcella, she’ll do anything for me.”
“But she didn’t want to come?” It isn’t a question, even though it is poised as one.
I laugh at the thought, “No. You know Marcella, loyal enough to lie, but too good to go sinning.”
“And is that what you are planning on doing, little sister?” Cal asks, giving me a long look. “Are you looking for sin?”
“Only the musical kind,” I assure him, even if it is only partially the truth. Part of me longs for romance and adventure, the kind you see in the movies. The kind that doesn’t happen for good church-going girls in small American towns. Which is what makes nights like tonight so special, because I didn’t have to be that girl.
After that, we drive in silence, and I watch through the car window as the familiar merges with the unknown. The small sleepy town I have spent my whole life trapped in morphs into Chicago, the city of my dreams.
After what feels like forever, but really isn’t, the car pulls to a stop. “Wait over there,” I tell Cal as he reaches for the door, “I need to change.”
He rolls his eyes. “Don’t take too long.”
As soon as the door shuts behind him, I quickly discard the skirt and blouse I’d worn out of the house under my mother’s watchful eye, and shimmy into the red beaded number I keep hidden in the car. I quickly apply some lipstick, red so bold that Mama would drag me off to confession if she saw it, and then hurry out of the car to where Cal is waiting.
His eyebrows shoot up at my change of attire, it might be the lipstick, which is more daring than I usually risk, but he doesn’t comment. He never does. Maybe because I am not the only one who keeps secrets from our mother. Cal has his own reasons for coming to the Ice Box.
We hurry through the alley, to the nondescript door and exchange pleasantries with Andrew, the bouncer, and then he steps aside, letting us through. Inside, it is a whole different world, one filled with secrets, sin and hot jazz.
Cal quickly moves across the room and I head towards the bar.
“Tia, I was starting to wonder when we’d see you again.” The bartender, Cliff, comments with a warm smile as he begins to fix my usual.
“Life’s been busy,” I answer evasively. Here, I am Tia, a good-time girl, and aspiring singer, instead of Portia, the sweet girl who does the paperwork for the quarry and lives under the watchful eye of her pious mother. Here I can be who I want, instead of who I have to be.
Cliff nods, letting it go, which is what I like about Cliff, he never asks too many questions. He slides my drink towards me.
I accept it with a smile, passing over a bill in return, and then get up and wander towards the stage where the singers are about to take a break.
“Tia!” Sofia greets me warmly, brushing her lips across my cheek in a friendly kiss, “we were hoping you would be here tonight. Cleo and I have a number that is perfect for you.” She motions behind me, waving at someone, and a moment later Cleo Mayfield, the Ice Box’s number one talent, appears beside me.
“Tia, I see you were able to break out for a night,” the amusement in Cleo’s voice lets me know that she sees what I try to hide. It doesn’t surprise me, neither Cleo or Sofia ever miss much.
I don’t confirm it, though, I just nod and change the subject. “Sofia says you have a song for me?” I am not employed by the Icebox, but on my first visit, Sofia and I had talked music and she persuaded me to sing for her, and ever since then I have had an invitation to join them on stage if I am around, letting me have a taste of what I want most in the world.
We go over the arrangement for a few minutes and then, I glance up, and suddenly I see him. He looks like he stepped out of a moving picture; tall, dark and handsome, clad in an expensive suit, with a flapper hanging off his arm, trying vainly to get his attention while he talks to Vince. I can’t tear my eyes away from him, not just because of his good looks, though he certainly is handsome, no it’s something else.
I know him, I think and then shrug it off, sure that I have never seen him before in my life. After all, this is not a man you would forget meeting.
The man glances in my direction, our eyes meeting across the room, and for a moment something akin to shock crosses his. However, he hides it quickly, his eyes sweeping over me, quickly appraising me, the heat in his gaze letting me know he likes what he sees.
“Who is that?”
I don’t even realize I’ve spoken out loud until Cleo sighs, placing her hand on my shoulder before she answers. “That is trouble, the kind a nice girl like you should avoid.”
“His name is Antony,” Sofia pipes up. “He’s one of Caesar’s top men.” My ignorance must have shown on my face, because she adds, “Caesar runs one of the city’s biggest outfits, and Antony is his right hand. He’s a power player, that one.”
“He’s dangerous,” Cleo says flatly, shooting Sofia a disapproving look, then she glances pointedly at the stage. “Break’s over, we got a crowd to entertain. You ready, Tia?”
I nod and follow her. Yet as I begin to sing along with Cleo and Sofia, my eyes keep finding Antony and every time they do, he’s staring right at me, drinking in my every move.
