Page 3 of Too Sweet
So that’s what I do. My phone rings when I’m halfway up the stairs. I slide my thumb across the screen, pressing it to my ear. “I need fifteen minutes, Theo.”
“Hurry up,” he yells, excited like a kid on Christmas Eve. “We’re on our way.”
Since Theo married Thalia, Logan knocked up Cassidy, and Shawn adopted Josh, we rarely catch up. Now that we finally planned a night away from the usual bullshit, I’m buzzing at the thought of spending the evening with my brothers.
It’s been too long.
I climb another flight of stairs to my bedroom. It spans the whole second floor of the six-bedroom house: my private bachelor pad with the largest bed money can buy, a showcase shower, and a stand-alone bathtub.
This space used to be a recording studio for some up-and-coming-never-made-it pop star, so it’s soundproof. I hardly take advantage of that fact because I don’t bring women home often but considering all the chicks my brothers fuck in their rooms one floor down, a soundproof bedroom is a blessing.
I hit the shower, then squeeze into a gray, long-sleeved t-shirt, pairing it with black jeans. A silver watch, bracelets, cologne, sneakers, then an AirPod in my left ear, my Spotify playlist soothing my mind on low volume.
My job—mylife—isoverly demanding. My thoughts rush at a hundred miles an hour, never stopping. Music is the only thing keeping me relatively sane. The only thing that keeps me grounded. Without it, I would’ve ended up in the looney bin years ago.
I force my hair into submission, raking my hand through it on my way downstairs. The second I exit the comfort of my soundproof bedroom, my temper flares, flashing bright red inside my head.
Someone’s playing my piano.
The two hundred grand Model C Steinway in the living room. The piano my mother bought, hoping I’d keep playing after I moved out of the family home ten years ago.She has seven sons, but to this day, she claims only I inherited her musical talent. The story has it I crawled onto her lap before I could walk, watching her fingers glide across the keyboard.
I call bullshit. It’s a tale my mother made up as a means of encouragement so I’d sit through those torturous lessons. I love the sound of a piano, but I hated playing, and when the time came to get my own house, I stopped.
Deep breaths, man. Calm down.
Yeah, as if that’ll work. Anger dances in my gut, stewing like a wasp trapped in a matchbox.
My mother and the older gentleman who tunes it once a year are the only two people allowed to touch my piano.
Normally, I’d unplug the sound system, scream my head off at the triplets and kick every kid out of the garden, but before I reach the stairs that’ll take me to the ground floor, the anger bubbling in my veins fades, leaving no trace.
A piano does that to me. It quietens my mind to the point where I don’t need an earphone, andthissong could drag me out of the darkest place.
The melody flowing from downstairs overwhelms the new-age electro beat blasting in the garden, and “Fantasy” by Black Atlass playing in my ear.
Whoever is there, touching my fucking piano, is talented. Each note wraps itself around my tortured mind, soothing my frayed nerves. Whoever is there plays better than my mother, and I never thought that anyone, save for the songwriter, could play thissongbetter.
Ten seconds later, I’m in the living room doorway, the AirPod in my hand. Cody sits at the foot of the corner sofa, toying with his cell phone, wearing nothing but yellow shorts, his chest bare. Dark sunglasses are pushed on top of his head, digging into the man bun Colt and Conor mock daily. He tucks the phone away when he sees me resting against the doorframe, my attention centered on the girl playingJohn Lennon’s “Imagine” of all songs.
“Hey, bro,” he whispers, crossing the room. “Sorry about this. Mia needed to calm down. Piano does the trick.”
Mia.The puking chick. Not a six-foot-tall karate champion. Far from it. She’s petite, her face hidden behind a curtain of dirty-blonde waves cascading down her waist.
Normally, that’d be my interest down the drain, but I can’t tear my eyes off her fingers gently skimming the keys,transitioning from one note to the next with effortless precision. A surge of liquid heat flooding my system eases the ever-present tension seizing my bunched muscles.
It’s almost fucking unnatural not to feel my ribs cinched around my lungs, not to hold my fists clenched, not to lock my jaw and grind my teeth.
My body gives into the calm melody, switching off the high-alert mode I’m always in, and I pull down a deep breath, filling my lungs with ease for a change.
“Shebroke Brandon’s nose?” I ask, mimicking Cody’s hushed tone.
I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to disturb her, but I hope she’ll turn around. She doesn’t.
She doesn’t acknowledge me in any way, as if she hadn’t heard me... as if she’s alone with the piano.
“Yeah,” is all Cody says.
So helpful.
