Page 87 of Score
“Don’t know.” I shrug. “You’ll have to ask her.”
“I’ll be back.” He touches Verity’s shoulder and then heads for Jill, who gives me the stink eye.
I wanted to get rid of the guy, but now that he’s gone, I have nothing to say. The silence stretches like a tightrope, and before I speak, Verity does.
“So how was New York?” she asks, tugging down the sweatshirt that falls to the middle of her thighs.
“Fine.” I grab an unused apple from the table. “I got the chance to conduct.”
Her face relaxes into a small grin. “I’ve never seen you conduct.”
“No?” I pretend to think about it, knowing she’s right. “I guess it never came up when we knew each other.”
She bites her thumbnail, which used to be a sure sign she had something she wasn’t sure she should say. I wonder if it still is.
“What?” I ask.
“What, what?” She frowns and tilts her head, nail still caught between her teeth.
“You’re doing that thing where you bite your nails and kind of look like you’re holding in a fart.”
“I do not!” she sputters, but laughs. “God, you’re such aboy.”
“Never denied it.” I give in to the grin that keeps trying to work its way onto my face despite my best efforts. “But you do get this look like you’re not saying something that you’re thinking.”
“How do you even remember that?”
“I remember everything.”
Her smile wavers, and I know she thinks I’m alluding to how we broke up, but for once, I’m allowing myself to remember how we weretogether. Before it went bad, it was the best I ever had.
She clears her throat and tugs at the sweatshirt again. “There is something I wanted to run by you, but wasn’t sure…”
She bites her nail again. I slowly push her hand away from her mouth. Even just this simple touch ignites a spark. I’d bet my Grammy it’s not just on my end, not with the way Verity’s eyes widen and her breath hitches. It’s been twelve years since we first met, but in all that time that spark hasn’t faded.
“What’d you want to run by me?” I ask.
She gestures to one of the loungers by Evan’s pool. “Could we sit?”
“Sure.”
She takes one lounge chair and I take the other so we’re facing each other. I keep the apple, tossing it back and forth between my hands to distract me from the picture she makes. The pool lights have come on. TheFlashdancesweatshirt droops off one shoulder, and her skin glows deep coppery brown in the water’s reflected light. Her hair got wet when she bobbed for apples, so it’s curling around the edges, a few damp strands clinging to her neck. She kicks off the red pumps and presses her knees together, tugging the hem down when it rides nearly up to the top of her thighs. That’s a lot of skin showing if she expects me to focus on an actual conversation, but I fix my eyes on her face, striped in the reflected glow of the pool lights.
“Did you mean it when we called truce?” she asks, raising her eyes and watching me closely, as if she’ll know I’m lying by even the twitch of an eyebrow. That used to be true, only I never lied to her. I won’t start now.
“I think I meant it.” I chuckle when she rolls her eyes.
“Monk.” She groans and grips her hair at the sides, frustration and amusement warring on her pretty face.
“I mean, sometimes I just say shit to get people off my back.” I pause,letting myself just look at her for a few seconds, something I haven’t been able to do in years. “But I guess you’re not people.”
She drops her gaze to her lap almost immediately, snipping the thread that connected us.
“I, um…” She shakes her head and sets that luscious mouth into a determined line. “Do you know who Slim Gaillard was?”
“Vee, come on now.” I lean back and press my palms to the lounge chair behind me. “Of course I know him. One of the greatest to ever hit the keys. I love that you guys included ‘Flat Foot Floogie’ for one of the Savoy dance numbers.”
“I was wondering… and we’d have to run it by Canon, of course… but I wondered if we could take a little creative license with that scene to highlight Slim’s unique talents. He hasn’t gotten nearly the recognition he deserves.”
