“Shit.”
I dropped my hands and my head whirled at the deep, muttered curse, finding Graham standing beside the stage.
Yeah. Shit. I would have preferred Dad over Graham.
“What?” I barked, drying my face with angry swipes. I should have saved the crying for my bedroom tonight so no one would have caught me unaware.
“Forgot my keys.” He pointed to the music desk, where sure enough a bundle of silver and brass keys rested.
Graham stepped on stage, swiped them off the ledge and turned. The movement sent another wave of his soap and spicy scent wafting my way.
That fucking soap. Was he trying to torture me? He must have showered before coming here because the smell was fresh. In all these years, he hadn’t changed his brand of soap, and the onslaught of memories that came with it were excruciating.
Him, sitting in his truck to drive me to school each morning. Him, standing beside my locker before second period, waiting to walk me to class. Him, coming over after football practice to study.
Graham still smelled like that boy I’d loved.
But the boy, the love, was gone.
He stepped off the stage and I held my breath, wanting him to disappear and leave me to my misery, but he paused. His shoulders twisted. He looked back. “Are you okay?”
I opened my mouth to lie, but the truth escaped. “No.”
He stood there, his body conveying his conflict, and debated whether I was worth another moment. His feet were aimed toward the door, but his shoulders were poised to stay.
Before we’d broken up, Graham would have never let me cry alone.
The sigh he let slip free sounded a lot like son of a bitch. Maybe it was history that made him stay, maybe it was obligation to a friend of his family’s, but his feet lost the battle and he came up on stage, sitting down on the bench at my side.
His arm grazed mine and our thighs touched, but neither of us spoke.
The gesture was enough.
The air in the room swirled from the vents and a soft hum drifted over our heads. Whoever had played during Sunday’s service had left a booklet of sheet music behind, and I kept my eyes fixed on the black and white.
What was there to say? It was much too late for I’m sorry. The awkwardness between us was crushing. Talking to Graham used to be so natural. We’d always been able to trust each other. To open up and share our fears and truths.
Before.
I was seconds away from making a lame excuse and bolting when my phone rang. I grabbed it off the piano and saw Nixon’s face on the screen. The photo was ages old, from one of our first tours. His face had changed since then. Since he’d discovered rock stars didn’t have a hard time getting booze or drugs or women.
“Your bandmate?” Graham gritted out the last word, his lip curled in disgust.
I silenced the call and shot him a scowl. Graham didn’t get to be rude about Nix or Jonas. “My best friend.”
Graham stiffened, maybe because that title had once belonged to him.
My phone dinged with a voicemail moments later. Knowing Nixon, it was some sort of song meant to cheer me up. Probably a dorky jingle he’d have made up on the spot. The words would rhyme and be epically cheesy.
Curiosity won out. I needed a laugh, that and the tension between Graham and me was nearly unbearable, so I opened my phone and went to the voicemail, hitting play.
Quinn, Quinn, Quinn.
Quinn, Quinn, Quinn.
I’m in Ha-wa-ii.
It’s warm outside, the beach is hot.
But not as hot as me. Hey!
Quinn, Quinn, Quinn.
Quinn, Quinn, Quinn.
Quinn Montgomery.
I’m making bad decisions. Call me back.
Then you can lecture me. Hey!
“Jingle Bells.” That bastard knew it would be stuck in my head for the rest of the day.
I giggled. “He leaves messages like that to cheer me up.”
Graham grunted, unimpressed.
Why was he still sitting here? Clearly, this wasn’t comfortable for him—for both of us. So why not leave?
He seemed to hate it when I spoke so maybe if I continued talking, it would chase him away, and he could go hate me somewhere else.
“There was one time when I was sick with the flu and I was sure that I was dying, Nixon left me a two-minute voicemail set to ‘Silent Night.’” I still had it saved on my phone. “He always picks Christmas carols for his jingles.”
“You and Nan loved your carols,” Graham said quietly, his fingers skimming over the piano keys.
“Yeah.” Nan would have loved Nixon’s messages. Like me, she would have voted in favor of any politician who would have campaigned for year-round Christmas carols.
“Does, uh, Nixon”—Graham swallowed hard at the name—“write songs for your band? Because that was . . .”
“Awful?” I laughed. “No. Sometimes he’ll contribute a line or two, but mostly Jonas writes the lyrics. Nix and I write the music.”
Graham kept his eyes forward, his frame relaxing from its rigid posture. His fingers kept trailing across the keys. Up and down. Left and right.
He had great hands. His fingers were long and his palms wide. Those hands, a man’s hands, would drive a woman wild. If it was my skin he were tracing, not the keys, I’d—
Whoa. Don’t go there. Opening the mental door to Graham, or sex with Graham, would be spectacularly reckless.
“Do you still play on Sundays?” I asked to get my mind off those hands.
“Twice a month.”
Nan had made it her mission to keep me apprised of everyone’s life here in Bozeman. She’d give me regular updates on Walker, since I only spoke to my brother every three or four months. She’d make sure I knew how Brooklyn was doing, since my sister and I rarely talked. And Nan would tell me about Mom, Dad and each of her great-grandchildren.
But the one person Nan had seldom spoken about was Graham.
She’d told me about his son, and I think she must have felt my heart break through the phone that day. Updates afterward had been purely coincidental, like when she’d told me how Walker and Graham had started a business together. Nan had been so proud of them both.
Had Graham turned a blind eye to my life, like I’d turned a deaf ear to his?
It was odd not to know him. It was hard to realize that Graham was now a stranger.
Nine years was a long time to forget someone, except I hadn’t really forgotten Graham. I remembered every word of our fight. I remembered how it had crushed me when he’d taken my father’s side. I remembered the devastation on his face when he’d dropped me at the airport and I walked away.
I had to walk away.
At eighteen, I’d known without a shred of doubt that if I didn’t get out of Bozeman, I’d stay forever. I’d stay to be smothered and miserable. A part of my soul would have died here, in this very room, with Graham at my side and my family smiling on.
I refused to apologize for chasing my dreams.
How I’d left, how I’d ended us, hadn’t been right, but I’d had to walk away.
“How did you meet?” Graham’s question caught me off guard and my gaze swung to his profile.
He had such a straight nose and long, sooty eyelashes. How many times had I traced that nose with my fingertip? How many times had I ran the pad of my thumb over those lashes? The beard on his face changed so much of his appearance, but so many features were the same. Graham’s golden eyes shifted my way, reminding me that he’d asked a question.