Page 92 of Married in Michigan
“Tell me?” I ask.
He remains as he is, head against my belly, his hands covering mine over his chest. “Told you I was a troubled kid, and a troublemaker. Well, at the boarding school, I was always cutting class. I was bored stupid, and just didn’t care. I was roaming the school one afternoon—I was supposed to be in math class. I came across an old grand piano in a corner of some old room. Mom had forced me to take lessons as a kid, like when I was eight or nine. I hated it then but, for some reason, I was drawn to that piano. It was dusty and out of tune, clearly forgotten. Sort of…a kindred spirits thing. I felt forgotten, you know? Sent off to live at a boarding school, no friends, no family. Like that piano.” A pause. “I sat down and starting plunking at it. Seeing if I could remember anything I’d learned as a kid. A teacher heard, and came to see who it was. The teacher was Mrs. Lewis. Old as dirt, half-blind, mostly senile, but so sweet. Taught music, which was the blow-off class. No one paid attention. Well, she listened, and instead of making me go back to class, she started teaching me. I cut math class twice more, and she showed up, taught me more. Eventually, she said she’d keep teaching me, but only if I went to math. Why, I don’t know, but I did. She was nice to me in a way most adults weren’t, and I guess that meant something to me. So I went to math, and met her after class. Those lessons with Mrs. Lewis were the only thing I took seriously. Piano became an escape for me.”
“I admit, it’s unexpected.”
He laughs. “No shit.” He touches the keys with one hand. “Mom doesn’t even know I play.”
“Really?”
A laugh. “It’s for me. You’re the only one who knows.”
“So you kept up with it after being sent to military school, too?”
A nod. “Yeah. I went to the dean, told him it was important to me, and that if he’d make room for me to take lessons, I’d cooperate. He had my record from the boarding school, and figured the best way to keep the peace was to go along with it. So he got me private lessons, paid for by my parents under the general expenses of the academy, and I didn’t make trouble.” A laugh. “I kept up with lessons through college, and graduate school. I still practice two or three times a week, sometimes more.”
“Is it still the escape for you?”
He nods. “Absolutely. It’s how I process things—emotions, problems, big decisions.”
“What are you processing now?” I ask.
He sits forward, and I let go of him. He spins around on the bench, sees that I’m still naked, and his eyes flare, widen, heating. He captures my ass in his hands, chin on my diaphragm, eyes turned up to lock on mine. “Us.”
“That’s something to process?”
He nods, chin bobbling against my belly. “Yeah.” A silence. “I’m falling in love with you, Makayla. And…I don’t know how to be in love. I don’t know what that means, or how to do it.”
I swallow hard, fingers in his hair. “Me either.” I want to look away, because the honesty and vulnerability in his eyes are almost hard to see, in a man otherwise so strong and arrogant and dominant. “I’m falling in love with you too, and it scares the shit out of me.”
“How did this happen, Makayla?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I really don’t.”
“The thing that makes it feel…more real, I guess, is that I was falling in love with you before we slept together.”
I laugh. “I know. I think I gave up the fight to not sleep with you mainly because I knew I was falling for you, and it seemed stupid to be in love with you and not sleep with you.”
His hands knead my backside, caressing and exploring. “That does seem silly, doesn’t it?”
I brush at his hair. Cup his cheek. “Very silly.”
He blinks up at me, smirks. “Will you do something for me?”
I shrug. “Sure. What?”
“Stay here, just like this, for ten seconds.”
I chuckle. “Okay, easy enough.”
He leaves the bench, heading for the bedroom. “Ten seconds. Don’t move.”
He’s as good as his word, and returns in moments, resuming his seat on the bench, hands playing with my buttocks, chin resting on my diaphragm.
“What did you do?” I ask.
He shrugs. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Fine, have your secrets, then,” I say.