For a moment, the whole speakeasy fades away and it is as if I am singing to him alone…
••
It’s her. The woman from his dream. The red dress, the green eyes, the dark hair, down to the last dimple in her cheek, the one he used to kiss when…
“You like the little canary?” Vince raises his glass, and turns to look over his shoulder at the girl singing on stage. “That’s Tia, she doesn’t work here. She knows Cleo and Lottie.” At his wife’s name in his mouth, Moretti’s eyes go to the crowd, where the Ice Box Flapper moves through the club, a smile tossed over her shoulder for her husband, who taps his fingers on the table. Rat-tat-tat. Rat-tat-tat.
“She’s sure got a set of pipes on her.” Beside him, Atia raises a disdainful brow, fluffing her platinum bob as Vince lights her cigarette. “Sounds like a cat in heat!” She tugs on Antony’s arm, trying to get his attention, but he ignores her.
There’ll come a time, now don’t forget it / There’ll come a time when you’ll regret it / Someday, when you grow lonely / Your heart will break like mine and you’ll want me only / After you’ve gone, after you’ve gone away…
The strains of the piano fade away, and the canary (Tia, that name in his head, why does it sound so familiar? For he’s never seen her before…) blushes prettily to the sound of applause. Antony can’t tear his eyes away from her. It’s as though the whole speakeasy has fallen away. He can hear Moretti speaking, as though through a fog.
Get ahold of yourself, old man. Unwittingly, he thinks of France. The angel in Belleau Wood... Roses and cinnamon, mingled with the scent of decay, and the desert…
The band starts up, and the fog dissipates. The speakeasy comes back to him, color and sound, people laughing, glasses clinking, women pushing back their chairs to run out on the dance floor and shimmy like there’s no tomorrow, beads rattling on their short skirts. And the woman in the red dress… He doesn’t see her anywhere.
Antony scans the room, a skill honed from years on the Front. There is no other woman for him in the room, only the one sitting at the bar, the hem of the beaded red dress hiked above her knee, laughing with the bartender. Tia. Another man approaches, that smooth-talking Englishman, and instinct takes over.
Antony stands. He doesn’t hear a word Vince says, he ignores Atia tugging at his sleeve. All he sees is what he wants, and hasn’t he always taken what’s his?
••
~Portia~
After the song is done, I make my way back to the bar, Cliff sliding me another drink. I smile but before I can thank him, a smooth voice interrupts.
“Tia, breathtaking as always.”
Normally my heart flutters when Elliott flirts, even though I know better than to take him seriously. However he is still the Elliott Graham and there is a thrill in having his attention, even momentarily, but not tonight. Tonight my attention is elsewhere. Even as I thank Elliott for the compliment and flirt back, my eyes searching the room for Antony. However, I don’t find him.
I feel a stab of disappointment that he may have left already and I almost miss Elliott’s next words.
“Ready to shake those pins?” He asks, holding out his hand with a charming smile.
I am about to take it because Elliott definitely knows how to dance and I love to dance, when a smooth voice cuts in. “I believe this dance is mine.”
Elliott and I both turn towards the sound of the voice. Though I already know who it is, his voice as familiar as an old song, even though I’ve never heard it before in my life. At least this life. It is a fleeting thought and it fades as my eyes meet Antony’s and the rest of the world stands still.
Elliott quickly drops his hand, “Never mind… I forgot… I have a pressing engagement at the card tables.” He moves swiftly, disappearing the crowd and leaving me alone with Antony. I barely notice his absence, all I am aware of is Antony.
“So this is your dance, huh?” I tease, trying to keep my cool. “I don’t remember you asking.”
“I’m asking now,” he says as he holds out his hand. I see him signal to Julius with his other hand and the music swiftly changes mid-song to a foxtrot.
I take the hand he offers, unprepared for the jolt that goes through me when our hands touch. Our eyes meet and I can see he feels it too, though neither of us says anything as he leads me onto the dance floor. We move together with ease, and even though I try to remember Cleo’s warning, all I can think about is how right it feels.
Like this is where I belong. It is a dangerous thought, almost as dangerous as Antony himself.
••
Time passes, yet Antony cannot say how long, only that every movement is etched in his memory. But this is it. If the song ends, and she walks away now... His thoughts go unwittingly to the dream the night before. Of sand and blood, and the woman in the red dress. His hands tighten around her waist for a moment, and with a tiny sigh, she allows him to pull her closer, almost too close for two strangers (but are they strangers?) to be.
