Damian lived in a converted loft above an old print shop, ten minutes from the theater — a space that surprised her the moment she stepped inside. She'd expected the sterile discipline of a dancer's home, everything minimal and controlled. Instead she found books stacked in uneven towers, a piano no one had asked him about, sheet music annotated in a cramped hand that wasn't classical at all but something older, jazzier. A life that existed outside the studio, one he'd never once mentioned.

"You play," she said, running a finger along the piano's closed lid.

"Badly. It's not for anyone else's ears." He was watching her take in the...