Page 52 of Between Now & Heartbreak

“Well, what about just playing the piano?”

He glances at it, his fingers wriggle slightly.

“While you draw?” he asks skeptically.

I nod.

“So drawing, painting, that’s your thing?” He asks and nods at the huge sketch book in my lap.

“Yeah…I’ve been drawing you,” I tell him.

His head jerks up, his eyes look at me and the surprise there tickles me for some reason. “Why would you do that?“

I smile vaguely.

“You know how you said my smile wasn’t genuine earlier today? How’d you know?“ I ask him again.

He considers me for a moment. “I’ve seen your real smile, it has something…else in it.”

“Well, when you sing…you look like you’ve gotsomethingelsein you, too.Youlook different.” I tell him.

“How so?” he asks.

I consider him and then walk up to him, so that we’re almost toe to toe. I sigh and stroke my chin thoughtfully and search his face.

“May I touch your face?” I ask and he smiles and then nods.

“Every time I’ve seen you, even that evening on the terrace, you’ve got these,” I run my finger along the space between his eyebrows.

“What are those?” He frowns and touches the same spot. I push his fingers away.

“They are tiny lines of tension.” I stroke them one more time. And here.” I touch the corner of his mouth and then run my finger underneath his stubbled jaw up to where it hinges. The knot of muscle there flexes under my finger.

“I’ve got lines there, too?”

“All of these places are tense, tight. All of the time.”

“No they’re not,” he balks.

“Yes, they are. But, I saw you behind the piano and when you started to sing, all of them disappeared. You look like yourself, but relaxed. And I knew…it was your thing. I mean, clearly the piano is your thing, but singing…is yourthing.”

He looks unconvinced.

“It’s how I felt when I started to draw again. It’s the only time my mind ever slowed down. The only time I could be completely honest. The only time I can just be. It’s how I worked out my pain. I’ve been using your YouTube Channel as my background music and I thought maybe, I could hear the real thing.”

I walk over to the drafting table I brought into the room and sit down behind it.

“So you really invited me herejustto play?”

I look over my shoulder at the seat where I left my sketch pad and then back to him.

I grin at the surprise in his voice.

“What? Did you think I was making it up?”

“Yeah. No. I thought… I don’t know.” His fingers drum against the side of his thigh and something about the nervous gesture makes me want to giggle.

“Pretend I’m not here. I won’t say a word. In fact, you never have to speak—.”

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