When he finds his voice, it is as though the world has fallen away. “Dinner. With me. Tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up.” She’ll wear that red dress again. She’ll smell of roses and cinnamon. “Wear this dress.” He rubs the hem of her sleeve between his fingers for a moment, and when she looks up from under her lashes, he is undone.
Tia looks up, and for a moment, he expects her to say no. There is a longing in her eyes, but there is reticence too. “I can’t.” She swallows, looking aside to where a big German man stands beside the bar, a scowl etched on his face as he watches the pair of them.
Antony feels jealousy tighten his chest, constricting it. “Who is that?” Antony demands, fighting to control his roiling emotions. “Your lover?”
Tia looks surprised. Good. He can’t say why, exactly, but Antony knows this like he’s never been so sure anything in his life before: that this woman belongs to him and him alone.
“No, that’s Cal. He’s my older brother.” Tia looks up at him, her green eyes dreamy and honest, and there it is again. That knowing, bone-deep. “I keep his secrets, and he keeps mine.”
“And what is your secret, Tia?” Antony spins her around, and when she comes back into his arms, flush and breathless, he feels a stirring of lust. He wants her here, he wants her now. He wants to see those green eyes under him, her pupils dilating as she comes, groaning his name. Like she did before. But where did that thought come from?
Instead of lingering on it, Antony’s fingers ghost across her lower back, and she shivers, biting her lower lip and looking up at him — not the way all the flappers look, as though they are assessing him for the size of his cock and the depth of his pockets, but with a tiny smile, one that lets him know he’ll have to work for it with this one.
Antony never could back down from a challenge. He ghosts his lips along the shell of her ear, and for a moment, they are the only two people in this crazy city, in this mad world. “Because… you are a mystery.”
But Tia is already shaking her head. He can feel the angry eyes of the big German — her brother –– boring bullet holes into his back. “I have to go.” Her voice is filled with longing — with regret. The same regret he feels.
She moves to pull out of his arms, but Antony tightens his hold, unwilling to let her slip away so soon. I’ve only just found you again. He grasps at a way to keep her with him, Vince’s words coming back to him, about her not being employed at the Box, and suddenly he knows. “I’ve been looking for a new singer for my club. If you want it, it’s yours. You just have to audition for management, but with those pipes…” Lena wouldn’t be thrilled with him dumping a new girl on her, but at least she can sing and well, it’s his club.
Her eyes grow wide and he can see the longing there, wants to see it directed at him — not for a job, but — For now, it’s enough, old man.
Even before she nods, he knows he has her. This time… she won’t slip away.
••
~Portia~
“What kind of place is the Basilica?” I ask the girls a week later when we meet up to go shopping. Cal reluctantly drove me back to the city for my audition, though he had made his displeasure known.
“Dangerous,” Cleo answers flatly. Cal isn’t the only one who thinks that this audition is a bad idea and Cleo isn’t one for holding her tongue.
Lottie shoots her a look. “It’s a faster clientele than the Box,” she answers, biting her lip in consideration, “you’ll see more flash there and more skin.”
“And you’ll need to be the flashiest,” Sofia adds, pulling me past the rows of beaded dresses, the standard flapper fare, to the back of the store. If Mama would send me to confession for the dress I’d worn the other night, these ones would have her praying for my very soul.
“It needs to be red,” I declare, perusing the racks of shimmering fabric, remembering the way Antony’s eyes had darkened with lust as they swept over my dress, the note in his voice as he’d commanded me to wear it again. Besides red was the color of danger, the color of sin, and I was about to go in search of both.
It didn’t take long to find the dress and I clutch the box in my hands, afraid it will disappear and with it, Tia the daring flapper who could sing at clubs and catch the eye of men like Antony, and I would be left with my ordinary life.
“Portia!”
The sound of my name cuts into my thoughts and my grip on the package tightens as I turn around. My eyes widen at the sight of Cassius, the man my mother wants me to marry. I can hear her in his head, He’s such a nice young man, and he was, but was I the nice girl he thought I was? Or was I was flapper who wore dresses the color of sin and melted into the arms of dangerous men?
My inner turmoil obviously doesn’t show because Cassius is all smiles. “What a nice coincidence, running into you here. You remember my cousin, Sabina?”
Sabina, of course. We’d gone to school together and then she’d gotten married and moved to Chicago and we’d lost touch. I turn to her with a smile, “of course, it is nice to see you again.”
“You too,” she answers, but I notice that her eyes pass over on me to lock onto Sofia and there is something there, a nervousness but something else as well, something more familiar. Interesting.
