Page 19 of Musical Games
‘Because I’m in there with Liam,’ snapped Fiona. ‘It’s quieter upstairs. Anyway, you’ve got the biggest bloody room, you might as well use it.’
Jamie took the guitar from his mother and stalked out. Sam pushed her chair back and grabbed her notes. Morag handed her a pen. She grinned at them all and mouthed a ‘thank you’ before running out of the room after him. Maybe, justmaybe,this could work.
7
Jamie ran up the stairs, his body so hot he was sure his brain was melting. First she was in his house and now she would be in his bedroom. It was too much. He flung the door open and cast his eyes around. What would she see? A king-sized bed was on the left, up against the wall the room shared with the bathroom. He put the guitar on top of the duvet, grabbed the book he was currently reading and kicked it under the bed. There was a desk he once used for schoolwork with clothes draped over the back of the chair in front. He bundled them up and threw them into the wardrobe. For the first time ever as an adult male, he was grateful for the fact his mum still tidied his room. There was a tentative knock at the door and he spun in a circle, trying to see the room through the eyes of a woman. A confident, clever, beautiful, famous, self-assured woman. She was literally everything he wasn’t. He wanted her with every part of his body and soul, but he also wanted her permanently beyond the borders of the known universe. He sat on the edge of the bed, his legs together, his hands folded in his lap.
‘Come in.’
Sam poked her head around the door, then entered. She put the papers on his desk.
‘Do you want to take a shower?’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘A shower. You normally have one when you come back from work?’
Sweat was trickling down the back of his neck.She doesn’t mean a shower with you, idiot!He exhaled a ragged breath and looked at her pink fluffy mules. ‘I’ll have one later.’ There was no fucking way he was going to stand up right now.
An excruciating silence filled the room.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
He met her gaze again. She looked concerned and chewed on her lower lip. He swallowed and gripped his hands together tighter to stop them shaking.
She sighed. ‘I know this wasn’t what you were expecting to come home to today.’
He shook his head.
‘Thank you for at least giving it a go.’
He nodded, unable to find any words.
She clapped her hands. ‘Okay! Shall we get started?’
He stared at her, his mind a screen of white noise. He’d never done this before. His songs were personal, private. They’d been created in secret over months and years. And now she was expecting him to write new ones with her? A stranger? Just like that?
‘I know what we need to do.’ She toed off her slippers. ‘Let’s start with some warm-ups.’ She ran her hands through her hair. ‘Okay, just follow me.’ She rolled her head in circles, breathing in deeply through her nose as it went back, then exhaling loudly through her mouth as it came forward. She interlocked her hands in front of her, pressed the palms away and raised her arms over her head. ‘Follow my lead,’ she instructed as she windmilled her arms.
Jamie stared. The only thing he was following was the fabric of her top as it framed and caressed her breasts with every movement she made.
Fuck’s sake!
Now she was jumping up and down and exhaling ‘ha, ha, ha,’ each time her feet landed on the carpet. His heart was hammering in his chest. He couldn’t do this. His breathing started to change. She flung her arms up, threw back her head and started ululating. He dropped his head, focusing on the whiteness of the tendons stretching across the back of his knuckles as his mouth fell open to draw in more air.
‘Jamie?’
He struggled to calm his breathing in the sudden quiet. Small hands covered his and he flinched.
She withdrew. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She pulled the chair away from the desk and sat down. Far enough away from him that he knew she couldn’t touch him.
You can do this. As long as she stayed out of reach, he could stay in control. He deliberately released his hands, stretched them out and ran them through his hair, nails raking across his scalp.
‘We can do your warm-up instead,’ she suggested. ‘What do you normally do?’
He huffed out a short laugh. ‘I just start singing.’ He felt like he’d been run over by a truck. ‘That was your warm-up?’
‘That was only the beginning.’
