Play On (Play On 1)

She glanced at me, seeming unsure, and I gave her a little nod of encouragement. Turning back to Aidan, she nodded. “I want to go back.”

Aidan grinned and Sylvie’s whole being appeared to relax. All this time she hadn’t wanted to say she’d like to go back to school because she thought her uncle would be sad for her to leave him during the day. Oh, this kid! I wanted to hug her so tightly.

Her uncle wrapped his arm around her and pulled her deep into his side for a cuddle. “Then we’ll get you back to school.”

After that, Sylvie was a bundle of excitement, barely sitting still to eat dessert, and not giving us a chance to digest it when she shot over to Aidan’s computer. “Uncle Aidan, let Nora hear the music for the dancers.”

“Sylvie, we’ve just eaten.”

“I’ll let her hear, then.”

“You know,” he slipped off his stool, walking quickly toward her, “not to touch the computer.”

She grinned cheekily at him. “It made you come over, though.”

I snorted and then tried to cover the sound of my laughter as Aidan shot me a look. “Sorry,” I mouthed, but he shook his head, a small smile playing around his gorgeous lips.

“Is it this one?” he asked Sylvie as he clicked on something.

“Yeah.”

I hopped off the stool and wandered over to them but before I reached them, music flared into the room, halting me.

I didn’t know a lot about music, only what I liked to listen to. Aidan’s was instrumental. It started slow, melancholic, with violins and cellos. And the piano. And the oboe. Goosebumps prickled along my skin as the tempo picked up with drums and the strings grew more wailing and violent. Then suddenly, joined by an electric dance bass, it became soaring, rushing, and made my body wanted to fly around the room.

Eventually, it trailed off to a whimper and my eyes flew to Aidan’s. Something darkened in his expression, something like longing, and I knew it was mirrored in my own. “That was stunning,” I whispered, in awe of him.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice a little hoarse. He cleared it. “It’s for an international dance group called The Company. I know one of the directors and she asked me to write the music for their upcoming show.”

I’d heard of The Company. I’d seen them on television. They were amazing! “Aidan, that’s wonderful. Your music is wonderful.”

He gave me a boyish smile that made me almost forget Sylvie was in the room.

But then she pleaded, “Play the piano for Nora, Uncle Aidan, please!”

“Maybe later.”

“You’ll forget later.” Sylvie pouted.

Since I’d been longing to hear him play the instrument from the moment I saw it in his apartment, I said, “Actually, I’d quite like to hear you play if you wouldn’t mind?”

Aidan shook his head, but he smiled. “Ganged up on.”

Anticipation held me frozen in place as he slid onto the piano bench. “What would you like to hear?”

I was about to ask him to play an original piece when Sylvie demanded, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

To my confusion Aidan tensed, the amusement dimming in his eyes. “Sweetheart…”

Sylvie leaned on the piano with her elbow and cupped her face in her hand. “Please,” she said with big beguiling eyes.

I didn’t understand Aidan’s reluctance, or the sorrow that passed fleetingly across his expression, before he smoothed it away and started to play. The ballad was familiar to me only because of Angie. The Elton John song was one of her favorites. Sylvie’s choice was surprising, not only because it was way before her time, but because it was a melancholy tune about a man who gets what he always thought he wanted only to feel like it’s a life that doesn’t belong to him, and then longs for a simpler time. A simpler life.

It was a little grown up for Sylvie.

Although I liked the song, it never made me emotional the way it appeared to make Angie when she listened to it. However, watching Aidan’s fingers dance effortlessly across the keys, taking in the way he studied Sylvie in concern I felt goosebumps prickle my skin.

Something passed between uncle and niece that I didn’t understand, but it was weighed down with so much emotion I could only guess that the song had some significance in regard to Nicky.

When the music came to an end, silence fell over us all.

I wanted to reach out and draw both of them into my arms.

Before I could offer comfort, however, Sylvie drew up from the piano and announced, “I’m going to go practice on the guitar so I’ll be so good, Uncle Aidan has to put me in a song.”

She dashed out of the room, her earlier bittersweet expression apparently replaced with determination, and Aidan and I shared a tender look.

“She’s pretty awesome, huh?”

His gaze drifted to where she disappeared. “She’s Nicky. As long as I have Sylvie, I haven’t lost my Nicky. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was Nicky’s favorite. She asked me to play it for her a few hours before she died.”

Emotion burned in my throat for him and I blinked away tears, looking out at the view over the canal so he wouldn’t see that I was a total watering pot.

“Can I get you anything else?” he asked.

It sounded like there was innuendo in his voice, quickly drying up my tears. I shot him a chiding look. “No, you may not.”

He laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that. Dirty girl.”

I bit my lip to hold back my smile but it was impossible around him. “I’ll have water, please.”

Less than a minute later, I had a bottle of water in my hand and we were seated on the corner sofa with much-needed distance between us. The sounds of Sylvie’s guitar and her sweet voice played soundtrack in the background.

I thought of last night and how close we’d gotten to making love. “Why didn’t you mention Laine before last night?” I blurted out.

Aidan frowned. “Didn’t I?”

“Nope.”

“She’s been gone a while so I guess she never really came up. Last night you got to see a shit side of her. I’m sorry. She’s actually a really good person. She’s just protective of her friends and family.”

Hmm. Protective indeed.

“How long have you known each other?”

“Since we were kids. Teenagers.”

“And you’re just friends?” I’d decided there was no point pussyfooting around it. If Aidan had a fuck buddy, I needed to know about it.

Something flickered in his eyes before he said, “Just friends.”

Suspicious, I cocked my head, studying him. “Were you always just friends?”

He sighed. “We dated when we were kids. Sixteen. Seventeen. We broke up but we stayed friends. There’s nothing to be jealous of. Believe me.”

They’d dated when they were kids. Had he dumped her and she’d never gotten over him? I could be completely off-base but for someone who was “actually a really good person,” but she’d actually been a really huge bitch last night. And people were only bitchy when they were pissed off, territorial, etc.

I heard Aidan when he talked to me. I listened. He’d made it clear he wanted something more between us than sex. He wanted a relationship. However, he hadn’t mentioned whether we were exclusive, and as much as I was working on my insecurities, I still had my doubts about being able to keep his attention.

Rather than stew on those thoughts, I decided to be honest. “I know we’re taking it slow and you’re probably not used to that … so I … are you seeing anyone else, Aidan?”

His expression darkened. “No.”

At his blunt, annoyed response, I scowled. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m trying to get a clear picture of what’s going on between us because I’m not the kind of woman who can share.” That became very obvious to me last night.

“Laine’s a friend,” he bit out. “Just a friend. And there are no other women in the picture.”

“Why are you getting annoyed?”

“Because I thought it was pretty fucking obvious how I feel about you and you’re making me feel like you don’t trust me.”