My heart does a happy little dance without my permission.
Something jumps in his glassy eyes, as if he actually saw the dance somehow and is stunned by it.
Uh, what just happened?
“Why do you think he’s a sellout?” he asks, voice softer.
His question throws me so far off, I forget the alcohol swab in my hand. “Did you seriously come all the way out here to Spruce just to have the last word about that guy?”
He drops his hands to the table and leans in. “If you gave him a chance, maybe you wouldn’t think he’s a sellout.”
“I don’tknowhim well enough to think he’s a—Hey.” I take his hand—the one still holding the gauze pad that he just lowered—and lift it right back up to his wound. “I said applypressure.”
And now I’m holding his hand.
And he’s looking at me while I’m looking at him. Again.
With our hands touching.
I retract my hand at once—how dare I—and return all of my attention to preparing the alcohol swab. “I … listened to a song of his … actually. The other night. Couldn’t sleep. It was raining.”
He squints. “Which song?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t get the name. Something about paths.”
“‘Easy Path to My Heart’,” he recites at once.
I wouldn’t expect less from a diehard. “It was …” I hear the rich, beautiful voice of Chase, and how those chords dug into me and had me masturbating with such overflowing yearning I nearly nutted in the bed. “… alright.”
“Just alright?”
“It was good.”
“Good?” He points at the ice cream bin with sharp, accusatory vigor. “Ice cream isgood. A walk through the park isgood. Music?” He chuckles with manic disbelief. “Music … should never begood. Music issoul-saving. Music finds homes in the pores of your bones and … and breathes with every second of your life, with every beat of your heart. Music … isvital.”
Again, I forget what I’m doing, captivated by his words.
And the bright intensity in his eyes right now.
The guy has a handsome face, I’ll give him that. He looks way different in the light than he did in that dim, musty hallway. More charming. Sensitive. Alive. Perhaps it’s because we’re engaging in an actual exchange of words. I’m listening to him. Feeling him. I’m not monologuing my terrible, horrible day to a stranger.
It’s actually unsettling, how fast he’s becoming someone I feel like I know.
Becomingnota stranger.
When his jaw tightens and his eyebrows pinch together with conviction as he talks music to me, it works all sorts of miracles across his face, making him look both strong and masculine, yet shattered apart and cute, somewhere between a boy throwing a tantrum and a man valiantly defending his lover.
I can’t really say anything to that, so I just clear my throat and nod at his hand. He seems to follow, lowering the gauze, and then I gently clean around the gash. He flinches only once. I stop. “Am I too rough? Should I be gentler?”
He studies me for a second. Then almost sweetly he says, “It’s perfect.”
I resume cleaning, gentler despite his assurances.
He doesn’t wince anymore. He just gazes upon me like I’m a different person suddenly. Pouring his dazzling, curious eyes into my own. It’s relentless, how he stares. Incessant. Necessary.
I wish he wouldn’t do that.
After a bit of dabbing—I probably could stop already but can’t seem to, enjoying the human contact, perhaps still dazed, or very likely losing my mind—I find myself softening up. “I didn’t mean to … offend you the other night. With all of that nonsense about sellouts and love songs. I don’t remember half of what I said. It was a bad night. I had no business being there.”