Thick Love (Thin Love, #2)(42)

“I’m good,” I said, coming to the chorus, keeping my gaze on my fingers.

“You’re good.” She sounded like she didn’t believe me.

“Yeah.” One glance at her frown and I looked back down at the keys.

Aly wasn’t the type to coddle you. She was nice enough, could be downright sweet—at least to Koa, and I got that it wasn’t in her nature to get you to open up when you pretended you just wanted to be left alone. She wasn’t going to drag anything out of me because she didn’t pry. But she also wasn’t the type of person that would handle much bullshit. It was one of the things I liked most about her.

You don’t like her, I told myself, thinking that if I said it enough, it might become true.

“Night, Ransom,” she said, through a breath and though I’d just been thinking about wanting her gone, right then I could only think about how badly I wanted her to stay.

“We could go over your song if you want.” I tried making my tone light, like I didn’t care either way if she left me alone or came and sat next to me on the piano. It was stupid and childish, but damn if attraction, a little bit of desire, doesn’t make us all act just like kids fumbling through their first crushes.

I could do smooth, had done it plenty in the past, but didn’t quite pull it off that night.

“I mean, I’m a little wired tonight and no one is here.”

She looked down the hallway where my parents and little brother slept as though checking to make sure we hadn’t woken anyone up.

“Won’t that bother them?” She moved closer, stretched her arm across the piano and I tried not to think about the silent chant in my head that urged her to sit next to me.

“No,” I said, still attempting and failing to sound ambivalent. “Mom used to stay up all night writing songs so she doesn’t bat an eye when I play late into the night and Koa has been hearing music and loud-mouthed people since he was born.” I smiled at her when she sat next to me. “I’m sure you’ve caught on to the fact that he sleeps through anything.”

“Alright.”

Popping and stretching my fingers, I started to play the tune she’d become familiar with. Keyboards worked better when teaching chords, the transitions easier to follow than when I played this song on the guitar. Weeks into practicing and Aly already knew the intro to “Wild Horses,” the perfect pause and release of when to sing. And, she had gotten so much better, was a fast study and already her tone was solid and that natural, the high pitch didn’t wobbled nearly as much as when we’d first started singing together.

It was that open, honest expression on her face, how she closed her eyes as though the lyrics, the melody were private, something she wanted to keep in her mind and behind the darkness of her close lids that had me slowing my fingers. She’d spun a web without even realizing it and had already caught me tight in that silky snare.

Her body put off a warmth I could feel on my arms as I played, and that scent, that delicious, strong smell from her skin, her hair, hit me when she brushed her shoulder free from those wavy tangles. When my fingers slowed even more and the slow progression made Aly miss the chorus, she opened her eyes and stared at me as though she didn’t know if I’d messed up or she’d done something wrong.

But she didn’t ask what had happened. Aly just stared back at me, because I’d stopped playing, because I’d created the awkward tension that started to fill up the room. I knew what she saw on my face. How could she not, but Aly couldn’t even take a compliment. No way she’d ask why I looked like I wanted to kiss her.

Instead, she looked down at the keys, brushing my hands aside to play. She was a stronger singer than a piano player and it took me a minute, one I spent staring at her profile, watching her hard focus on the keys before I left bench, coming to kneel behind her and move my arms so that my hands were under hers.

When she started to move her arms back, to move her hands, I leaned closer, taking in a deep breath. “Keep them there,” I said, trying not to groan at that scent I’d come to love so close to me. “I’ll show you the right tempo.”

There was a small shake in her arms that I tried to ignore. Her long, slender fingers rested lightly on top of mine, moving when mine did like I was some sort of puppeteer guiding her hands this way and that. But no one would pull Aly’s strings. In fact, if anyone was pantomiming it was me—acting as though the warmth of her skin, the smell of her hair and the sweet, lulling sound of her voice wasn’t affecting me.

“It’s a rhythm you keep. Not just the notes. It’s got to be deep, Aly. So deep that it feels like a heartbeat.”

We continued to play, her humming under the notes, giving up the pretense that she wanted to practice and I didn’t comment, didn’t point out that she wasn’t singing. Instead I shifted, moved closer so that my chin was on top of her head. I couldn’t help but notice how perfectly she fit under me, how the bend of her body filled the arc of mine.

“Heartbeat,” I said again when she began to follow my fingers on the other end of the piano.

“Like sex again?” she said, grinning as she glanced at me.

“No, not like sex.” I looked down at her hoping that the grin would grow. “Like…like love.”

“Oh,” she said, moving her hands into her lap.