What He Never Knew (What He Doesn't Know, #3)(63)

“I have a new piece for you,” he said to me at our Monday lesson, taking a seat on the bench next to me as he set up the sheet music in front of us.

He kept plenty of space between his leg and my own, and though it was what I’d said I wanted, what I said I thought was best, I wished in that moment that I could close the distance.

“It’s not classical. In fact, it’s quite modern. But… well, I think it will open you in a new way.”

“Why do I feel like I should be scared right now?”

Reese chuckled. “Don’t be scared.” He paused, eyeing me for a moment before his hands found the keys. “Do you sing at all?”

“Sometimes,” I said.

He nodded, fingers already moving over the keys as a slow, sad melody came to life at his will. “I want you to sing this as I play.”

I balked. “Uh… no. I’m not singing in front of you.”

“Come on,” he said on a laugh. “It’s just us. I’m not judging. I just want you to read these lyrics, sing them, feel them. They’re as important as the music in this particular assignment.”

I whined. “Reese, I’m terrible. I’ll split your eardrums.”

But he didn’t acknowledge me, just kept playing, his body moving more with the notes as the opening stretched on. Then, he closed his eyes, that crease between his brows making itself known before he opened his mouth and sang.

And the voice that came out of that man nearly knocked me off the bench.

My jaw dropped dramatically, though Reese couldn’t see with his eyes closed like that. Everything about that moment surprised me — the raspy, deep rumble of his voice echoing off the walls as he played, the way the lyrics melted with the music, the fact that Reese was singing in front of me. The lyrics spoke of no one knowing him like the piano in his mom’s house, and he sang on, moving with the dramatic notes in the music as he did.

His hair was pulled back, fastened loosely at the nape of his neck with the dark strands falling out of place to frame his jaw. That jaw was thick with stubble, the skin under his eyes dark like he hadn’t been sleeping. And as he bent and flowed with the music, singing each word like he felt it in his soul, I truly believed he did.

Reese Walker was only thirty-seven years old, but he’d lived a thousand lives. Of that, I was sure.

I was enraptured, pulled into that moment with him — like the music was a magic carpet that transported us to another world. And the longer I watched him, the more I wanted to reside in this world instead of the one we’d just been in before. In this world, I felt like I could hold Reese. In this world, I felt like he could kiss me.

In this world, we could lose ourselves between the strings of that piano forever.

When the song came to an end, he opened his eyes, bringing his hands to his lap as he turned to me.

“Reese… that was beautiful.”

His eyes searched mine, and for the briefest moment, it was the way he looked at me before. Before he knew. Before I’d said no, and he’d listened.

Reese cleared his throat, standing and crossing the room to his corner like he had to put space between us or he’d kiss me again.

Part of me wished he would.

The bigger part of me knew he couldn’t, that I wouldn’t let him.

“Thank you,” he said as he walked. When he was back in the corner, he turned, folding his arms over one another. “It’s called No One Knows Me by Sampha. Relatively new song, but when I heard it…” He swallowed. “It just hit me in a soft spot. And I feel like it will do the same for you.” He smirked. “Maybe help us get over this vulnerability mountain we’ve been climbing.”

I returned his smile, nodding gently before my hands found the keys. I read the music on the sheet in front of me, feeling out the new song, piecing it all together.

“Take that home with you,” he said as I played around with the music. “I want you to sing as you learn it, really listen to not just the music, but the lyrics. Okay?”

I pulled my hands away from the keys, reaching for the music to tuck into my messenger bag, instead. “Okay. But I’m going to tell Uncle Randall that it’s you to blame for the windows breaking when I sing.”

Reese chuckled.

Rojo lazily trotted into the room with us, drooling around a yellow tennis ball in her mouth. She dropped it at Reese’s feet and sat, looking up at him with her tongue hanging out.

“I know, girl. I know. We’ll go play soon,” he said, rubbing her head.

“She fetches now?”

He nodded. “When I lift outside, she likes to go out with me and play. At first, she just laid there in the sun, but now, she’ll bring me this ball and fetch it for a while. I was thinking about taking her to the dog park this weekend, get her out of the house a little.”

The image of Reese without his shirt on the day I’d come to tell him about Wolfgang was one I was sure I’d never get out of my head, and it was easy to picture him out back, sitting on the bench I’d noticed a few times with weights lining the bottom of it. I wondered if he did calisthenics, if the neighbors watched the sweat rolling from his hairline the way I had that day, following it in a trance as it slid down his temple, his jaw, his neck, chest, abdomen.

I swallowed, shaking the thoughts away.

“Can I come?”