Long Ball(50)

He shakes his head. “You’re cute.” He’s looking at me like he wants to devour me.

“I’m not interested.”

He leans in, so close that I can breathe in his musky scent and it sends me spinning. “Aren’t you?”

I can’t answer. My mouth has gone dry and, even if I could find the words, I wouldn’t be able to get them out. Because I can’t refute him. I am interested. No matter how much I don’t want to be.

Dylan stays close, his breath hot on my neck. “Do you know what I’m into?”

“Uh…” I know what I want him to say. It terrifies me.

But he surprises me, sitting up, away from me.

“Rock. That’s what I’m into. It’s raw and real.”

I laugh, half out of nervousness and half at his statement. “No, really?”

“That obvious?”

“You’ve definitely got the whole rocker-vibe going on.” To put it mildly. His vibe screams “danger”, but it won’t let me run.

Dylan stretches his arms along the top of the booth, drawing my gaze toward his sleek muscles, the mysterious inkings. “Something wrong with that?”

I’m not sure if he means his look or his choice in music. Either way, the question flusters me and I can’t answer.

A wicked grin lights his eyes up, and he digs into his pocket for an MP3 player and a set of small, white earbuds. “Promise you’ll listen all the way through one song.”

It’s that commanding voice again, and I can’t refuse. “Okay.”

He gently tucks the buds into my ears, tingles spreading up my spine when his fingers softly tracing the delicate cartilage, and the din of the bar fades. Noise-cancelling headphones.

“Turn it up,” I say, aware that the quiet in my ears might mean I’m the one that’s too loud.

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to ruin those classically trained instruments.” But he’s smiling as he increases the volume.

I give him a thumbs up as the music begins, bold chromatic strikes in an ostinato, almost discordant, but…interesting. A bit percussion-heavy, but it drives along nicely. I adjust the buds and close my eyes to better feel the notes. By the time the singer starts, my fingers are itching for my cello to join in.

The singer’s voice is familiar, dreamy and scratchy, but his name eludes me. Brass cuts in then things change, zig zags of harmonies and oohs and a voice stalled by emotion, like everything was caught up in the singer’s mood and he sings of waste. Maybe not waste, but heat, and sand, and a dreamy emptiness. An unfamiliarity.

I drift between loving and hating his voice. It pierces and seduces and rasps and is too sharp. It doesn’t know what it wants to be, but beneath that is the same beat, same pulse driving us along in the journey together. I can’t decide if it would be better with more singing or less, but when the song begins fading, I strain to hear more, to stay in the moment. I open my eyes. “It was good.” Amazing, actually. I remove the earbuds and hand them back to him. “Who was it?”

“You really don’t know it?” He eyes me sceptically.

“I really don’t know.”

He grins and shakes his head, winding the cord around the device after powering it off. “It’s like you grew up under a musical rock, starved in contemporary and only fed the classics.”

“Are these guys new and huge?”

He drags his fingers through his hair. “Well. Yeah. Fresher than Beethoven, anyway.”

I shrug, not feeling one bit deprived because of my musical tastes. “I love what I love.” Okay, that’s a lie. Because if my musical tastes have been what have kept me from intelligent debates with hot tattooed men, then I do feel deprived. Very deprived.

“That band is on the top of the charts. And there’s no cellos on any of those tracks.”

“There could be, though.” I’d even heard a counter-melody as I’d listened. It would be easy to throw in the line. “And that band—” he still hasn’t told me their name, “would never be able to mesh with my symphony.”

He takes a sip of beer. “And your point is?” He smirks. Somehow even sexier when he’s smug.

I lean closer so I don’t have to yell over the music that’s gotten louder with something auto-tuned and lifeless. “Real music is the stuff I play.”

Dylan’s expression loses all humor, and he turns his face toward to mine. Is he going to kiss me? I lick my lips, unable to exhale at the need that slams through me.

He swerves at the last second, bringing his mouth to my ear instead. “Real music is the stuff that makes you feel, Rachel. It transcends genre, musician, time, place, everything.” His words tickle my neck.

“Mmm.” I close my eyes, savoring his closeness and his words because they’re true. “The way a melody sweeps you away and you’re powerless to stop it.”

He grazes my neck with his lips and his next words come out in a deeper voice. “But you wouldn’t even if you could because it feels so damn perfect.”

My heart thunders in my chest. “How it builds and builds inside you.”

“Taking you higher, faster.”

“And then it bursts and floods you with everything.” Opening my eyes, I squeeze his hand, not knowing when I took it again. Maybe it’s the wine. Maybe it’s how far he is from my usual type, but I need to experience this kind of man once in my life. Alex is right.