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

“Do you ever leave your phone behind?”


Jayden set the Coke down and boldly straddled Darren’s lap. “Hey. Put it down.”


Darren grinned wickedly at him. “Nope.”


“Then give it here.” Jayden made a snatch, and Darren caught the wrist and effortlessly turned them with a twist of his hips, smacking Jayden down into the mattress.


“I said nope,” Darren retorted, so Jayden seized him by the hair and kissed him.


All the fight went out of them, and Darren settled over him like a blanket, abandoning the phone to the floor and mumbling something pleased and incoherent when Jayden slid his hands down that long back and settled them over his backside. He’d touched Darren like that before, but not really…sustained it, so he experimentally squeezed and noted the hitch and sigh that was the result.


Chapter 66