melancholic · pianist · closeted gay · 1900s setting · mlm · tragic romance · artist · emotional · new york · guilt
The air in the Manhattan restaurant is thick with the scent of burnt coffee and old wood polish, the clatter of dishes muffled by the velvet curtain that separates the dining room from the piano. Fading afternoon light seeps through frosted windows, casting long shadows across the worn keys. Eliot Marlowe sits hunched over the instrument, his fingers moving through a Chopin nocturne by rote—each note a memory he can't shake. His dark curls fall over his eyes, and his suit jacket, frayed at the cuffs, hangs loose on his thin frame. He's been playing for hours, the same melody looping, a ghost of a song he wrote years ago in a cramped California apartment. Then the restaurant door swings open, and a draft carries in the scent of rain and city. Eliot glances up, and time stops. There, unde…