Page 75 of Devious Obsession
Either get on the fan bus with some friends, or I’ll hogtie you and leave you to ride in cargo with our bags.
Your choice.
I gape at my phone, then toss it down.
He’sinfuriating.
I get dressed quickly and find my binder of music. I’m skipping classes today—but I think I’m in need of some music therapy.
My uncle rises from the couch when I enter the living room.
“You should consider moving,” he says. “At the very least.”
I shake my head. ‘There’s no place that’s going to rent for a semester.”
He watches me.
“It’s fine.”
“I’m changing your locks,” he adds.
Well… that’s not a bad idea. Better than continuing to give Steele unfettered access to my apartment, to me.
I face him. “I should just… keep being a college student. Don’t you think?”
His lips twist, then he nods.
“So, with that in mind, I’m going to sign up for the fan bus for an away game this weekend. I’m going to pretend that everything is fine, and that I don’t have a crazy family, and that my stepbrother doesn’t secretly want to kill me.”Or fuck me while he terrorizes me. “And I’ll pretend that everything is just going…swimmingly.”
He rubs his eyes. He looks tired for a thirty-five-year-old. I guess that’s what happens when a thirty-five-year-old has taken to sleeping on a college student’s couch. Which he’s done sporadically for the past week, minus the girls’ night gone wrong, in some misguided effort to keep us safe.
“I don’t suppose I could talk you out of that,” he responds.
“No.”
He lifts one shoulder. “Okay.”
Not that I expected his permission—and certainly not that I need it—but that was surprisingly easy.
I leave him standing there and head to campus. I’m not prepared for the amount of fear that settles on my shoulders. Like every car I pass is going to open up and someone is going to drag me in. Or every window is filled with a hidden face staring at me, judging.
All I want to do is lose myself in the piano.
Except when I get to campus, every practice room is filled.
I find one of the theater professors and ask if there’s anywhere else I could play. He shrugs, then points me toward the stage.
My jaw drops, but I don’t argue.
Hell. I’ll play on the gorgeous baby grand piano in the auditorium. I’ve wanted to do so for a while, and who am I to miss out on that?
Of course, I didn’t think I’d be doing it in the dark, with just a lamp clipped to the music stand, lending my pages and the keys enough light to see by. For some reason or another, they’ve moved the piano from the orchestra section up onto the stage. I sit at it and take a second to run my hands over the keys.
“This isn’t anything insane,” I murmur to myself. “Just pretend you’re at the practice room piano.”
I count to eight in my head, then begin.
It’s a piece I know intimately well. I play it almost without looking at the sheet music, because it mostly lives in my head. I run through it once, then play it again with a variation. The last few notes fade into sweet silence, and I flip the pages to the next piece.
