Page 41 of Offside and Off-Limits
“Oh, yeah. You should be. Bess is the best you can get.”
“A bosen-what? How do you pronounce that?” she asks, reading the gold lettering above the keys, and I smile at her pronunciation.
“Bösendorfer,” I say. “That’s the make. These pianos are known for their warm, rounded tone. Very resonant.”
She looks at me as though I’m speaking a foreign language. Either that or she’s surprised to hear such words fall from my mouth.
“I’ll take your word on that. We’ve got one of those upright pianos I bought from a secondhand place when Hannah began learning to play. It’s plain wood and sounds kinda clunky. This piano is definitely next level.” She lightly touches the keys.
“May I?” I ask.
“May you what?”
Instead of telling her, I slide my hand over hers and depress her thumb, then middle finger, and then her pinkie, and a chord sounds out. “Hear that? That’s the resonance.” Her hand is small beneath mine, the touch of her skin as soft as I’d thought it would be.
She lifts her lips in a nervous smile, and I know I’ve overstepped the mark.
I pull my hand away. “I shouldn’t have done that. It was instinct.”
“It’s fine. Really,” she replies, clasping her hands together. “When do I get to hear you play?”
“All good things take time, you know, Triple,” I reply, slipping easily back into playful default mode. “But first, let’s eat. I’m starving. You?”
“I can have something quick. I need to go pick up the kids after filming.”
“Where is my comic book buddy tonight?”
“He and his sister are with their aunt and uncle. They’ll be spoiling them rotten.”
“Of course they will. That’s their job.”
“You know about these things?”
“Got my uncle badge, and proud of it. My sister, Tori, and her husband have twins. Oliver and Olivia. I see them when I can.”
“Where are they?”
“Back in the New Jersey town I grew up in. They live a couple streets over from my mom.”
By now we’ve reached the kitchen, where she takes a seat on one of the stools, leaning her elbows on the kitchen counter.
I pull a packet from the refrigerator. “I’ve got some fresh pasta. I could make a sauce.”
“You cook?”
I waggle my brows at her suggestively. “I’m a man of many talents, Triple.”
She shakes her head at me, but she’s smiling, not frowning.
“What?” I say.
“You just don’t quit, do you?” There’s a lightness to her voice that wasn’t there before.
“Not when it comes to beautiful social media managers for the Ice Breakers,” I tease. “Do you want a soda? I’d offer you wine, but I don’t drink during preseason or the season.”
“A soda’s great.”
I pull a couple of cans from the refrigerator, and we both crack them open.
