If You Only Knew(53)

“Is he? He looks like Voldemort to me.” Evander smiles at this. Leo, too, and there’s that delicious tug in my uterus.

“Evander’s gonna hang around for a while,” Leo says, glancing up as a mother and child approach.

“Leo! Hello! So good to see you!” It’s one of the Hungry Moms, as I’ve come to think of them—they who always carry food and look at Leo with voracious eyes. (Hey. At least I’ve never offered him food.) Hungry Mom is dragging along little Sansa or Renfield, a miserable-looking girl of about ten, and carries an expensive-looking picnic basket in one hand. She cuts me a cursory look, then decides I don’t exist. “Listen,” she purrs up at Leo, “don’t say a word, but I made too much for dinner, so I brought some over for you. In fact, Renley here—” that’s it, Renley, not Renfield “—is dying for you to come over for dinner one night! And not to brag, but I have taken quite a few courses from the Culinary Institute!”

Renley looks close to death by boredom.

“Hi, Renley. Did you practice this week?” Leo asks.

“No.” She glares at Evander. “What’s he doing here? He’s poor. He can’t afford lessons.”

Evander looks at the ground.

“He’s my star pupil,” Leo says, his voice hard. “The best student I’ve ever had and probably ever will have.”

“Now, Leo,” Hungry Mom says, “it’s not really fair of you to tell Renley that she’s not as good as—”

“But she’s not,” Leo says. “Renley, you will never, ever be as good as Evander. I could lie to you and say you have talent and you just need to keep at it, but the truth is, you don’t. Evander, on the other hand, can already play Bach and Chopin and Debussy, and you’re still hacking your way through ‘Ragtime Raggler’ after three months. So show some respect, or find another teacher.”

Well, if there was any doubt I was half in love with Leo, it’s gone now. Evander’s eyes are wide.

Renley looks at Evander. “I’m sorry.” She sounds as if she means it.

“You can’t talk to my daughter like that!” Hungry Mom yelps.

“I just did,” Leo says.

“We’re done here,” she says frostily. “Renley, let’s go!”

“Yay! Thank you, Mr. Killian! No offense, but I only took piano because my mom said I had to. Bye, Evander!”

Evander looks confused.

They leave, the mother hissing, Renley skipping. “There goes dinner,” Leo says. “Well. Want to play some more, kid? Miss Jenny and I have a dog ramp to build.”

“Can I help?” the boy asks.

“Sure,” I say. “You can make sure Leo doesn’t cut off any important parts.”

Leo has left the supplies where they are. The pieces of wood are equal and make sense: four two-by-fours for the frame, a piece of plywood and four strips of lighter wood so Loki won’t slide. A gangplank.

“Who cut these for you?” I ask.

“The woman at the hardware store,” Leo says.

“I could tell it wasn’t you.” He smiles. “Evander, hold on to this, honey,” I say, handing him a strip of wood and picking up the hammer. “I’m going to nail this one in, and then you can have a turn.”

The boy is just beautiful, ridiculously curly lashes, the green eyes of Derek Jeter. He’ll be a heartbreaker someday. All that and a prodigy, too.

“How come you know how to do this and Mr. Killian doesn’t?” he asks.

“Some of us are geniuses in other ways, Evander,” Leo says, sitting in his lounge chair and stretching out his long legs. “Cut me some slack.” Loki collapses beside him. I check to make sure his furry chest is still moving.

“My job is all about putting things together,” I tell Evander. “I’m a dress designer. Wedding dresses, mostly.”

Evander flicks a look at me. He’s still very shy, even though I’ve seen him four or five times now. I hammer in the nail, then hold the hammer out. “Your turn.”

He takes the hammer carefully and gives the nail a tentative tap, then another. “Doing great,” I confirm. Tap tap tap. He seems unwilling to give the nail a good smack. Fifty or so taps later, the nail is in. “Good job.”

“Thank you,” he says, a little smile lifting his lips.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“No, I’m sorry, I won’t marry you,” Leo says. “And Evander’s a little young yet, right, pal?”

This gets a full-fledged smile from the boy. I give Leo a tolerant look, then hammer in another nail. “What does it feel like to be able to play the way you do?”

Evander doesn’t say anything for a minute, just looks at the ground. Then he lifts his eyes to me. “I can feel the music inside me,” he says in such a soft voice I can hardly hear him. “It gets bigger and bigger, and then it comes into my chest and down my arms and it gets out through my fingers.”

I glance at Leo, who’s listening closely.

“Does it hurt?” I ask.

Evander laughs. “No. It’s my friend. My best friend.”

“Do you play a lot?”

“Not really,” he says. “Maybe five or six hours a day. I wish I didn’t have to go to school, because the music quiets down then.”