Maestro Read Free

ashamed of her. He always left the shows pretty early, and after he did, she had her fun. Sex? She couldn't get enough of it. Music and sex made her feel alive. She would probably have a man in bed with her tonight if she hadn't been so worried about Maestro.
    But love? Well, if anyone had told her she could look – no, glow – like she was doing in that picture, she would have said they were on crack.
    Wait just a freaking minute. That woman couldn't be her. There was no way. If that woman was her, that meant time travel was possible and that at some point, she'd go back in time and she and Maestro would fall in love, and that meant...
    Annasophia's temples throbbed. She rubbed them gently with her fingertips. Okay. She would print out the picture and keep studying it after she emailed Matt about his dad. Surely, she was only seeing what she wanted to see. Wanted to see? Well, in a weird way, it made sense. She'd never thought of Maestro in that way, but ever since she'd been six years old, he'd been her teacher, mentor, and anchor. Her soulmate, really. Just in a different way from a lover.
    She looked at the picture again.
    Well, maybe not .
    Pancreatic cancer. Stage four. Metastatic.
    Maybe she didn't have to lose Maestro after all. If that woman was her, though, then how the hell had she figured out how to travel back through time?
     
    ###
     
    Annasophia heard Matt's knock at exactly eight o'clock the next morning. Right on time. At least she'd managed to get a couple hours sleep. She let him in. His face looked as though he'd been punched in the gut, and she put a hand over her mouth to hold in her sobs.
    “Oh, Matt, I'm so sorry,” she said.
    He stood awkwardly, his big hands dangling at his sides. In his build, he resembled his dad, and there was something about his face, too, which carried ghosts of Maestro. No, she thought. Don't think about ghosts. Funny, she and Matt had never been attracted to each other sexually – it would have been natural for her to fall in love with the son of her mentor, but it had never happened, on either side. She and Matt had always liked each other, though, and as he had started doing sound for Annasophia, they had become good friends.
    “Well, I'm not surprised,” he said. “Not deep down. I've known something wasn't right with Dad. But he told me he was seeing a doctor, and for me not to worry about it.”
    She nodded. “Pretty much what he told me.”
    Matt was a good friend and the best sound man she could ask for, but he always kept himself at an emotional distance. Annasophia didn't take it personally. It was just how Matt operated. He didn't have many close friends and preferred to keep to himself. And he was the only man remotely near her age who hadn't come on to her. That, in itself, was kind of weird. He knew about her post-show trysts, but he'd never tried to get in on any of that, and as far as she knew, he'd never said a word to his dad. And for that, she was grateful. Goodness knew, he was the very essence of laid-back. At thirty-six, the only thing he'd ever cared about doing was working sound for different local bands, and when Annasophia had got going with her shows ten years ago, Matt had become her right hand man. Sometimes she asked him why he never moved away, to try his talents in a bigger pond and work with bigger fish. He would never answer and would always ask her the same thing. Touché . It wasn't as if she didn't want that, though. Unlike Matt, she was ambitious. She wanted to wind up in New York or California someday, working with a big studio and touring all over the world.
    Ambition, though, would have to wait a little while. Maestro needed her. So did Matt.
    Maestro had told Annasophia last night that he wanted to talk to her and Matt as soon as possible this morning. She couldn't guess what he wanted to talk to them about. Part of her wanted to confide in Matt about how confused and lost she was feeling, but he would probably only offer