“Have you played that before?”
I sighed. He was starting to annoy me. “No. Would it be easier to understand what I’m saying if I spoke in French?”
“Stay here.” He rose to his feet, dropping the tablet onto the couch before returning to his bedroom.
“And we’re back to him bossing me around,” I muttered, even though he hadn’t necessarily stopped being bossy in the short twenty-four hours I had known him.
Putting my purse and shoes on the floor, I sat and rested my back against the couch. He came back, holding sheets of paper and a pencil.
“What, are you going to draw me?”
“Not quite,” he said, sitting beside me and handing me the paper. “Do you think you can remember any part of it?”
I stared at the sheet music, my heart beginning to race. Finally, I dropped them and stood. “I need to go.”
“Where do you need to be at 1:00 a.m.?”
“I have to be at work in three hours. I need sleep,” I said as I reached for the door, but he stopped me and leaned against it with his arms crossed.
“Move,” I demanded.
“What godforsaken job requires you to be up at four in the morning?”
“A credit card call center for the east coast, and it’s a decent job.” Godforsaken, my ass. However, he didn’t seem to believe me.
He tilted his head to the side. “How many jobs do you have?”
“As many as I need to.”
“Fine.” He stepped aside. “Just admit you didn’t come up with that music. Nothing annoys me more than liars.”
“I’m not lying,” I snapped.
He shrugged as he went back to the couch. “I get it. You wanted to impress me. You didn’t have to go so far though. Your playing was good enough—”
“Hey, asshole, I’ve already said it once. I’m not lying. So, I’m not lying. And I couldn’t care less if you were impressed or not. Our relationship is over as of this morning anyway. But since you’re so hard-headed, I’ll prove it.” Marching back to the couch, I dropped everything and reached for the sheets and pencil.
Brushing my hair behind my ears, I took a deep breath. I couldn’t believe I was doing this.
I wrote the notes down as I heard them play in my head. Just like when I was younger, the moment I thought about it, it was all I could hear. The music crashed in my mind like waves on a beach. Pressing a hand against one ear, I ignored the pain as I wrote down each note as quickly as I could, moving from one sheet of paper to the next.
“Felicity. Felicity?” He placed his hands on my shoulders, and I jumped. For a split second, I had forgotten he was there. “You’re crying.”
I blinked, and sure enough, there were tears in my eyes. Dropping the pencil, I wiped my face.
“Oh, God! I’m so sorry. I’m fine.” I handed him the sheets. “That’s all I have. I don’t know what comes next. I haven’t played it yet. I have to go.”
I ran as fast as my feet would take me. I ran from him and the music. Hopefully it would be the last time I ever met either of them again.
1:57 a.m.
“Kill me.” I groaned and buried my face in the pillow on the couch.
“Oh, come on. It couldn’t have been that bad.” Cleo sat on the floor next to my feet. “What happened?”
“I cried!” I yelled into the pillow.
“You what?”