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Jessica Prescott, who looked to be in her early forties, was still a pretty woman with the same dark hair as Emmy and Hannah, but with brown eyes, instead of Emmy’s cobalt and topaz.
“Oh, hello…?” Mrs. Prescott asked, confusion and alarm stamped all over her face. Evidently, Emmy forgot to mention to her mom that I was coming over.
“Ivan. I’m Katya’s brother.”
Mrs. Prescott nodded slowly, obviously knowing who Katya was but clearly not sure why I was there. “Okay. Are you supposed to pick up Katya here?”
I resisted rolling my eyes at how ridiculous this was. “No, I’m here to see Emmy. I need to talk to her about something.”
Emmy’s mother looked me up and down, undoubtedly unsettled and concerned about what a man who looked like me—older, rough-looking, and decidedly unfriendly—wanted with her innocent daughter.
She had good instincts.
“It’s about Katya,” I clarified untruthfully.
She let out a relieved breath and stepped aside so I could enter the tiny home. “Emmy is in her room practicing.”
I nodded and walked through the small house to Emmy’s bedroom, stopping outside her slightly ajar door as the sound of harp music met my ears. Her mother was still staring at me, curiosity and suspicion broadcasted on her face.I gave her a tight smile and slowly pushed inside.
I knew Emmy would be sitting with her back mostly to the door because her room was small, and she liked to see the sunlight when she played. I knew this because she had written to me about it in one of her emails.
And that’s exactly as I found her.
Standing in the doorway of her room, I watched as she gracefully plucked the strings of her harp. Even if she wasn’t mostly facing the opposite direction, she wouldn’t have noticed me. Her eyes were closed, and she was singing—something I didn’t even know she could do.
Her voice was gentle and light, sending shivers up my spine. I didn’t recognize the song, but I had no problem discerning the emotion of it. The words must have meaning for her, because her sweet, emotion-laden voice made my chest feel achy and tight.
I must have made a sound because Emmy swung around, her eyes wide and her cheeks flushing with color. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you I was coming over at 6.”
She gasped as her eyes flew to the clock on her small nightstand. “Oh my god, I’m sorry! I lost all track of time.”
“It’s okay.” I stepped gingerly into her room, as if every surface was an undetonated bomb. It was strange to be in her bedroom. The small space was dominated by the harp sitting in the middle of it. There was a twin bed on the right against the wall with a nightstand next to it, and one tall dresser and another shorter one with a mirror above it against the other wall. As I walked by her mirror, I leaned in and noticed the picture she’d emailed to me taped to it.
“Do you remember that picture?” she asked, suddenly standing next to me.
Remember it? I couldn’t fucking forget it.
I turned to look at her and shrugged. “I think so.”
She looked a bit crestfallen. She glanced at the picture herself and frowned, then shot me a speculative look. “Why did you think Jason played the clarinet?”
“Jason?”
She rolled her eyes. “My friend at the party, the guy I was talking to. Why did you call him a clarinet player when you referred to him?”
Shit. I wasn’t about to admit how many times I’d looked at that photo, how many hours I had stared at the curves of her face, her graceful neck, her flowing hair. Not to mention all the times I imagined taking that clarinet and using it to break every one of the fingers Jason was using to touch her.
“I don’t know. I just guessed a random instrument.”
She cocked her head, a smile hovering on her lips. “It’s just, in this picture, his soprano sax kind of looks like a clarinet.”
“Hmm.” I needed to change the subject immediately. “What song were you just playing?”
Her lips twitched, but she answered my question. “Cosmic Love by Florence and the Machine.”
“Does that song…mean something to you?” Her voice had been so expressive while she had been singing—sadness, hope, longing, pain—I could hear it all.