“Jane! Time to go!”
Jane packs up her guitar and skips toward the front door, not bothering to look back as she calls out a loud, “Goodbye!”
When I’m sure I’m in control of my emotions, I turn to look at Eloise. But at the sight of her wide blue eyes and gentle flush, the lie shatters all around me.
“So…” Eloise clears her throat, the heat in her cheeks spreading outward to the edges of her face. “Jane is sweet.”
“She’s a good kid,” I agree. “Says the damnedest things, though.”
“I guess that’s kids for you…”
I nod, finding a sick kind of joy in her nervousness. Maybe—just maybe—she feels something for me, too. “Ready to get started?”
“Lead the way.”
.
Despite all her progress last week, Eloise fumbles through her lesson. Her fingers seem stiff, her movements unsure, and I can tell her mind is on something other than the task at hand. And me…? I’m just as frazzled as she is, but for a different reason. With every breath, her scent floods my senses, driving me mad and sending all the blood in my body to my groin. Eventually, I can’t take it anymore, and I need to put some distance between us before I lose all control and do something I’ll regret. Like telling her how I feel about her.
“Why don’t we take a little break. You like black coffee, right?”
Eloise nods, not even bothering to disagree with my suggestion of a break.Strange.“Please. That would be great.”
After setting my guitar on the stand, I move to the break room, place a pod in the coffee machine, and listen to it whir and bubble as I wait for it to spit out some horrible brown sludge. I lean back against the counter and rub a hand over my face, letting out a deep sigh as my thoughts turn to the beautiful woman waiting for me in the other room.
So far, I’ve been doing a good job of keeping my feelings in check, but it’s a slow torture, and I don’t know how much longer I can hold out.
But I need to.I’m bad for her. Too old, too reckless, too washed-up. She doesn’t need someone like me in her life for anything more than guitar lessons. I’d be lying if I said I don’t wish things were different, but what I want doesn’t matter. She’s too good, too young, too perfect, too much ofeverythingI’m not. So I need to get my shit together, finish this lesson, then go home and drink myself into oblivion.
Satisfied with my plan, I grab Eloise’s coffee and head back into the practice room. But all of my carefully constructed resolve vanishes the moment I see what she has in her hands.
My palms go clammy as I stare at the little gold guitar pick, my throat drying, and a heavy pressure building behind my eyes. “Where did you find that?”
Eloise snaps her head up, a worried frown pinching her brows at my tone. “Find what?” A light bulb seems to go off as she looks back down at her hand, at the faded gold guitar pick between her fingers. “Oh, this. I saw it under that desk over there. Do you want it?”
Eloise stretches her hand out, and I reel back as if she were thrusting a snake at me. Time slows as memories flood my mind, so powerful they make the room spin. Rush’s crooked smile, holding up the engraved guitar pick I got him for his birthday like it was made ofrealgold. He had used it for years until the fateful day we were practicing here at Hightide Records—back when the store was called Ocean’s Edge Records and under different ownership—and I asked Rush to lend his prized pick to me for an afternoon.
I thought I had lost it. I thought it was gone. Gone forever, just like Rush…
“Riot?” Eloise’s face comes back into focus, and I realize I've been standing here in a trance for God knows how long.
“Sorry,” I say. “I don't know where my head was at. But no, you keep it. You’ll put it to better use than I ever could.” My throat tightens painfully. “Now let's get back to the B flat…”
The rest of Eloise’s lesson goes badly. She’s just as distracted as she was before, and after the guitar pick situation, I’m a bit of a mess. I can’t concentrate—cycling between a fiery desire for Eloise and a hollow sensation of grief that confuses me as much as it pains.
Every time I glance at Eloise, I find her eyes locked somewhere off in the distance, unshed tears brimming and then fading with every other blink.
This lesson is going absolutely nowhere, and if something doesn’t change, it will have been for nothing.But what am I supposed to do?
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a gleaming triangle, and an idea begins to form. Is it ridiculous? Yes. Slightly embarrassing? Most definitely. But it also might just work.
I get out of my seat and retrieve the triangle, hiding it from Eloise until I’m sitting in front of her once more. “Do you trust me, Eloise?”
She gives me a funny look. “I… guess?”
Works for me.“Okay. I’m going to show you something, and the only rule is you’re not allowed to laugh.”
“Okay…”
