“And here we are again.”
“We weren’t here when we started,” I say. I need water or something. The Sahara has nothing on my parched throat.
“But you must admit this is a vast improvement over the stairwell.” Leaning back, he crosses his arms as if what he just did was perfectly normal human behavior. Our legs touch, shoved together by the narrow seating. If he wanted to move his thigh away from where it presses against mine, he would’ve done it by now. But he doesn’t.
I need to take the offensive or I’ll reveal what I know I am: a lamb to the slaughter, ready to walk to my doom for a bit of flirting. “Where do you get the nerve to make a scene like that?”
“Make a scene? Says you.” He adds a quirking eyebrow to his smirk, which spikes my blush to inferno levels. “Besides, I have a reputation to live up to. Would you believe I’ve been told I’m an arrogant asshole?”
“Yes, I believe it.”
“By some woman who has yet to introduce herself.” He shakes his head in mock disappointment. “There’s rude, and then there’s rude.”
“My lack of an introduction compares to what you just did?”
“Yes.” He crosses his arms and settles into the metal seat, appearing way too content with the world. “When company calls, you offer sweet tea. When it’s raining, you share your umbrella. And when you’re pursued by an intriguing man, you make pains to introduce yourself.”
“I didn’t get the handbook.”
“I’d send you a copy, but exchanging email addresses looks like third base from here.” He shrugs. “I suppose I could keep calling you ‘Miss Fire Drill,’ but it’s such a mouthful.”
“You can’t keep from drawing the attention back to yourself, can you?”
“Busted. Now . . . your name.”
“Keeley.” It pops out. Honest to God, I can’t help myself when he issues a command that strong. Maybe that’s why he’s sitting next to me and that jock will watch the show from the bar. “Can we be done now? I’m asking you. Please. You’re not the one center stage. Let me watch her in peace.”
“Her? Adelaide?”
I go still. There’s genuine affection in his voice, and pride, and all of that is backed up by his widest smile yet—one he has yet to shine at me. Big. Manic. Unabashed. It’s a laugh without sound. His smile is for Adelaide Deschamps.
I’d actually looked forward to sparring with him. I only realize it when he turns that carefree smile toward the young woman at the piano. I’d been thinking him a sexy, astonishing pest who’d acted like a polite caveman to sit beside me.
But he isn’t here for me at all. I just happen to be in the front row, right where he wants to be. For her.
“She can hold her own,” he says. “How do you know her?”
“I don’t.” I’m proud of the detachment I force into my voice, when all I want is to find the strength to be the first to pull my thigh away. “I’m supposed to mentor her this year. I’d like to know who I’m mentoring. What she can do.”
Out of nowhere, Jude turns that ravishing smile on me. The floor drops out from beneath my chair. I’m in free fall. It’s more devastating than staring into the sun; it’s going blind and catching fire and being reborn. The only place I’m truly, securely grounded is where our thighs still press together—so obvious, so simple . . . and increasingly erotic.
“What she can do is take center stage and shake it like a Doberman with a bone. No one holds a candle. Although . . .” He leans so close that I can smell his rich cologne. “Maybe this year she’ll meet her match.”
Five
Adelaide Deschamps is a prodigy. She’s the sort of performer who makes a girl doubt her own abilities—that girl being me, of course. I’m not used to that at all. Everyone is enraptured. And even though my welcome/unwelcome company is staring with obvious marvel and adoration, while his thigh is still confusingly pressed against mine, I’m enraptured too.
She’s definitely classically trained. All those composers who bored me but inspired me to forge on with my own compositions—well, she probably knows each masterpiece forward and backward. But I’m surprised by how raw she is. It’s like she skipped a few hundred steps, from “Chopsticks” to Chopin.
