Page 3 of Heart Strings

Chapter Three

Abigail

Honestly, I was about to just call Julian from behind the bar to use those muscular arms he was always looking at in any available mirror to come and toss this guy out of the building. Sitting on my piano bench, really? Of all things anyone could do to irritate me, sitting on my piano stool while I was working got under my skin the most. People like that always thought they were better than me and that they could play ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ and I would fawn over them and tell them how talented they were.

If only I could play a real classical piece instead of these sheets of jazz music. Then, maybe people like this hooded guy who had just sat down at the piano would realize I was actually far overqualified for this job.

The customer is always right.Even the hired musicians had that driven into their heads by management. So, instead of shoving the man bodily off the raised stage, I stepped forward and said more or less politely, “Sir, please get off the stage. We don’t allow customers to-”

He didn’t ignore me, not exactly. I could just see the side of his face under his hood, and that corner of his mouth quirked in an amused little smile that shattered my polite facade. Glaring, anger finally released, I started to repeat myself more loudly and much more rudely, but once again, something stopped me.

This time, it was the first, skillful notes of a song that took the man’s fingers up and down the length of the grand piano without missing a single quick movement. While I stood there, anger shoved to the background by genuine enjoyment and appreciation. The guy played a short, beautiful piece with a left and right hand that sounded a little…disjointed, as though the notes of the melody were playing hide-and-seek with the left hand meant to accompany it. With this man’s level of skill, this was obviously intentional…and I found myself wanting sheet music to the song so I could give it a try myself.

The last notes faded away, and there was sporadic clapping from the crowd. Julian watched us warily, holding a glass in one hand, but I didn’t wave him over, so he went back to mixing drinks.

“Lo siento, I’m sorry,” the man said, turning to face me but not standing up from the stool. “It’s been a while since I’ve played. Your performance was so beautiful. It stirred something in me, and I had to play a song of my own.”

“It’s fine,” I replied, caught off-guard by the Spanish and the deep richness of his voice. “They just...they just don’t want customers playing the instruments.”But you can play some more. Please play some more.

The man stood up, and I wondered how I hadn’t noticed how tall he was before. “No, no.” He didn’t really have a Spanish accent most of the time, but his heritage came through when he said “no”with that slightly shortened and rounder “o”sound. “I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.” He reached up, the sleeves of his hoodie slipping down as he did so to reveal a ring of tattoos hugging each wrist, and pushed back his hood.

My heart threw itself into a complicated series of gymnastics that kept any air from reaching my lungs for several seconds. “Y-you’re - y-you’re - are you?”Abigail O’Connor, get it together. There’s no way. That’s impossible. You’re mistaken. And wrong. And silly for thinking it could be-

“Maybe? I’m Alejandro Devera.” I made some small “oh”sound, and Alejandro sent me a smile that bordered into a smirk. “I think the answer is yes, I am. And you are…”

My name. He wants - Alejandro Devera, the singer of Vaporized - wants to know my name.Alejandro was clearly bilingual, and I briefly became non-lingual while I searched my stunned and somewhat fangirling brain for the knowledge of how to say my name aloud. “A-Abigail,” I managed finally, my heart still training for the Olympics in my chest.

“You’re pretty incredible at the piano, Abigail. Do you play anything besides jazz?”

That question was too mundane and normal for my mind to handle coming from Alejandro Devera, but I answered it anyway. “No, I, uh - classical piano. Mostly.”

“I actually started out in music playing the piano. The guitar didn’t come until later.”

The tattoo-covered, muscle-bound, broodingly-handsome superstar of the rock world was having a conversation with me, a nobody playing the piano in some random bar in New Orleans.

Maggie and Zoe would go nuts when they heard about this.

I cleared my throat, conscious that it was untimely and might sound odd. It wasn’t like me to fawn over people, no matter how famous and delicious-looking they might be. He was still just a guy. A very well-known, talented guy, but a guy nonetheless. “What about vocals?” I asked, regaining the ability to ask questions of my own.

“Same time as guitar. I never really learned one or the other. It was always both at the same time.” His hoodie slipped to the side a little as he spoke and shifted, and I saw a hint of that phoenix tattoo that I knew so well from his music videos. With a body like that, why not shoot music videos shirtless? My face brightened a shade as I remembered how many times I had watched his most recent hit song, ‘Come Again,’ just to see his neck work as he sang the intense lyrics and his muscles flex as he rose from the dead to ‘Come Again’.

I had never, ever expected to meet him. Did watching his videos like that make me a stalker, now that I had?

“I know you had a performance today,” I said, trying to find things to say to prove to myself and him that I was a normal human being who could hold a conversation. “Uh…how did it go?”

“Really well. If you’re a fan, I wish you could have been there.”

“I had to - well, I had to work,” I finished, realizing that Alejandro already knew that. “I want to see Vaporized in concert sometime, though. It just didn’t work out this time.” This was so weird. It was like talking to a fellow fan of Vaporized about the band…although, of course, it was also nothing like that at all, seeing as Alejandro was the singer.

“On Mardi Gras?” Alejandro scratched at his jaw as he considered. “Although, I guess I had to work on Mardi Gras too. Technically.”

“Performing is work,” I said quickly and without thinking. “It’s how you make a living, so it’s work.”

“Then, mind if I help you with yours? Let’s play a duet.”

I just stared. “A…a duet?”

“Where we both play at the same time. On the piano. A duet,” he explained patiently. “Unless you don’t want to...” Genuine disappointment colored his words and his heavy, intense brows drew together.

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