Page 8 of Playing By Ear

Jamie’s vision cleared. “Oh my God.” Perry’s dark shirt and trousers were splattered with white and brown drops, as though someone had tossed him a grenade sheathed in a Tunnock’s Teacake. “Make that loads more napkins, Ruby.”

She dropped a stack onto the table, not bothering to hide her laughter.

Jamie picked up a handful, then reached toward Perry’s crotch. He stopped himself in time. “Erm, you should probably blot yourself. Seeing as we just met.” He held out the napkins in what he hoped was Perry’s tunnel of vision.

Perry took them with a smirk. “Public self-blotting. People will talk.”

Jamie’s phone sang a familiar text-message tone. He ignored it, but the sound repeated a few seconds later. He murmured an apology and pulled out his phone to read the messages.

Supergrrrl

Can you talk or are you working

Phone me asap

“It’s my sister,” Jamie said.

“Everything all right?” Perry asked, still dabbing.

“I don’t know. I should probably⁠—”

Another message appeared below Belinda’s previous two:

It’s about Dad

His breath halted. It couldn’t be time already. Their father was only, what, fifty-six? Not old. Not old at all.

“Never mind.” He put his phone away with a trembling hand. “It’s nothing.”

“I think that’s most of the spill.” Perry set the napkins on the table, then slid his fingers over the glass surface until they brushed his mug. He picked it up and sat back with a contented sigh. “So, do you make a habit of chasing down admiring fans in the pouring rain?”

Jamie blinked at him, his thoughts still mired in his sister’s words. “Almost never.” He replayed Perry’s question. “Were you not hoping I’d find you? Were you writing that message as just a fan? Nothing more?”

Perry rubbed the side of his neck, which was beginning to flush pink. “The note wasn’t meant as a chat-up, but⁠—”

“You drew a heart at the bottom.” Jamie found the receipt in his pocket and handed it over.

“Did I?” Perry retrieved a foldout magnifying glass from his jacket. He thumbed a switch on the magnifier to shine a light on the note. “Ah, that does look like a heart. But no, it’s just a pair of stray squiggles. My penmanship’s atrocious, for obvious reasons.”

“Oh. Oh, no.” Maybe Jamie had misinterpreted the entire situation. He went to shift away. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed.”

Perry stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “You assumed right, Jamie. That heart-looking thing, perhaps it was a Freudian slip. A Freudian squiggle, if you will.”

Jamie took in that hopeful smile, his pulse racing at the brush of Perry’s fingertips against his skin.

Oh, I will, he thought. I absolutely will.

Chapter 2

“That’s incredibly random,” Brian said from the speaker of Perry’s phone, currently perched upon the bedside table. “What luck to happen upon him in the street like that. Must be fate.”

“Not necessarily.” Perry opened the wardrobe to find the ideal first-date shirt. “I used to go to Buchanan Street at least once a month. I’ve heard him play before.”

“But yesterday you stopped and reached out. Gaun yersel, mate.”

Perry tensed at his best friend’s kudos. “Dating someone new is the last thing I need just now. Learning to use the cane is a huge transition. I’d love to master that first.”

“Yes, that’s exactly how life works,” Brian said. “Everyone gets to face their challenges one at a time, in their proper sequence.”