I don’t know where her musical theater stuff is supposed to come in. There’s none of the sorority don’t give a damn nutso I’d heard over the phone. Seriously, she should be wearing a long formal black evening gown, performing at the Met. This eclectic crowd should be decked out in suits and fancy dresses, the kind I saw when Clair and John had taken me to the orchestra in Baton Rouge. Once, we traveled all the way to Dallas when Joshua Bell was on tour. Sure, he isn’t a piano player, only one of the best violinists of this century, but I had a major crush on him and they gave me the tickets for my sixteenth birthday.
My first birthday gift.
I remember hiding in my room, crying my damn eyes out after they told me we’d be seeing him perform. And I loved every minute of his astonishing show. Trying to soak it in. Knowing it wouldn’t last forever.
This is one of those moments.
“She’s so good.”
The strange company I keep looks down at me. I can feel the weight of Jude’s fire blue stare. It’s easier to return that stare now. His nose is straight and a touch long, while his jaw is strong and defined. His lips are thin with an oh so kissable dip on the upper one. His eyes are narrowed, with those arching brows lifting and digging horizontal lines across his forehead. It’s as if all his features decided to be horizontal or vertical. Little middle ground—just his cheekbones, carved into sharp but graceful slopes that angle toward a tiny pair of laugh lines at the corners of his mouth. His posture makes his neck seem longer, striped with strong tendons. The effect is predatory.
That’s the look. Predatory.
It’s not like it matters now. That’s his girl onstage and he’s a player and I’m that lamb braying for a quick death, not a slow bleed-out by humiliation.
I tear my gaze off his face, away from his bemused expression, his . . . ugh, just him.
Applause follows the apparent conclusion of Adelaide’s recital. Only, she doesn’t stop. She offers the crowd a quick nod before launching into a rip-roaring rendition of “If You Hadn’t But You Did.” Clair and John hired my high school music director to be my piano tutor, and she insisted on Broadway as well as the classics. She was weird and supercool. Horn-rimmed glasses and a slip showing—the goofy teacher everyone loved but didn’t really get. She adored Broadway and made a solo pilgrimage every year to catch a show or two. The genre never clicked for me, but if anyone can change my mind, it’s Adelaide Deschamps.
The mic isn’t just for show. Her voice is Marilyn Monroe after sucking one little gulp of helium. She has the perfect blend of sexiness and playfulness. She hits the high notes, and she growls low, sultry notes as she accuses a phantom lover of cheating, all the time rollicking on the piano. She’s two different people in one body—half master musician, half rockabilly sexpot.
I’m surprised when Jude’s big hand finds my knee and gives it a squeeze. I’d been tapping my toes furiously, and our legs are still crammed together. I do the unthinkable. I pull his hand off my thigh—instantly noticing the lack of warmth—and go back to tapping my toes. I can’t help it. The music is amazing.
I glance over to see if he shows any sign of being offended. Not a bit. That big, shark-wide grin is back, in profile, filled with teasing. He’s toying with me to pass the time. I hate that.
Take me seriously or don’t.
I shake off my annoyance. Adelaide doesn’t play all hurricane-possessed like me. She’s perfectly aware of every gesture. A slinky bit of side-eye. A beaming smile. A pause—then an exaggerated wink to add a touch of comedy to her sex appeal. Forget the Met. Her stage presence screams, Doll me up and make me the next YouTube sensation.
S
he’s living art—consciously vampy and raunchy and complex and dramatic.
Her performance, plus Jude’s totally surprising crash-bang into my life, makes me want to slip free of my skin.
When Adelaide finishes, she flips her shining curls over her shoulder with a dramatic flourish. She stands to receive a riot of clapping and shouts. Beaming, she dips a few curtsies more suited to a junior high kid making fun of the performance she’s been forced to finish. Clown-like. She blows air kisses and wiggles her fingers at a few people.
Jude crosses his arms, which accentuates the striated muscles of forearms dusted with brown hair. His biceps pull against the material of his shirt. The fabric clings. I can barely keep from drooling. His brows are pulled down low. The set of his mouth says one thing: disappointment.
