Page 14 of Crazy About Love (All About Love)

She gives me a grin before grabbing the hem of her shirt and pressing it over her nose and mouth. Her entire stomach is inked as well. I shoot my gaze somewhere else before I remember that I’m allowed to look. She’s obviously cool with it; it’s completely acceptable to check her out. But when I let my eyes drift back to her midriff I can’t help but feel a pang of guilt somewhere in my gut that I like the way she looks, and I’m curious about her tattoos, and I sort of want to touch them. This guilt comes from a part of me that I’ve buried deep, but it likes to make small appearances at the most inopportune times.

“So, your bio said you graduated in the arts.” She sprays a line across the bricks. I quickly look out into the street and scan the area. No one’s paying us any attention.

“Theater arts.”

“An actor, huh?”

A hopeful actor managing a store.I conveniently leave that part out.

I grin and lean against the opposite wall. “Broadway someday, I hope.”

“I heard you singing up there. And of course saw your dancing.” She lifts a curious eyebrow at me. “Got any other talents?”

The answer gets caught somewhere between my head and my tongue, sort of choking me. Yes, there is one that comes to mind, though I wouldn’t so much as call it a talent as something that I enjoy doing with a partner. A specific partner. When her hands graze mine as we let our fingers dance across a smooth black-and-white plane and we create music together, it’s always better than playing alone. It’s all kinds of music: enjoyable and lighthearted fortissimos and quiet and moving pianissimos. It perfectly fits us, me and my partner, in more ways than one.

Rian looks up at me, still awaiting my answer.

“Piano,” I tell her. The corners of her eyes crinkle with joy, and then she turns her focus back to her own talent. I watch with careful study, desperately trying to put her into my mind and Theresa out of it. But given all the things I’m passionate about including my best friend in some form or another, I start to wonder if that’s even possible.

18 MONTHS, 23 DAYS AGO: 10:11A.M.

“Do you need accompaniment?” the director asks from the center of the small playhouse auditorium. My heart starts beating in my ears, and I glance at the empty seat behind the piano.

She said she’d be here, but that was before our conversation last night. That was before I made a fool of myself.

I could play, but I’ve always had difficulty playing and singing at the same time. I need more practice, and promised myself that I would master the craft, but whenever Theresa is around, I’d much rather hear her tickle the keys, or tickle them with her.

“Mr. Tucker?”

I shake my attention away from the piano and back onto the director. “Excuse me,” I apologize. My heart throbs in my ears and I can hardly hear myself. A sheen of sweat forms along my hairline, and all I can do is count the thumps, try to calm them, but the more I try the louder and faster they get.

“I—I have…I mean, Ihad”—thumpthumpthumpthump—“accompaniment.”

The director doesn’t look fazed by my nervous habits. Or perhaps he sees them all too often. I’ve always needed a character to slip into in order to relax onstage. The singing portion of the auditions is always when I crumble.

“Would you like us to provide it for you?” the director asks. “Or would you rather sing a capella?”

My eyes move slowly to the girl in the front row with a stack of music resting on her lap. She smiles encouragingly at me, as if pitying my lack of preparedness.

A capella, I decide. Nothing wrong with a capella. I’m better a capella, I’ve been told. So maybe this is fate’s way of helping me out.

I give the empty piano seat one more glance.

Thumpthumpthumpthump.

“A ca—”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Theresa calls out, bursting through the side door adjacent to the stage. Her hair, wet from her morning shower, bounces around her face and drips onto her chest while she digs through her large purse for the sheet music. My nerves move from my stomach up into my throat, and I start wondering if I’ll be able to sing at all.

The director waves Theresa over to the piano, impatiently tapping his foot on the seat in front of him. Theresa catches my eye before she settles onto the piano bench, her mouth pulled to the side slightly. Though I’m okay singing a capella, I’m grateful she’s here.

I hear her nail tap the first key before the notes are played, and I push my nerves back into my stomach. My eyelids drift shut, and I take a deep breath, blow it out, run over the first line in my head, the first note, and try to forget about the girl behind the piano…the girl who plays flawlessly, like it’s in her blood. The notes are tattooed into her skin, right down to the bone. I’m so enraptured by the way she’s playing that I miss my cue. I miss it and don’t realize until she’s halfway through the first verse.

I cut a side glance at her, smirking a little about having screwed up before even opening my mouth. Her shoulders shake with suppressed laughter, and she brings the notes back into the intro seamlessly.

“Love Changes Everything.” That’s the song I’m singing.

Lizzie picked it—she always requests the love songs. I rip my eyes from the gorgeous woman behind the piano and look at the director with the artsy goatee. I sing to him the words that tasted weird on my tongue when I rehearsed but suddenly taste honest. I feel them rock me where I stand—an earthquake localized right under my feet, and I’m the only one who feels its destructive force.

I know I said it wouldn’t, but it has. I feel it when I let the last note out and my eyes connect with Theresa’s again.

Love changes everything.

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