My stomach twists into a knot and I push up the window and stick my head out.
“Oh my God, what the hell?” I gasp.
Cars honk angrily as they’re held up, waiting for two men to wheel the old piano from the basement across the street to the other side. They stop directly in line with our window, and one turns his head, looking straight up at me.
My breath catches.
Sullivan.
“Stealing it!” Larry continues.
“Technically, it’s his. He owns the building,” I say, my voice sounding strange.
He’s wearing a blue suit today. But he’s taken the jacket off and has rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbows to maneuver the piano. The muscles in his broad chest look puffed up, even from this distance, as he pushes a hand back through his dark hair.
He sits at the piano and lifts the cover from the keys.
For a moment, the street falls silent. No cars drive past, and the few pedestrians all slow their steps, looking at him in curiosity. Our neighborhood never usually sees cars like Sullivan’s. And they certainly don’t see designer suited men sitting at pianos first thing in the morning.
“This one’s for you, Tate!” he calls up to our window.
I stare at him as he starts to play. Every note rings out perfectly, like they’re imprinted on his soul.
I clasp a hand over my mouth as the notes ofUnstoppablefill the street.
He turns and watches me, locking us in an intense gaze.
It’s all too much, and I drag in a shuddery breath, a sob bubbling in my throat.
“Don’t cry, Baby,” he calls out, pressing on the keys harder. “I didn’t want to make you cry.”
A crowd gathers as residents of our building step outside to watch the spectacle and hang out of their windows to see.
“I’ll keep playing all day until you understand,” he shouts.
“Understand what?” I shout back.
“That I love you! You hear me? I fucking love you!”
He yells the words so I can hear, but he doesn’t need to. They’re in his eyes, pinned on mine, in the notes of the song, played to me.
He loves me.
“I’m coming down,” I choke out.
I fly past my father and Larry and to the elevator. Itarrives within seconds like it doesn’t want me to wait any longer than necessary either.
Some of our neighbors are hanging out on the steps up to our building’s door as I exit. Everyone’s eyes are on Sullivan as he continues into his second performance of Unstoppable. This time the keys are pressed a little more gently. But the music still carries all the weight of his emotion with it as he meets my eyes across the street and holds them as I cross to him.
I come to a stop beside the piano, my eyes roaming over it. In the natural daylight, it looks even older and battered than in the basement. But out here it seems to play better. Sound different.
“I had it tuned yesterday while you were at Molly’s party,” Sullivan says, studying my face.
“You told me it wasn’t you,” I say.
The sheer passion in his eyes is spellbinding as he plays effortlessly, like he always does. Like the music is a part of him, the notes ingrained into his very essence.
Part of me fell in love with a man through his music that night in Grand Central Station. Something that had never happened before, despite all the other times I had heard The Masked Maestro play.
