I stood rooted to the spot as Charlie said her goodbyes at the door, and when Reese rounded back into the room, he stopped at the door frame, leaning against it with his hands sliding into the pockets of his slacks. His eyes searched mine, but he didn’t say a word.
“That was her, wasn’t it?”
The only indication that he’d heard me was the slight bob of his Adam’s apple, and the barely visible crease between his brows.
My heart broke staring at him in that moment, seeing the pain that still crippled him when she was near.
“You work with her?” I asked after a long pause. “You see her every day, and you talk to each other… and… are you friends?”
Reese blew out a long breath, pushing off from the wall and crossing to where I stood. At first, I thought he was going to run right into me, blow me over like a stick in the wind, but he swept past, sitting at the piano behind where I stood.
“It’s complicated,” he said, hands already floating over the keys. It was like he needed to touch the piano in that moment, to let his hands do something familiar and comfortable now that he’d been shaken by Charlie’s unannounced visit.
“I’d say.”
I took a seat next to him, listening as he played, watching his face and wondering what the hell was going on in that dark, guarded mind of his.
“We were friends as kids, but there was always something more… we both knew it,” he said, eyes on his hands. “When I left for New York, for Juilliard, she asked me to kiss her. And I didn’t.” He swallowed, like that was the biggest mistake of his life. “And when I came back, she was married.”
He shook his head, hands picking up speed where they played.
“She wasn’t happy, not when I first came back. I hated it, hated seeing her so miserable, seeing her husband so unaffected by her visible pain. But, of course, once I showed up? Her husband woke up. He fought for her,” Reese said, hands pausing over the keys. They kicked back to life with his next words. “And he won.”
I swallowed, watching his fingers flick over the keys, bringing a familiar melody to life. It was the one he’d played the first night I’d met him at The Kinky Starfish.
What had he said it was called again? The Darkest Dawn?
“But,” Reese continued after a moment. “I’m still close with her entire family. Her parents are like the only family I still have, if I’m being honest.”
My eyes floated up to the one and only framed photo in the room we sat in, the family that stared back at Reese as he played. The man in the photo looked like Reese in ten years, and the woman standing next to him shared Reese’s smile. The girl in the photo, the one standing next to Reese, had his eyes.
And though I didn’t have details, I now had confirmation of what I’d always wondered.
They were gone.
His family was gone, just like my father.
“And yes,” he said, still playing that soft, sad melody. “We work together. So, I see her a lot. I see them all a lot.”
“All?”
He nodded, a sickening expression sweeping over his face. “Her. Her parents. Her husband,” he explained, pausing again before he dropped another bomb. “Her kids.”
“Kids?”
At that, he stopped playing, running his hands back through his hair with a huff. “Alright, that’s enough for today. We can pick up on this next week.”
Reese stood without another word and blew out of the room, leaving me alone on the bench. My eyes scanned the photo of the family on top of the piano, and I took a steadying breath before standing to follow.
He was in the kitchen, downing a glass of cold water as I slid onto one of the barstools. He wouldn’t meet my gaze, just stared at his hands splayed on the granite between us, and I knew in that moment he felt ashamed. Something told me he didn’t open up like this to anyone, that maybe I was the first one he’d talked to about Charlie.
And I heard him in my head, asking me to be vulnerable, to sit down at his piano and bleed.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to if I didn’t start opening up, too.
“I’ve never been in love,” I whispered.
Reese looked at me then, the crease between his brows softening. “Never?”
I shook my head.
He stared at me for a long moment, like he wasn’t sure what to say. But the longer he looked, the more his shoulders relaxed. I hoped the change in subject was a welcome relief.
“I honestly find that incredibly hard to believe,” he said, standing straighter as he watched me.
I wrapped my hand around the crystal hanging from my neck with a shrug. “Yeah, well, the piano was the only boyfriend I ever really had time for. I prioritized it over everything, including any social outing that might have somehow landed me in a romantic relationship. The only boyfriends I ever had were the dukes and kings and princes in my favorite books.”
Reese smirked. “That’s what makes you different, you know that right?”
“What, the fact that I tanked my social life so I could focus on piano? And still do?”
“Exactly that. I mean, look at me. I have the talent. I was born with it, as unfair as that is. It just always came naturally to me. And I love playing, I think that’s obvious.” He shrugged. “But, I wouldn’t make the sacrifices to get anywhere with it. There’s a reason I have my masters from Juilliard and I’m a teacher at a prep school in Pennsylvania, playing at The Kinky Starfish for extra cash.”
“You didn’t want it,” I assessed.
And he agreed. “I didn’t want it. Not bad enough to do what it takes, anyway. For me, just being able to play piano and make enough to pay my bills has always been enough. Past that?” He shook his head. “I didn’t have the drive you do. And that’s what makes you different. It’s what will make you successful.”
I smiled, crossing my arms over my chest as my eyes fell to the granite, a blush spreading on my cheeks. “Thank you.”
It was strange, hearing such a genuine compliment from my teacher. The first few teachers I worked with were harsh, showing their love in the way they yelled at me or demanded more from my playing. And I accepted that, because I just assumed that’s how it worked. The same was true when I went to Bramlock, when I started working with the professor who would ultimately drive me to injury.
I swallowed, his face clear in my mind as that box I’d shoved him in creaked open.
“So,” Reese said, pulling me back to the moment. “Is that why you said no to Danny when he asked you out?”
My chest tightened, thoughts still caught back on a warm night in December in north Florida. I shook them away, clamping my figurative hands on the lid of the box threatening to open and spill out all over the counter between us. I considered for the briefest moment being honest in my response to Reese’s question about Danny, considered telling him the truth. But I didn’t know where to even start. I didn’t know how to tell Reese — or anyone — what had happened to me.
And there was no point in telling anyone, anyway.
I’d learned that lesson.
“I can’t really say yes to anyone right now,” I said, voice soft and low. “Right now, it’s just about the piano for me.”