As the spotlight dims, Adelaide must see it too. She flips him the bird. Then it’s back to smiles and honest to God giggles I can hear over the applause.
“Yes, she’s very good,” he says, almost too quietly to hear. “But she’s a pain in the ass.”
He turns to me and stares outright. I’m caught again. Lost again. His eyes are stormy and bright with emotion. With doubt? Hope?
Yeah, right.
“She’s wild and takes everything for granted. Even what you just saw. Are you up to dealing with her?” He shakes his head in that gesture I don’t like. Pity? Doubt? “Frankly, you’re not the most resilient girl I’ve ever met.”
Oh, how wrong you are.
“Is that why you’re sitting with me? Checking me out?”
“Among other things,” he says with a sharp grin.
“Does she practice?”
His eyes lose that scary intensity. He’s about to tease me. How do I know that so quickly? I thought he was Fort Knox with me carrying only a tourist map. No way in.
“I bet you practice every day,” he replies, dodging my question.
It comes across as an accusation. “Yes.”
“Like you did this morning?”
I look away, embarrassed all over again. He catches my chin, and our gazes smash together like speeding cars. He keeps doing that. Colliding with me. I can’t tell if it’s the best thing ever, or a force that’ll bust me into a thousand pieces. All I know is that I can’t stand how he’s using all this magnetic, irresistible bullshit on me when his girlfriend is center stage.
He tightens his fingers in a silent prompt for an answer. “Yes,” I say. “Like I did this morning.”
“Can you do it again, or was that a onetime deal?”
“Of course I can do it again.”
“Prove it,” he says bluntly. “It’s an open mic, Keeley. The next person up onstage is the next person to perform. Simple.”
I start to tremble. “Do you mean me?”
“Why not?”
I can’t answer. I blink past a surprising rush of tears. Suddenly I’m back in that damn courtroom, with a hundred pairs of eyes on me, hanging on every word. Some were sympathetic, like Ursula’s and even the judge’s. The reporters’ were avaricious. The defense attorney may as well have been made of ice.
And Jude wants me to go through that again? Center of attention? It burned a scar onto my soul. How mortifying would it be to get onstage in front of all these people and just . . . freeze?
I don’t duck in time to avoid a clue-by-four. The courtroom . . . and the stage . . . and all eyes on me. I can’t go through that again. It’s only taken me, what, six years to figure that out, with this guy Jude watching me so expectantly?
“Keeley?”
“No way,” I say. “And don’t try the crap you pulled on that guy. I won’t be bullied about this. You can’t dare me.”
“How can I resist? Hearing you through sound dampening walls wasn’t enough. I want to see you too.” He lets go of my chin, but doesn’t let go of me—not emotionally, anyway. He strokes the backs of his knuckles against my cheek. “And a dare won’t be necessary.”
Jude says it with complete confidence. Oh, to have a tenth of his assurance. I’d be the one playing at the Met, wowing crowds with my own compositions. But I haven’t played for anyone other than Clair and John, tutors, and profs. It’s been years since I took the witness stand, but I can’t imagine getting up in front of a crowd again. Little recitals and how I’d performed for a small panel of music administrators to earn my fellowship—those were low-key and necessary. This is huge and completely unnecessary.
That doesn’t keep me from wanting Jude to keep pushing. He stared at Adelaide with such entertained delight—until that confusing moment at the end when he seemed disappointed. I don’t want to disappoint him. I won’t.
Keep going. Don’t stop. I want to play for you, but I don’t know how.
I burn beneath the return of my blush. “If not a dare, then . . . what?”
His thumb lingers, slows, tracing my lower lip. “There it is,” he says on a deep masculine sigh. A shiver of sexual awareness chills my skin, then sets me on fire. “You’re confused and hopeful. Not pissed off anymore. Your mouth is as beautiful as I knew it would be.”
I swallow hard. What am I supposed to do with that other than mentally trip and never get up again?
