I think I jump about a foot off the piano bench. Thankfully, the people who had been listening to me play are nowhere to be seen.
I give Fallon an admonishing glower for scaring me. “You need a bell.”
He looks fantastic in a dark-blue shirt and charcoal-gray pleated trousers. The colors set off the light blue of his eyes, making them appear to smolder under the lights. With age, Fallon has gotten better looking, if that is even possible. He still has his cocky head tilt and his sexy smirk that can be infuriating at times. His hair is still the same dark blond, but it’s cut shorter—more businesslike, I guess. Physically, his chest is broader, and he’s put on more muscle. It looks good on him.
I, on the other hand, am a mother of three and therefore have a mom’s body, faded stretch marks and all. My hips are fuller, which also means that my ass is rounder. I’m no longer the bean pole of my youth. After having Christopher, my boobs never went back to my normal B-cup size and stayed as C-cups. Ryder didn’t mind one bit. Luckily, I’ve kept in shape as I still go running with Julien and Elijah several mornings a week, or I’ll take long walks through the woods that surround our property.
Fallon takes a seat on the bench beside me. He also smells fantastic. I’m a sucker for men’s cologne. Every night before bed, I spritz Ryder’s Yves Saint Laurent on my pillowcases.
Fallon tinkles out a two-note vibrato. “Heard the music and knew it was you.”
I check the time on my Bulova strapped around my wrist. “You’re early.”
“Thought we could grab drinks before dinner.”
That reminds me. “Thank you for the latte.”
Fallon gets up, and with me still sitting on it, he turns the bench perpendicular to the Steingraeber and takes a seat behind me.
“What are you doing?”
I stiffen, more rigid than a plank of wood, when he circles his arms around my waist, the heat of his body against my back unsettling, but not in the way I expect.
“Getting a lesson.”
He rests his hands lightly on the keys and patiently waits for me to place mine on top of his.
This was how my dad first taught me to play the piano and is something I did with Fallon once upon a time when we sat at his sister Tati’s Steinway in Barcelona. My epic “Finding Elizabeth” trip around the world.
Slipping my hands over his feels somehow monumental, like a hurdle I didn’t realize I needed to jump. The only people I have let touch me the last three years are my children. I won’t even allow Julien to hug me anymore. Any kind of physical touch or intimacy makes my skin crawl, so it’s profoundly confusing when Fallon’s doesn’t.
“I’m a little rusty at this,” I tell him as I gently press on his fingers.
He drops his chin onto my shoulder, his breath warm on my cheek, and tingles explode like dry kindling in a wildfire.
“Is this the song you wrote me?” he asks, and I smile because I was waiting for him to recognize the melody. Another great memory from our trip together.
“Yes.”
Suddenly, Fallon takes over, his hands flying across the piano keys too fast for me to keep up.
“You learned how to play?”
He shows off, making syncopation look easy. “Self-taught. YouTube is a wonderful thing.”
I eagerly join in, our hands fighting for keys as we play a massacred version of Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” that has me laughing hysterically.
Fallon’s arms suddenly band around me, tenderly hugging me to his chest. My instinct is to pull away from the comfort I find in his embrace, but god help me, I can’t do it.
“I missed the fuck out of you, Kitten.”
My emotions tangle themselves into knots, a cacophony of twisted, chaotic strings. Fallon’s innocent touch rouses something deep inside me from its long slumber—a spark I haven’t felt in a long time because it’s been buried under grief and heartache. I’ve spent years constructing impenetrable walls to protect the broken pieces of my heart, but the steel-reinforced defenses I built around it crack wide open, sending forth a flood of confusion, guilt, and longing. Fallon is like sunlight seeping through the gaps in a storm-weathered house, and it terrifies me because he’s something I never saw coming.
I grab hold of his wrists, my fingers digging in, clutching tightly. I’ve missed him, too. I didn’t know how much until he showed up this morning.
“So, about those drinks,” I say, slipping out of his arms.
When I stand from the bench, my legs are unsteady, and I brace a hand on the rim of the piano.
