“Tell me about your dad.”
“What? Why?”
“The piano,” is all he says.
“Oh.” I release my breath in a long stream, fiddling with the strap on my purse. “Well, what do you want to know?”
“What was he like? What happened?”
I lift a shoulder. “He was… he was great. He was the best cook—my mom’s hopeless. He used to take us to basketball games when we were kids. He was convinced Cory would be in the NBA because he was so tall at such a young age.”
Myles makes a face. “I can’t picture Cory in the NBA.”
“I know, right?”
“What else?”
I pause, thinking about Dad again. “He loved the piano. I thought it was amazing, the way he could play. It was like magic, making that music with just his fingers. That song you were playing—that’s one of my favorites. It totally took me back to one afternoon at home when I was lying on the floor, watching him play.” I think again of Myles playing the piano just like Dad tonight, and sigh. Dad might have been a brilliant pianist, but he was also the first man to break my heart. “He was gone a few weeks later,” I add quietly, letting my gaze float over Myles’s shoulder and out to Seventh Avenue.
“Gone?”
“Yep. I didn’t know why at the time, but later Mom explained that he left because he wasn’t happy.”
He doesn’t want us anymore, Catherine.
I hear Mom’s words in my ear, clear as day, and they make me shudder. “I’ll never understand. It was like he just stopped loving us—like he cared about himself more than us. What kind of man just walks out on his family like that?”
Myles glances down at his hands, saying nothing for a moment. When he finally looks at me, his eyes are sad. “That’s… shit, that’s awful.”
I nod slowly, twisting the strap of my purse in my hands.
“Between Mark and your dad… I can understand why you don’t trust men.”
“Thanks, Freud.” I cut him a look. “And it’s not like I don’t trust all men, I’m just… careful.” But when I think about my broken inner compass, I realize I don’t even knowhowto be careful anymore. I don’t know which way is up.
I turn in my seat to face Myles, and when I see the pensive expression on his face, I nudge him playfully, trying to lighten the mood. “Hey. I trust you, don’t I?”
“Do you?”
“How else could you have gotten me to go out in this crazy outfit?”
A grin plays on his mouth. “You call it crazy. I call it something else.”
Fucking sexy, he called it. I remember, and I’m hot all over just thinking about it. It must be showing on my face, because he sinks his teeth into his lip as he stares at me, lust smoldering in his eyes.
God.
I make myself look away before I lunge at him across the backseat, forcing myself to watch the scenery. By the time we pull up outside my building I’m feeling more relaxed, and I pause as I reach for the door handle. After everything Myles has done for me tonight, I want to give him something to say thank you. Something I’ve been working on.
“Would you come in for a minute? I want to show you something.”
His eyebrows shoot up. He makes no attempt to hide the suggestive smile on his lips and I shove him.
“Notthat.”
He follows me out of the car with a chuckle, stopping on the sidewalk to look up at my building. “Nice place.”
“Thanks.” I tilt my head to look at the redbrick building too. “Mark and I lived here, then I got it in the divorce. But sometimes I think I’d like to move. I prefer it over in the East Village.” I lead him up the front steps and inside, dropping my purse and kicking off my too-big shoes.
