Chapter 14: concert night 2
Sarah Torres was approaching their table.
Not alone her short friend was with her, a step behind. But Sarah was leading with the body language of someone who had made a decision and was acting on it before she could reconsider.
The crowd parted naturally as Sarah moved through it not because she asked them to but because people just did that around her. Hands reached out as she passed. Her name from three different directions.
"Sarah that was insane—"
"You killed it oh my god—"
"Sarah! Sarah over here—"
She acknowledged them the way someone acknowledges sunlight warmly, without stopping. A smile here, a quick squeeze of someone’s hand there, moving through the attention like water through a current.
Then she turned toward the VIP section.
A few heads in the general crowd followed her direction and squinted. Someone near the rope said something to their friend.
The curiosity was visible who she was walking to but the rope and the reserved signs answered the question before anyone could ask it out loud.The VIP section.
Sarah stopped at Xavier’s table.
Her performance smile was still present but slightly adjusted now — less stage, more person. The kind of smile that meant she’d chosen to be here specifically rather than anywhere else in this venue.
Xavier looked up at her with the calm unhurried attention of someone who had been expecting this without showing that he’d been expecting it.
"I don’t normally do this," she said, "but I saw you in the front and" she paused, head tilting slightly. "You look familiar."
She doesn’t remember me, Xavier thought. The notice board guy in the wrong building doesn’t exist in her memory as the same person sitting here right now. He let the pause sit for exactly the right amount of time. Good.
"Xavier," he said simply, and extended his hand.
She took it. "Sarah."
"I know. Good performance."
Something passed across her face at that — not the gushing she was probably used to, not the stunned compliment, just a clean acknowledgement delivered without temperature.
"Thank you," she said, and meant it genuinely because it hadn’t been handed to her. Her eyes moved to Amira briefly.
"Amira," Amira said, with the exact politeness of someone who had clocked the situation entirely and was choosing her words accordingly.
"Are you both Food and Nutrition?" Sarah asked.
"I am," Xavier said. "She is."
"That’s nice I’m an art student by the way," Sarah said. Which he knew. Which she knew he probably knew given the context. But it was something to say. "Did you actually enjoy it or is that the polite answer?"
Xavier looked at her. "Your spoken word piece was better than the song," he said.
"The song you’ve performed before. The spoken word you wrote recently. You can hear the difference." She was my fiancée and of course I knew some of her songs.
Sarah stared at him.
"How did you—"
"The control is different," he said simply.
"New material has a different quality to it. More alive."
She was quiet for three full seconds.
Her friend behind her was looking at Xavier with an expression Xavier didn’t bother reading.
"That’s—" Sarah stopped. Started again.
"Most people don’t pick that up."
"Most people are listening to the sound,"
Xavier said. "Not the performance."
Another beat of silence. Then Sarah smiled, not the stage smile, something smaller and less rehearsed.
"Are you coming to the next one?" she asked.
"Depends on the context and time," Xavier said.She laughed — quick, surprised, the kind that came out before she could decide whether to let it.
"I’ll make sure it’s worth your time," she said, and there was something in how she said it that sat between a promise and a challenge. Funny how she didn’t catch an ick when conversing with him. Maybe she had seen some sort of promise of some sort.
Sarah looked at him once more — the particular look of someone filing something away then made the gesture to leave.
"Wait," Xavier said.
She turned back.
"Instagram," he said simply.
Sarah looked at him for a moment. The stage smile was completely gone now — just her, reading him with those sharp eyes.
"Maybe," she said. "Next time we converse. If there is one."
She turned and walked back toward the stage area with her friend.
Xavier watched her go for exactly one second then turned back to the table
Amira was sitting with her drink and the expression of someone who had watched an entire chess game play out in four minutes.
"You knew who she was before tonight," she said.
"I told you. She’s known around the Arts faculty."
"Xavier."
"Amira."
She looked at him for a long moment.
"You’re doing something," she said "Not accusing you or anything but I know cheater".
She’s still playing hard to get expected. She’s obviously the popular singer in her department , Xavier thought. Normal. It’ll change soon enough and I will get my revenge.
"I’m always doing something," he said. "Cheater wtf". Does she think we are dating or something? It doesn’t matter though it is a win-win situation regardless.
"Let’s go."
They walked back across campus in the quiet that follows a late night event, string lights still glowing behind them, night air cooler than the venue had been.
Amira walked beside him with her heels in one hand, barefoot on the path.
"She’s beautiful," Amira said after a while.
"Yes," Xavier said.
"You weren’t affected by it."
"I noticed it," he said. "There’s a difference between noticing and being affected."
Amira was quiet for a moment. "Most men don’t know that difference."
"I know."
She glanced at him sideways. "That’s either very impressive or very concerning. I haven’t decided which."
The second time tonight she hasn’t decided something about me, Xavier thought. Good. The moment she decides is the moment she stops looking.
They reached the point where their routes diverged.
They stopped.
The night air sat between them. The burgundy dress. The loose hair. The contacts made her eyes do something they didn’t do behind glasses.