“We were just about to get lunch,” Cassius continues, “I’d love it if you joined us.” He finally seems to notice the other women, “and your friends too.”
Sabina’s eyes widen at the invitation and another look passes between her and Sofia.
“That is very generous, but we were just about to part ways,” Sofia speaks up, “I’m sure T—Portia, would love to, though.” My real name sounds strange coming from her and I’m about to ask what she is doing, but the question dies on my lips at the pleading look she sends me. It seems I am not the only one with secrets.
“Yes, I would,” I say smoothly as I pass my package to Sofia, not wanting to risk having it with me at lunch. I was planning on dressing at her place anyway, though my hand tightens on it for a moment before I let go and I feel a moment of panic, as if Tia is slipping away from me.
Cassius’s smile lights up his face and I know it should do things to me. It should be enough to make me forget about the Basilica and dangerous men whose eyes promise me things that girls like me shouldn’t even know about, but it won’t.
That thought returns long after lunch is over, when I am at Sofia’s apartment, transforming myself back into Tia. Why am I doing this? I ask myself, staring at my reflection in the mirror.
I think of lunch and how Cassius’s eyes had lingered over me, the warmth of his smile, how he had made it clear where his attention lay. It should be enough. But it wasn’t and thoughts of Cassius were quickly replaced by thoughts of Antony, of the way his eyes had swept over me as if he had intimate knowledge of me, the way his arms had felt wrapped around me, and how badly I had wanted to stay there forever.
And that is the thought that compels me to finish applying my lipstick and step back from the mirror, pleased with my transformation. There is no hint of sweet church girl in the reflection staring back at me, just a woman ready for sin and song.
Time to show them what you are made of.
Like the Icebox, the Basilica is nondescript on the outside and a whole other world inside.
It is early, so the club is nearly empty except for the staff. My eyes search the club, instinctively looking for Antony, but I don’t see him. Disappointment fills me, but I push it aside. I came to sing, not for a man.
“We’re closed,” a beautiful woman in a glittering dress says, her eyes running over me, appraising me.
“I am here for an audition,” I tell her, meeting her gaze.
Irritations flashes across her face and she gives me another sweeping look before letting out a disbelieving laugh. “You?”
Before I can say anything, another woman crosses the floor. Older than the first, probably my mother’s age, but still incredibly beautiful.
“Xanthe,” she says in warning, putting her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder and then she turns her attention to me, her gaze just as appraising as Xanthe’s, “you must be Tia, Antony mentioned you, I’m Lena, the manager.”
Xanthe’s gaze hardens at the mention of Antony, “is Antony humoring his latest conquest by letting you pretend to be a singer?” She asks in a nasty tone, her eyes glittering with dislike.
“Xanthe!” Lena admonishes before I can deny her accusation. And can I? I know why I am here, why Antony is giving me this chance and it’s not because I wowed him with my voice, and yet… Isn’t opportunity what you make it? And this is mine.
Xanthe quiets down, but the dislike is still there and the barely concealed resentment. Why? I wonder, what could I have done to make her hate me in only a few minutes?
“At least you look the part,” Lena declares, reclaiming her attention, her eyes sweeping me up and down, “now let’s see if you can sing.”
“I can.” I declare, tiling my chin defiantly. Maybe I didn’t get this audition based purely on talent, but I have it. I know I can do this.
Lena nods approvingly after I finish. “Not bad,” she declares, “but singing in front of the crowd is the real test, you have to move them.” She purses her lips. “You can open for Xanthe tonight and we’ll see from there.”
I can tell by Xanthe’s scowl that she doesn’t like that news at all, but I ignore her. This isn’t about her, it is about me and my chance. I’ve sung in front of people before, yes, this is different, this is my chance to be the star and not just a supporting player, but the music all comes from the same place.
I can do this.
That is the only thought in my head later on when the club is full and I am on stage. I can’t blow this.
I glance at the crowd, trying to read them, and stop for a second when I see a familiar face. Sabina. Our eyes meet and I see panic and something else, something I don’t quite understand, but I just give her a little nod and smile as I begin to sing and I see her relax. She has her secrets, just like I have mine, and this is the place for them. The kind of location meant for secrets and sin.
As the music takes over, I forget about Sabina, just like I forget about Xanthe and Lena and everything that is at stake. I let the music take over.
Then, I glance into the crowd again and this time, I see him. Antony. My heart begins to beat faster at the sight of him and my attention shifts to him. It’s no longer just about me and the music, suddenly I am singing for this one man, the one my heart insists is mine even as my head tries to remember how foolish and dangerous that thought is. However, for the moment there is no rational thought, no doubt, there is only music and feeling.