I’m silently begging now. Tell me more and I’ll try to believe it.
“I can’t follow Adelaide. She’s . . . amazing.”
“She’s gifted at showmanship and artifice,” Jude says. “I bet you’re different. I want you to show this whole place. I want you to show me.”
I don’t reply. He keeps stealing my voice. I only have one left . . . and it’s onstage.
It’s a test. The whole night is a test. How to survive a trial by spontaneous masculine overdrive. Jude Villars—his eyes, his gorgeous face, those built arms, his man in a man’s world way of dressing . . .
Show him what you can do.
Take him by surprise.
I take myself by surprise when I dig my fingers into his broadcloth collar. I drag him closer. The gap between our mouths isn’t big. I could kiss him if I wanted. I want some revenge for being emotionally tossed around. I want to break him into a thousand pieces.
“You think you’ve got it all figured out,” I say. “You don’t. Not about me.”
The exhales between us are thick and hot. At least he’s breathing as hard as I am. He chuckles softly. The sound, the secondhand feel of it, ricochets down my chest. I’m tinder catching fire. I can do anything.
“I wonder,” he whispers, “have you ever kissed anyone as hard as you want to kiss me right now?”
I shove him away, but not before his words settle like lava behind my breastbone. I’m both molten and airy, and learning fast what it means to get really turned on. That’s even more shocking than the idea of taking to the stage. No man has ever touched me with such knowing confidence. Brushing his thumb along my lower lip? He knows exactly what he’s doing.
And I want more.
He’s already made me angry. Now he’s making me reckless. If that means going head to head with me makes him smile all wispy like he did at Adelaide, then bring it on. He’s played with my brain all night. I can at least be memorable.
He stands when I do. I thought his height was a trick of perspective when he’d towered over the seated jock. No way. He’s a good six feet, but I’m not letting him get away with talking down at the crown of my head. I tilt my chin. “Me and the piano. And you’ll watch.”
“I won’t be able to take my eyes off you.”
A thrill zings from head to toe before settling in my fingertips. Itching. Ready. “You better not.”
People hoot when I approach the stage.
I’m not in court, but neither am I safe in a rehearsal room. I’m in a hot, colorful, loud, feverish club in New Orleans. And everyone in here expects to be entertained.
Can I give them that?
I shed my linen shirt. The upright piano is in surprisingly good condition. A spotlight turns the shiny brown surface into glass beneath the sun. It also has the welcome effect of blotting out the crowd.
When I sit on the bench and touch Middle C, I realize the truth of my words. Me and the piano. I pet the key, easing all other thoughts into a distant corner. They simply scatter, becoming air—the air that fills my lungs and gives me strength. Straightening my shoulders, my hands in place, I throw one last glance toward the obscured audience. I don’t care what will burst out of my musical id, or what I’ll look like afterward. No future now. Just the here and now and my music and Jude watching.
Six
Most times, an improv crescendo is like a finish line I can’t see until I’m right on top of it. Not tonight. I’m not so deep in the trance that usually comes with private sessions, but it hasn’t affected what I’m creating. It’s like I’m channeling from all the sources a rehearsal room can’t provide.
I can see the crescendo a mile away. I already hear it in my head, even as my fingers rush and push to catch up. I can hear it—and it’s perfect. Staggering. I almost back off and take a safer route, but I won’t be able to live with myself if I start chickening out about composing.
So I barrel on, creating, navigating by touch and sound. At last, I reach the moment when I bring a dozen motifs together into a final, resonant chord.
I did it. Blame Jude or give me the credit, but I played until my heart beat outside my chest and everyone could watch.
They could see right inside me.
I’m dizzy. If I think too much about what I’ve just done, I’ll go bonkers. How had I gotten from my dorm to here? From that front row seat to here? I’m shaking. I’m exhausted. At least I don’t thunk my head on the keys as I come out of my near trance.
The club is utterly silent.
Blue Notes Page 4
