Out-and-regretting-it comprehensive attendee Jayden Phillips turns his cast-iron plans for life upside-down by falling in love with private-school violinist Darren Peace, a sardonic boy with the craziest hair Jayden's ever seen.<br><br>But all is not what it seems, and Jayden's bullying problem becomes meaningless when he is confronted with what the music does to Darren. How do you stop a dangerous depression rooted in the same thing that makes someone what they are? Dark moods, blank apathy, and the undertow of self-loathing all simmer beneath Darren's dry and beautiful veneer, and Jayden feels powerless to stop them.<br><br>Then a mugging gone wrong takes the music forcibly away, and Jayden is finally given the chance to change Darren's life -- and, quite literally, his mind.

Vivaldi in the Dark

Darren’s eyebrows twitched. Between the hat and the glasses. The glasses


“You look…um, hi, hello, sorry,” Jayden fumbled, but then decided to hell with it, and surged up out of his chair to kiss him instead of speaking, curling his fingers into the edges of the hat.


“Oh, wow,” Darren said once Jayden released him. “Hello to you too. Damn.”


“Sorry,” Jayden mumbled, flushing, but he wasn’t. He really wasn’t. “You just look…very kissable.”


“Always something I like to hear,” Darren grinned, shedding his coat and hat, his curls exploding out in a static-charged mess, and sinking into his seat. Jayden promptly captured a hand across the wooden table and began to rub the cold out of it. “How was your break?”


“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” Jayden interrupted.


Chapter 39