Page 35 of The Sound Between Us

8

orgasmic

Harrison

I don’t mean to make her cry. But I do.

The tears land silent and undramatic. No sobbing; no theatrics. Just wet, glistening proof that I’ve trespassed somewhere I shouldn’t have.

My fingers twitch. I almost stop.

Then she gives a small nod. Just once. Tiny. Permission dressed as composure.

So I carry on. I don’t sing the lyrics; not even quietly. No one wants to be that guy—the showboating prick belting out her dead mother’s ballad while she breaks in real time.

She moves closer, and I freeze as she sits down beside me, barely grazing the piano stool. The keys absorb her stare.

It stretches between us. A moment held in silence and half-finished grief; two people who don’t quite fit anywhere, suspended in the echo of notes that somehow make sense.

In the tiny space between hammer and string, I hear it. Brutal. Beautiful.

Peace. Actual peace.

I want to drink it, inject it. Bathe in it; let it gut me clean. Make me new.

She lifts her hand, slowly. I hold my breath. If she plays, I think the ground might shift.

One note. Then another.

Her fingers move with mine. I drop into a higher octave, while she goes low. We meet in the middle with a harmony richer than the sum of either of us.

She clears her throat. Wipes her face. Keeps playing.

Doesn’t miss a beat.

Her voice cuts through the melody. Tight at first; held back. Then it loosens. Softens. Fills out.

She’s not her mum. She’s not her dad either. She’s a bridge between them; the power of her mother, the aching midrange of her father. Breathy. Raspy. Haunted. Addictive.

My dick twitches under denim, because I’m an arsehole, and because grief sounds sexy when it comes from a voice that good.

But it’s more than that. It’s worse than that.

I don’t want the song to end.

Because the second it stops, I’ll have to remember who I am again. Back to Harrison Carter; back to the machine. Instead of just Harry. Sitting beside a girl in a kitchen too white; feeling that the music still means everything.

“Wow.”

The word cracks out of me without permission.

“Don’t say anything or I’ll have to kill you. No one knows you’re here, right?”

She stands. My eyes follow her. Of course they do. Her arse, her hips, the curve of her waist. I’m weak and male and totally unworthy.

“Uh, no. Actually.” I laugh. It sounds wrong; not mine. “Should I be scared?”

“Very.” She turns toward the fridge, words casual. “What do you want to eat? I’m starving and all I’ve got is cheddar and pickle.”