Page 64 of This is a Kissing Book

“Um, I can’t take that right now.”

“Why?” She clutches it like a pillow, like she doesn’t intend to hand it over.

My lips quirk. “Because I have a birthday song to play for you.”

She looks up at me, surprised by the intensity in my voice.

“Hang onto that. You’ll need it.” Not ready for tonight to end, I hold out my hand, changing direction.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

She slides her soft palm against mine. Our fingers twine together and the contact sends electricity shooting up my arm.

She looks at our hands for a moment before moving. “We’re holding hands purely for security purposes, right? I can’t have someone try to kidnap me at this hour.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” I say around a laugh.

We walk a few blocks to a small jazz club my buddies and I used to go to in high school—the kind of place that stayed open late and didn’t ask too many questions about how many times a patron had traveled around the sun.

The bartender is on his phone as we enter. The place is nearly empty, just a couple in a dark corner nursing drinks and one guy at the bar.

Assuming no one will mind a little entertainment, I sidle up to the piano and take a seat.

Warm lights shine overhead. My hands are suddenly nervous as I settle onto the bench and gesture for Jules to sit beside me.

“I should probably mention I’m not exactly Carnegie Hall material,” I say, positioning my fingers over the keys.

“The extent of my musical ability is ‘Chopsticks.’”

I chuckle and then start with something simple, warming up and letting my muscle memory take over. It was built during the many years of lessons and my mother’s skills as a professional pianist, a soloist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and at our church. I tell Jules this as a new melody flows from my fingertips, soft and sweet and entirely for her.

Her jaw lowers slightly as her gaze swings from me to my hands and back again. So things don’t get too serious, I change to the birthday song. Despite what she said about not celebrating her birthday, she can’t suppress her smile.

“Okay, time for presents,” I say, and then change tunes. I begin to sing the first things that come to mind, my voice rough around the edges but carrying the words I’ve been trying to find since we almost-kissed. Maybe even since we first met.

I sing, “She walks into the office like the summer sun, illuminating everyone. She makes me forget my name, only to remind me to live again.”

It’s not polished. It’s not perfect. But it’s real, and it’s hers, and when I glance over, she beams.

“Jules with the pencil in her hair, Jules who makes me stop and stare, didn’t imagine we’d spend this time, wishing she could be⁠—”

Mine, oh, mine.

It’s not quite a rhyme, but it works and I’m afraid it’s true.

The last words trail away. The final note fades. Silence stretches between us like a question.

“You wrote that,” she whispers. “Just now. For me.”

“Now,” I say, echoing the question I’ve asked twice tonight, but as a declarative statement. “Happy birthday, Buttercup.”

I play a variation of the song that’s popular at kids’ birthday parties just to keep things light, so I don’t ask another question. Why were the words that came out so natural? The words about making this woman mine?

She’s quiet for so long, I start to worry I’ve completely misread the situation. Then she leans over and kisses me on the cheek. It’s soft and sweet.

She rests her head on my shoulder and says, “Will you play it again?”