Page 7 of My Best Friend's Dad

Rowleigh

Is this real?

The thought beats my brain into a near-mushy pulp as Bellatrix’s hands fly over the piano’s keys, creating the most haunting, beautiful melody. It’s the kind of music that wraps its long, lean fingers around your soul. It’s reminiscent of all memories. Good and bad. Poignant and sweet, painful and bruised. The memory of the past and the memories that have yet to be made.

I’m sure this is her own work. I wonder if it’s something she wrote or if she’s just hammering it out as she goes along, a revelation of her soul in the most intuitive way she can offer up. Music is the language of the senses. It’s ethereal and magical.

Like her.

Tall and stately, she holds herself with a natural poise and grace that was noticeable from the moment she walked into the lounge. She was hesitant, and the shadows under her red-rimmed eyes belied the calm she presented. She’d said she washaving a terrible night, but her bravery was obvious despite the stooped slump of her shoulders.

All of that fled the second she sat down at the piano. It was not just her hands that worked the magic. The piano itself was like another dimension. Passing through it stripped it down to just the music. Nothing else existed.

I’m lulled into a trance of forgetting, washed clean like having a good cry. There’s no business and no money. For just this moment, I haven’t sold my soul for the connections it brought or the empire that opened up before me. I’m not that man, ruthlessly driven because there’s nothing else in the world. I’m not a bad father who would give anything to not have his daughter hate him. My past isn’t the timeless tale of a love that didn’t work out and ended too soon, leaving the injured party spiraling. I’m not the man who was never taught how to love but wanted so desperately to do it and still failed. I’m not nearing forty but still utterly alone at the heart of myself despite a world that seems so full.

I’m out from behind the bar before I know what I’m doing. My feet take me silently across the room, the music hooking strings into my soul and winding me in.

Halfway across the room, the magic seems stronger. It undoes the years, the layers, the heartache, the grief, and the ambition that I’ve used as a shield and as a poor bandage slapped across a life that will never be whole again.

Bellatrix’s back is perfectly straight, her posture immaculate, but as I edge around to the side, I can see that her eyes are closed.

Her. Eyes. Are. Closed.

She doesn’t even have to look at the keys to pull such haunting, lovely notes from them. Her body doesn’t move, but her hands fly, her fingers caressing the keys like a lover.

Just then, her lids flutter open, her head turning. She paralyzes me with the power of her soft hazel eyes as the shadows of the room play over her face. Her hands don’t stop, but it’s clear that though she’d surrendered herself, she was also fully aware of my movements.

“How long until the last call?” she asks so quietly that I barely hear her over the music.

“A few hours yet.”

Her eyes remained fixed on me, unblinking. “There’s no one else here. Can you lock the door?”

My heart just about bangs right through my ribs and splatters on the floor. I’d have to get the mop and bucket out early, especially since the janitor’s room is far,fardown the hall. I don’t think it would be sanitary to pick my heart back up and shove it back inside—dirt, microbes,strayhairs,and all.

“We have hours posted outside.” I have zero chill right now, so it’s incredible that my voice comes out smooth and calm.

“Does anyone else have the keys?”

“To the door?”No, to your butthole, dumbass.

“To the door,” she echoes. She changes the pace, her hands slowing on the keys. The music drops low, even more haunting and sad too.

“No one else has keys that are working right now.”

Her chin dips in a nod, her fingers stroking the keys lovingly. Her hair falls over her shoulder, spilling down in a curtain that I’d like to have between my fingers. I want to know what her hands would feel like on my body. Would she pull the same music from me? Goosebumps stand out on my arms, and a shiver traces up my spine and ends up landing right at the base of my neck.

“Why would I lock the door?” I ask.

“Because the way you are watching me is like a wolf who hasn’t eaten for days. Not just now but at the bar too. You wantto seduce me, taste me, and make gloriously bad decisions with me.”

I’m so ready to protest. The words are there, but my tongue falters. My body is a thousand degrees, as though there’s been an unfortunate mishap with a blowtorch and my ball sack, but in a strange twist of events, I find that I enjoy having my nuts roasted. My heart bangs out in an impatient rhythm, and the room seems to close in and expand at the same time.

She searches my face, seeing all the way down to my heart, stripping my brain bare, and undressing me slowly and casually with the same carnal hunger that hit me so fucking hard the minute she stepped into this room.

This isn’t me. What the hell was in that shot I did with her? It’s something that has clearly affected both our brains and logical thinking. Someone must have swapped the alcohol for a magic potion. Perhaps as a joke or an experiment. Maybe it was werewolf juice, and I’m going to sprout hair and go off to howl at the moon any second.

Right. Highly likely.