“I, um, how do you know I didn’t just make it up?” I squeezed my eyes shut with my back to him and hoped he wouldn’t press me.
“Because I listened for more than a couple of bars, Jordan. You hummed the entire first verse and chorus of the song I wrote in my backyard last night.”
I opened my eyes to find him standing in front of me, hands on his hips.
I bit my lip.
“Mind explaining how that’s possible?” he asked.
He’d caught me. I’d have to tell him the truth. But how? And how humiliating. Why had I never considered the eventuality of this moment?
“Uh,” I stuttered.
Asher hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and waited, one brow lifted, for me to explain myself.
Furiously, I tried to come up with something less stalker-ish than I listen to you sing every night through my open bedroom window, sometimes in a towel.
I settled for, “I heard you.”
His mouth dropped open. “What? How could you have heard me?” His eyes widened as though he’d just thought of something. “Were you spying on me?”
Oh, gosh! It sounded so terrible when he said it like that!
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “No,” I hedged. “Not really.”
He stared at me, clearly perplexed. “Not really? What does that even mean?”
My cheeks burned as though they’d been dipped in lava.
“I live in the house behind you,” I blurted.
Asher opened his mouth and then closed it again before changing his mind one more time and asking, “You what?”
This sucked so bad!
I repeated what I’d told him. “I live in the house behind yours.” And since he still seemed a bit confused, I continued. “My bedroom faces the back yard.”
His mouth snapped shut. He regarded me for a long, awkward moment.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted again. Actually… “I’m not sorry I heard you.” His eyes narrowed. “I’m just sorry for listening without your permission.”
He didn’t say anything for so long, I suddenly became aware of where we were. The parking lot had thinned considerably in the time we’d been talking. Most of the remaining cars belonged to athletes who stayed for practice. Only a handful of people still walked to their cars. Everyone else had already left.
“Let me get this straight. You live,” he paused until I met his gaze again. “In the house behind mine and you what?”
I waited for him to fill in the blank or at least offer me some options, but he didn’t. Instead, he just stood there, his brows lifted expectantly.
I decided to give into my embarrassing fate. “It was an accident, hearing you the first time. I’d just gotten out of the shower,” his lips parted just the slightest bit. I could have probably left that particular detail out of my story. Whatever. “My room was hot and so I opened the window. That’s when I heard you playing your guitar.”
“When was this?”
“The first day of school,” I whispered.
He blinked. “And you’ve been listening,” he left the question open.
“Pretty much every day while I do my homework,” I admitted, my cheeks blazing with the heat of the sun.
Slowly, so very slowly, his impossibly long lashes lowered to his cheeks before lifting again. “You’ve been listening to me sing every night and I didn’t even know?”
I nodded, the movement jerky. He had every right to be upset. I’d invaded his privacy by eavesdropping. I should have closed my window when I heard him that first time and resisted the temptation every day after.
My heart raced as I waited for him to say something. Anything.
Our gazes held for what felt like an eternity. In that time, Asher’s expression went from angry to curious to something else entirely.
My heart beat faster.
His perfect features softened, one side of his mouth lifted. He stepped so close our bodies brushed. I thought about backing away from him, but my feet wouldn’t work.
“I’m flattered,” he murmured, his voice low.
Heat flooded my body at his closeness, but I couldn’t forget. We weren’t friends. “Don’t be.”
His eyes lit with amusement. “You were humming my song. You must like it.”