“So what were you listening to?” His brow quirks, genuinely interested.
I open up the Spotify app on my desktop, make sure it’s connected to the speakers set around my office and that the volume isn’t at a level that will make it out to the neighboring workspaces, lock eyes with him for an instant read on his response, and resume playing my no-fail jam list.
His head nods to one side, eyebrow quirked; an admission, a concession, game recognizing game. Not an instant rejection of the classics that came before his time. Not a scathing remark about my lack of taste, or how his generation did it better. Respect for an art form, even if it’s not his preferred one. And somehow that one display of his maturity, the realization that gave me, just placed him that much higher in my personal estimation, in the standings within my mind.
“I can see it,” he says in that smoothly textured tone of his.
“Tell me you wouldn’t bust a move to this right here!” I bounce around on the playlist, hit thenext trackbutton a few times and let him hear some of these gems as I lean back in my chair, soaking in his reaction.
Marketing may be where my head is at during ninety-five percent of my waking moments, but music is where my heart is at during all of them.
He shakes his head, his tongue back on that tooth again. “I can’t believe you actually just saidbust a move. Are we in an eighties movie right now?”
I throw my head back with a longing groan. “God, I wish!”
“Sixteen Candles,Pretty in PinkorBreakfast Club?” That brow is raised again, that curiosity overtaking his features once more. I don’t know why, but the feeling of a guillotine hovering over my neck prickles my senses.
My entire face showcases my suspicion before I answer. These movies are from beforeIwas even born. “Princess Bride, obviously.”
“Touché.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a closet John Cusack stan?”
“Molly Ringwald,” he tosses out with a wink.
“Touché yourself.”
“Okay, so eighties and pop classics aside, what else do you listen to?”
“I’ll fuck with some eighties hits, but you wouldn’t catch me playing Lil Jon or Britney Spears if I was DJing a get together.”
I splay my hands out and shimmy my head as I say, “What kind of bops would you throw up?”
Pretty sure I sound like a grandmother trying to sound cool enough to a seventh grader to get them to tell her who their crush is, but I roll with it. Are the kids still sayingbops? I should ask Christina. Despite the fact she’s a couple years older than me, she’s always acted younger andwaycooler. Plus she’s got kids, and she tends to get a lot of younger people in her chair, which keeps her fresh.
He rolls his eyes good-naturedly and leans over my desk. “Mind if I…?” He gestures at my iMac.
I pull my hands back and raise my eyebrows in acquiescence. “Have at it.”
His lean body invades my space, though I try to back away, and his clean scent overtakes my senses. Something sharp, like citrus. Something warm, entirely manly. It’s not something I usually notice on a person, whether I just don’t usually get close enough for me to smell their person, or perhaps what usually only strikes me is if something isoff, like sometimes in bed, if I get too close to David after a long day, sometimes there’s this note in his scent that almost repulses me. Can’t pinpoint what it is, but I try not to sniff people as a habit to be safe. Like the rest of my essential makeup (true to my Cancer self), my nose is rather sensitive.
Asher clicks and taps away on the keyboard, just for a couple of seconds, and then an intoxicating beat fills the confines of my office. It’s heady, with lo-fi elements overlapping atop the pulsing rhythm. Then the vocals begin. If we can call them that.
I can keep an open mind. Not jump to conclusions.
It’s different.
It’s not what I’m used to.
It’s…
Awful.
Discordant.
Incongruous.
How does helikethis?
