He sits up, pivoting to put his feet on the floor with me on his lap. “Upon one condition, my little brat.” Combing a hand into the back of my hair, he pulls my head close and says into my ear, “I am not… wearing… this outfit.”
“Fine, you win.” I jump up and push his open shirt off his shoulders—holy fuck, this guy has a great chest—and coax him to his feet so I can undo the pink doughnut pants. Underneath he’s wearing fancy boxer briefs that are cut great and sayFLEUR DU MALon the waistband. Kicking aside the silly trousers, he takes my hand and walks to the piano, then lifts me by the waist and sets me on it.
“I feel like a torch singer.” I recline on my elbows and swing my hair melodramatically. “Come on and cryyyyyyyy me a river…” I belt out.
Alexander drops his big, pretty hands to the piano and does one of those arpeggio things up and down the keyboard. His fingers glide, dancing over each other, smooth and effortless.
My eyebrows jump. “Damn, you actually know what you’re doing!”
“In this, at least. Hmm, what shall I play?” His lips scrunch to one side in thought. “Ah! That night in Bahrain you said… what was it? That jazz ‘sounds like Linus is explaining the meaning of Christmas to Charlie Brown’?”
With that, he launches into—oh my God, are you kidding me?—that Charlie Brown Christmas song, the thing they all dance to. My mouth drops open and I lean with both hands gripping the edge of the piano, watching his fingers leap over the keys like it’s nothing. He’s a combination of totally relaxed and alert. His eyes are soft, almost reverent, but fully engaged, like he’s reminiscing with an old friend.
The lamplight glimmers on his freckled shoulders, and for possibly the first time in my life I have the feeling of seeingall of someone, in a way that sex and even racing has never done. Maybe it’s because in this moment he seems more unguarded than he’s ever been around me, or maybe it’s just because watching a man do something well is hot as shit. But it’s wrecking me.
He’slet me in, and more than anything in the world I want to stay here.
This is the exact moment I fall for the guy.
For the next few minutes, I’m a thing I rarely am—speechless. Even though it’s a bouncy, happy tune, I feel misty, like the first time I heard Leonard Cohen’s “One of Us Cannot Be Wrong,” or Bruce Springsteen’s “The River.”
When Alexander comes to the end, he reaches up and taps the tip of my nose affectionately. I must look blown away, because his brows crumple in a self-conscious way, and he asks, “Is that adequate?”
“Wow.” I shake my head. “Just… thank you.”
He drops his head and his fingers trill out a scrap of melody. His hidden smile is boyish. “You’re quite welcome.”
“Play something sad.”
He looks up, surprised. “Has a song ever made you cry?”
“Psh!Of course not,” I lie. “I’m fuckin’ nails.”
“So you tell everyone.” He plinks out a grumpy-sounding collection of notes at the very bottom of the piano’s keyboard, lifting a skeptical eyebrow at me. “I, for one, don’t buy it.”
“Oh, aren’t you just the smartest boy in the room,” I deadpan.
“I’m theonlyboy in the room.”
“My point exactly.”
For long seconds, we watch each other. He breaks eye contact first, and there’s a struggle in me, because I’m glad I won the staredown, but… I kinda wish I hadn’t? Maybe if I’d looked away first, it would’ve given him a clue to what I’m feeling, without my having to say it.
In a race, it’s one thing tolosean advantage to an opponent, and another thing to surrender it voluntarily.
Without preface, he starts a slow song. It’s hesitant andmelancholy, then picks up pace into a twinkle of notes that sound optimistic before they slow down again and get all angsty. I sit with the rise and fall of the melody—it seems to exist outside of time.
Too soon, it’s over. He peeks at me.
“That’s beautiful,” I almost whisper. “Itissad, but also kind of, uh, hopeful.”
A hint of pain flits across his expression, then he gives me an easy smile. “Well. We live in hope, don’t we?”
There are so many questions I want to ask, but I can’t let myself. I sit up, fiddling with a coil of my hair, flicking it with a fingertip.
“What song was that?” I ask, casual.
“It’s called ‘River Flows in You.’” He takes a slow breath, then clears his throat lightly. “I played it a lot after I left Sakhir. Because… it sounds like sorrow and hope.”
