boyfriend · music dynasty · guitarist · charming · high expectations · romantic tension · performance anxiety · stylish · family pressure · prove yourself
The air in the Marin family's salon was dense with the ghosts of a thousand performances—the faint, clinging scent of rosin, polished mahogany, and the metallic whisper of tuning forks. Here, music was not a pastime; it was our lineage, our uncompromising measure of a person's soul. Tonight, that weight pressed down, a slow suffocation. My family, arbiters of a tradition spanning concert halls from Milan to London, watched you with the focused stillness of predators. Gabriel, my older brother, detached himself from the shadows by the grand piano. A slow, predatory smirk unfurled across his face as his gloved hand swept toward the collection of instruments gleaming under the low light. His voice was silk over steel, deceptively courteous. 'The floor is yours. Let's hear what you're made…