Player(5)

I groaned again at the memory. “Don’t remind me. Or the time I was joking around with the French horns and laid a full-force high note right in his face.”

“Well, it’s only fair you busted his eardrums after what he did to your retinas,” Rin said.

I couldn’t even laugh. “Honestly, there’s no way a guy like him would ever consider a girl like me. He dates skinny little size two models.”

“You don’t know that,” Katherine added.

“I mean, why wouldn’t he?” I asked honestly. “A guy like him could have anybody he wants. And I mean that. Single, married, straight, gay, man, woman. I’m convinced there’s not a single human on the planet who would turn him down.”

“No one is that good-looking,” Katherine said.

I shook my head as I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and opened my photo app. “Fine. You don’t believe me? Here.” I shoved my phone at her.

She put down her needles and took it, leaning in, squinting her eyes. “It’s kind of blurry. Is that your music stand in the way?”

I snatched my phone back. “Well, I was trying to be covert.”

“Does he have Instagram?” Amelia asked.

I worried at my bottom lip. “I’ve never looked.”

Katherine snatched my phone back again. “Well, why not?” She opened up the social app and clicked on the search.

“Because I’m afraid if I watch his life, it’ll make the obsession worse. It’s bad enough that I have to see him every day and know I can never, ever have him. If I start following him, I’ll feel like I know him. It’s better for everyone this way.”

“Fine, you don’t have to look, but I’m going to. What’s his last name?”

My nose wrinkled up. “I don’t want to say.”

Katherine rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, Val. Don’t be a baby. If you really want me to believe he’s that gorgeous, I need proof. Now spill it—what is his last name?”

“Haddad.” The word was almost a sigh.

Her fingers flew as she typed, and I leaned over to look. Rin and Amelia hurried to the back of the couch to look over our shoulders.

I thought I was prepared for photos of him. I mean, how could a photo be more disarming than the real-life version?

Answer: a million ways to Sunday.

His feed was a grid of images that did something unexpectedly intense to my insides, a hot stirring that twisted in my chest and slithered all the way down to low, low in my stomach. There wasn’t a single photo that wasn’t utterly perfect. Sam jamming with his friends. A top-down shot of a frying pan of eggs and bacon that displayed his shirtless abs in the process. A shot of his fingers brushing the ivory keys of a piano. Sam reading a book—a book—a big, fat hardback. Shirtless Sam sipping his coffee. Sam lying in his bed, looking into the camera like he was gazing across the pillow at me.

Katherine drew an audible breath and opened a picture that held the four of us perfectly still.

The image was of Sam playing his bass, one foot on the ground, the other hooked on the rung of his stool, his thighs parted to make room for the curving wooden instrument. I knew it was massive, but somehow he made it look small, natural, as if it had been fit to him exactly. His left hand pressed the strings with strong fingers, and his right held the bow with delicate grace, the veins visible, primed with blood and oxygen and vitality. His head angled to the ground, his eyes down, his dark, angular face caught in a moment of emotion, of connection to the music we couldn’t hear.

“Wow,” Katherine breathed. “You win. I get it.”

“Can we agree now that he’s totally unattainable?”

Katherine made a face. “Not totally unattainable. Someone could attain him.”

“But I am not that person.”

“You can’t know that, Val. You like him. He’s handsome and treats you with kindness, even when you spit on his shoes. I think you should ask him for coffee. See if there’s something more to it.”

I laughed, a nervous sound that betrayed the dread I felt at asking him for anything. “I can’t talk to him at work. How would I get through an entire coffee date with him? I’d probably pour my latte in his lap by accident and damage his jock, which I bet is as flawless as the rest of him. And then I’d have to live with the fact that I maimed the most perfect penis on the planet. I’d owe all humankind a public apology.”

Amelia nodded thoughtfully. “I think Katherine’s right. I mean, what could it hurt? It’s not like you could be any more embarrassed than the time you—”

I whirled around and clapped my hand over her mouth. “I cannot even believe you would jinx me like that, Judas.”

But Rin was nodding, too. “I think it’s a good idea, Val. You can see if there’s something more there than a pretty face. Ask him for coffee. Maybe there’s some reason you could give him, something you wanted his advice on.”

My blood pressure spiked at the thought of actually asking him to go on a coffee date with me. “He won’t want me. I might think he’s amazing, but no universe exists wherein a guy like that”—I gestured to my phone—“wants a girl like this.” I flung a hand in the direction of my hips. “Why would he want a size sixteen with cellulite when he could have a size two with thigh gap?”