There is only him.
••
The Basilica is thronged with people when Antony gets there. So much for a quiet night, old man. Word must have gotten out at the Box, he thinks as he spots Sofia Martinez and Julius Harper in the crowd. His paid copper star, O’Malley, is leaning against the back wall, surveying the crowd with a complimentary whiskey in his hand, regards of the house. O’Malley raises the glass in his hand with a brief nod of acknowledgment in Antony’s direction, but his eyes are trained on the stage — or rather, on the girl onstage —
(Mine.)
Tia. Antony doesn’t realize he’s said it aloud until the man next to him looks up from his cigar, ashing it carelessly on the floor.
“You should hire her, Tony.” Caesar murmurs, clapping him on the shoulder and startling him. Antony whirls on Caesar, for a moment his fists tighten, and he’s in France, Luca beside him, cigarette smoke mingling with the dense fog of Flanders. “Got a pretty voice.” Caesar’s eyes roam up and down Portia’s curves. It’s obvious that Tia’s voice isn’t what he’s thinking of, and Antony has to take a gulp of sambuca to stop himself from taking a swing at the older man.
“Let’s give a round of applause for our guest tonight, Miss Tia!” His manager, Lena, speaks into the microphone, and the room erupts into thunderous applause. Antony observes Lena hide a smile, and from the wall the copper star puts his fingers in his mouth and whistles. The only person who looks unhappy is — “And now, give it up for our very own Miss Xanthe!”
The applause is scattered, with Xanthe’s cousin Sy, the bouncer, leading the majority of it. Xanthe has made enemies for herself at the Basilica with her diva’s attitude and bad temper. Antony will be glad to see the back of her.
“Antony? Lena said you would want to see me before I left.” Tia is before their table, and all the men are on their feet, nodding to her respectfully before departing for back rooms to gamble and discuss the business.
Only Caesar remains. He lifts his glass, giving Tia an assessing look that Antony doesn’t like above half. “If my idiot of a nephew doesn’t hire you on the spot tonight, you come and see me down at the Styx. Those pipes weren’t meant be to be silenced forever, filing dusty papers.”
The blood drains from Tia’s face, and Antony wonders what secret she could be hiding. He keeps his expression smooth, but his fingers are digging into the back of the chair he pulls out for Tia, snapping his fingers at a passing waiter. Mercifully, Caesar chuckles, and with another slap on Antony’s shoulder, clamps his cigar between his teeth and vanishes into the crowd.
The waiter returns with a glass of merlot, and Tia sits down, arranging her skirts. The music and laughter seems to fall to a whisper beyond them, as though they are the only two people in the club.
Stars shining bright above you / Night breezes seem to whisper I love you / Birds singing in the sycamore tree…
“Dream a little dream of me…” Tia sings along softly, almost unconsciously.
She’s nervous. Antony caresses the sambuca snifter in his hand unconsciously, his eyes drifting over Tia’s slender curves. The crimson dress is a different one from last week’s, he’s certain of it. Yet it fits her as though it were made for her — Like a velvet glove. He imagines pushing it up her thighs, the luscious crimson lips opening like a blossom as she gasps out his name, throaty and deep.
“Antony.” He startles at the sound of his name in the strega’s mouth. This is a voice that men would go to war over, in times of old. She plays with the stem of the wine glass.
She is so young. And yet that ambition, that hunger, is in her eyes. But I need to hear her say it. She already has the job. She’s had it since the night they danced, and he hasn’t stopped thinking of her since.
“I’d like to –” Tia smiles when Antony takes her hand, leading her into a languid fox-trot on the floor, the two of them moving to the rhythm of their pounding hearts. “I’d love to sing at the Basilica, Tony.” The sound of his name in her mouth strikes a chord in his heart down the years, as though he never lost his innocence in a field of blood and poppies, as though he is still a young man, with all the world strung out before him, shining in her eyes. Green like the hills, the mountains he would climb as a boy, he and Luca following the sheep, dreaming of America, of the men they would one day be.
“Shall we seal the deal?” He is drawn to her lips, and when he brushes his thumb over them, she looks up at him like the woman in the dream.
With a kiss. Antony’s mouth brushes over Tia’s, and he groans as she parts her lips, one cool hand coming up to cup his cheek as he bends his head and tastes her.
Roses and cinnamon, and the heat of a thousand suns…
Footnotes for ch 1:
- Lyrics are from After You’ve Gone, by Bessie Smith; Dream A Little Dream by Ella Fitzgerald
- an outfit was a Chicago gang
