CHAPTER 28 (2)

She turns to the piano and begins. The melody is pretty, but her voice grabs me and won’t let go. I’m glad she’s facing away because I don’t need her to see what her art does to me. And it is art, what she creates. Every note and inflection, every breath, all of it spills between us, shapes something new and magical I couldn’t resist if I wanted to. “Those words,” I say when she’s done. “I recognize some of them from the pictures in your room.” Emily shifts on the bench. “I decided I might as well use them for something.” “It’s a good song.” “But it’s not right.” She grabs her lower lip in her teeth. “Let me hear yours.” I hesitate only a moment before picking out a song on my guitar. It’s not the one I’ve been rehearsing, but something new. Emily leans closer, listening. “I like it.” Riding a wave of impulsiveness, I add my voice over top. Her words. The ones she just sang, but the music’s different. She doesn’t say anything for a verse, then another. Finally, I stop playing and meet her gaze, my heart hammering in my chest. Her lips are parted, her expression coloring in awe. “What did you do?” “I changed it a little.” I half expect her to freak on me, like the guys at the studio do when I mess with their work. Instead, Emily grabs a pen from her bag and drags the piano bench over to my stool, close enough our thighs touch. If she feels me tighten next to her, she doesn’t acknowledge it. My sleeves are rolled up, and she takes my arm, holding my hand, and starts to write. “I have more words since I took those pictures,” she explains as she works. “Better ones.” Her skin’s warm on mine as she fills my bare forearm with ink, wrist to elbow. I don’t stop her. Each phrase has my heart thudding dully in my chest, has me looking between her bent head and my skin, has me longing for something I don’t understand and don’t need to. “There.” She shifts back onto the bench. I want to reach for her, but instead I reach for my guitar. Then I play. The words are music, flowing from my fingers like water. My thigh’s still touching hers, our bodies inches apart, as she joins in singing at the chorus. Her attention is on me, not the guitar. I can feel her gaze—I’ve always felt her gaze. It’s like the sun on a summer day. I thrill to it, thrive on it. When we finish, we both exhale hard. “Timothy,” she murmurs. “That was…” Spectacular. Raw. Fucking incredible. I can’t voice the words because they’re too big and too small for what I’m feeling. She straightens in her seat, pressing her lips together. Her face is tight, but her eyes are bright, expressive. “I can’t perform that. It’s your music.” “Sure you can.” Emily seems to wrestle with it. “If I land the closing spot, I’ll give you the money. You said you have bills from your dad. That would help.” “No. It would be yours.” Still, the fact that she’s thinking of me makes my gut twist. There it is. The reason I can’t ignore her. She makes me feel that I’m more than I am, like I matter just for being here. “What about your song?” Emily prompts. “It needs work.” “I can help.” “No.” She looks hurt, so I explain. “Being here with you like this… it feels like old times.” “You say that like it’s a bad thing. We had some good times,” she murmurs. They weren’t bad at all, and that’s the problem. I can’t say that it reminds me of the easy intimacy we used to have—letting each other in, working together, relying on one another. Craving each other. My attention drops to her necklace. Despite the voice in my head insisting this is a terrible idea, I hook a finger around the chain, drawing it out of her shirt. Her breath catches as it drags up her skin, revealing the glass pendant. The troubling familiarity shifts into recognition, a key sliding into a lock as I turn the pendant in my fingers. “Your dad’s roses.” “The day after I got grounded, we hung out by the pool, and you carried me up the driveway, and you gave me that rose.” Surprise slams into me—that she remembers it, that she kept it, that she wears it. “You were a jerk that day,” Emily goes on, oblivious to the emotions roiling inside me. When I reply, my voice is an octave lower. “I was a jerk because I wanted you so much. Wanting you makes me grumpy.” She arches a brow, her full lips twitching. “Then I guess it’s a good thing we never slept together.” My next breath is ragged. “I said wanting you made me a jerk. If I’d had you, I would’ve been…” I trail off, but her half-lidded gaze roams my face before falling to my mouth. “What?” she murmurs. Whole. The word fills my mind without permission. “I think you would’ve been happy,” she finishes. The truth of her words echoes through my chest. It’s impossible to rewind to a time before this girl knew me. If we were dust in the air, her soul would call to mine. I drop the necklace, reaching up to play with a strand of hair that’s escaped her bun. “I used to wonder if you went to prom. How you would’ve worn your hair if you did.” “I wore it up.” My chest tightens. “Did you go alone?” “No.” I wrap the strand around my finger, tugging. “Did you dance with him?” Her eyes darken. “Yeah.” “Kiss him?” Emily nods slowly, and I know she’s not thinking of her prom—at least, not only. She’s remembering the night I took Carla to prom when she asked me the same thing. I inch closer until we’re nearly touching so she’s forced to tilt her face up to hold my gaze. The next question isn’t mine to ask, but neither were the two before it. “Did you fuck him?” Those expressive amber eyes color with something I can’t name. The answer’s there on her face, and I hate it. I hate knowing I could’ve been her first and wasn’t. I have no right to expect she would have saved herself for me, but the thought of her with another guy drives me crazy. “Timothy—” “I wanted to give you that night. So many times in my head, I did.” Her lips part, and I want to devour them. Her unsteady inhale makes my cock twitch. We thought life was so complicated a year ago. Nothing was complicated. But no matter what I resolved when I walked away from her on that sunny day in Dallas, I won’t pretend she didn’t leave her mark on me. “You better play me your song,” she says at last, her voice rough at the edges, “or we’re going to run out of time.” I unwind the hair and tuck it behind her ear. Then I reach for my guitar.