Page 17 of Broken Chords
She jerks around, one hand on her chest, which is now heaving. “Holy shit! Damian, you scared the crap out of me.” Her eyes scan down my body and back up again. “I thought I was alone. What are you doing here?”
“Oh.” I scratch my cheek and adjust my glasses. “I heard you playing and stopped to listen.”
Her eyes narrow in a look that she must’ve picked up from Lauren. They could be twins. “You creep on girls practicing a lot? Or am I just lucky?”
I push my hands into my pockets, studying her. “Been hanging out with Lauren a lot lately?”
She blinks at my change of subject. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“She seems to be rubbing off on you. The narrowed eyes, sarcastic questions. Classic Lauren.”
“How do you know it’s not just me? You don’t know me that well.”
“No. I don’t,” I say softly. “That’s why I didn’t want to take things further last week.”
Her eyes widen at that, and she turns back to the piano, but not before I see the rise of pink in her cheeks. She runs her fingers over the lacquered wood of the piano. “So you don’t … You don’t know me well enough to want to have sex with me?”
She lifts her head, her blue eyes laser-like in their intensity.
It’s my turn to look away, glancing up at the ceiling of the recital hall, overwhelmed by her focus. “Sort of. It’s not that I didn’twantto, it’s more that I prefer it to mean something.” I lower my eyes to hers again. “I don’t do casual.”
She holds my eyes for a second, then nods, her attention returning to where her fingers rest on the keyboard cover. “I see.”
“I’d like to keep getting to know you,” I say into the silence. “I wanted to call you this week. But I don’t have your number.”
She nods, giving me a crooked smile. “Lauren mentioned something about you asking for my number.”
“But you didn’t tell her to give it to me.”
She shrugs. “I didn’t tell her not to. I didn’t tell her anything. I didn’t know whether you wanted to call to try to let me down easy or for some other reason. And I …” She trails off and shakes her head.
“I wanted to talk to you. I’ve missed you this week.”
Her eyes find mine again, this time full of a kind of cautious hope. “I missed you too.”
“Do you want to go somewhere? Do something?”
She laughs. “Go somewhere and do something? So specific.”
I crack a grin in return. “Let’s go get dessert. Or coffee. Or pancakes. I don’t care. Just come with me.”
Swiveling around on the piano bench, she faces me completely for the first time. “Okay.” She stands and smooths down her black pencil skirt before closing the piano lid and crouching to retrieve the piano cover.
I step over to the other side of the piano, catching the shaped blanket and pulling it across, helping her smooth it into place, putting the piano to bed for the night. “Do we need to push it back?”
She shakes her head. “Glenda said I could leave it there when she let me stay here to play.”
As she comes around the piano to head for the door, I reach for her hand, threading our fingers together. She gives me a smile before reaching for the switches to turn off the stage lights. The house is already dark.
Hidden in the darkness, I ask the question that’s been plaguing me since I waited around eating cake. “Were you avoiding me after the recital?”
Her laugh is dry and humorless. “No. I actually didn’t even realize you were here.” She opens the door to the greenroom, the lamps from within sending a sliver of light shooting onto the dark stage. She takes a deep breath like she’s steeling herself as we walk through the greenroom and into the lobby, still hand in hand. “My mom called before the recital and left an … unpleasant voicemail. After Katherine and Cheryl left the greenroom for the reception, I took advantage of the privacy and called her back. It was … a frustrating conversation.”
I rub my thumb across her knuckles, trying to convey my sympathy. “What did she want?”
She bites her lip before shaking her head. “I really don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just say that my mom and I don’t see eye to eye on much of anything these days. We’ve basically been fighting since I got here. I’m seriously about to block her number.”
My head jerks back in surprise, and she gives me that crooked smile again. “I know. That sounds really harsh. But if you knew what she was like, you’d understand. You’d probably wonder why I haven’t blocked her sooner.”
