Page 8 of The Sound Between Us (Vinyl Hearts #1)

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. ”

I grimace. “That sounds exactly what my dad would have eaten down the pub during the footy.”

“We could get takeout. But if you’re okay being seen, there’s somewhere I could take you. Cool place. No one’s fussed about famous faces.”

Before I can answer, she steps close. Tugs my cap down lower over my eyes. Soft fingers; casual intimacy.

I forget how to swallow.

She spins away. Shampoo and lilies trailing in the air behind her. I inhale it.

And it’s awful.

God, it’s awful.

Because I know what this is. I’ve felt this kind of ache before; the sort that digs into your bones and rewrites your centre of gravity.

I’ve just found a sliver of peace.

And I already know I’m going to ruin it.

“Oh my shit.”

The words groan out of me as the sharp, vinegary sweetness of chilli sauce splatters down my chin. It’s violent. Undignified. Somehow erotic.

Across the table, she ducks her head, cheek sliding into her palm as she draws a curtain of syrup waves around her face. Her voice is muffled but still cutting.

“Jesus. Are you eating it or fucking it?”

I snort red-hot chilli up the back of my nose and into my sinuses. It burns and I’m grinning.

No one looks at us. We’re hidden in the corner of a dark Vietnamese place, tucked onto the end of a shared bench. From under my cap, I keep one eye on the staff, but they don’t seem interested in us. Focused on other Sunday-night stragglers. Perfect.

“So you really have a thing about people knowing who you are?” I slurp again, trying to hold in my groaning. “Why?”

She shrugs. Drops her chopsticks; starts doodling with a biro on a paper napkin. “I don’t think there’s any reason anyone would want to know me.”

Her focus studies the rolls.

“My dad made music that teenage boys used to ruin on cheap acoustic guitars. My mum gave up her career. I’m hardly front-page news.”

I watch her. She won’t meet my gaze, so I steal a roll and wave it in the air.

“We’re circling back to that, but I’ve got other questions first.”

Now she looks up. Her eyes widen, black and wide. “I came out for pho, not Question Time.”

I take a dramatic bite of roll, chewing slowly, not blinking. Watching her.

She’s nothing like Hailey Rogers. Not a sliver. And I could’ve said that without hearing her sing; but after hearing her at the piano, it’s written in stone.

She sits hunched, preparing to vanish. Despite her height, she makes herself smaller; fragile and tense. A bird mid-flinch.

Her hands are long-fingered, wrists narrow, nails bare. No polish, no gloss. She’s all raw edges and half-finished moments; moonlight and bruises wrapped in skin.

“You look like you’re about to snap in half. Do you eat?”

Her mouth drops open, scandalised.

“That wasn’t a question, by the way. More of a statement. You’ve got sauce on your chin.”

She glares at me and shovels a forkful of noodles into her mouth with pure spite .

“Maybe I’ve got statements and questions.” I shrug.

“Maybe you’re a dick.”

She slides me the napkin she’s been drawing on.

I glance at it; jagged lines sketched in biro, clever and raw.

I pocket it without asking, then wipe my chin with the back of my hand.

“I’d never dispute that.” I grin. Properly this time; the chilli hits again, a slap of heat that pulls me back into my body. “So. Question.”

She groans. “Jesus. Use a napkin and a little decorum.”

“So, considering you’re apparently very talented—” I pause, her voice echoing somewhere in my chest “—and you’ve got elite music taste, what are you doing working in a record shop in Camden?”

She chews slowly, lips pressed into a tight little bud. When she finally swallows, she licks them, brushes a piece of hair back from her cheek.

“You think I’m talented? I can’t decide if I should be honoured or horrified.”

I hold her stare. Pull a smile wider than necessary; just long enough to watch her eyes flare. Her breath catches, barely.

She shrugs again. Casual. But I can feel the shift beneath it.

“I saw what it did to my mum. And I never wanted people to think I only did well because of my dad.”

The words hang between us. Heavy. True.

I lean forward, elbows on the table. “But for people to think you’d coasted on your dad’s coattails, you’d actually have to put yourself out there.”

Her cheeks colour. Peony pink. “So?”

“So you haven’t tried. Have you?” I lean closer, my knees brushing hers under the table. I wait for her to pull back, but when she doesn’t, I relax into the pressure. “What are you really afraid of?”

Her cheeks flush. Pale pink; delicate and furious. Peonies are definitely my new favourite flower .

And it has nothing to do with the flower.

“Oh, wait a minute. So you have tried?”

“I wouldn’t say tried.” Her voice drops, eyes fixed on a new napkin she’s defacing. “I sang a few sessions. It was Mum’s idea really. She still knew some session musicians; said I should jam with them. Just to practise.”

“I listened to The Red Session on repeat for days after she died. It felt such a loss.”

She nods, and I don’t overthink it. I just reach out and cover her fingers with mine; press her hand into the tabletop. Grounding her. Grounding myself.

She looks at me. A still, unreadable gaze that stops my breath in my throat. The yearning crawls up from my chest.

“Anyway.” Her voice softens. “So Mum died. And Dad had this sudden good-parent epiphany. I moved to Belgravia. The guys I was playing with... I think they assumed I had better things to do. Eventually they stopped calling.”

I wait. Give her space to fill in the blanks. But she doesn’t.

“You didn’t call them?”

Her cheeks pink again. Warmer this time; not embarrassment. More shame. She ducks her head.

I don’t move my hand. Just brush my thumb over the soft skin under mine.

“Maybe I figured they were relieved. Maybe I wasn’t that good, and they were being loyal to my mum. Didn’t want to tell me.”

She lifts her face then, and the smile she gives me isn’t sweet. It’s sharp and bruised and real.

My heart kicks. One hard punch to the ribcage.

Fuck. I’m in trouble.

I push forward before I can get lost in the ache. “What did she go through? Your mum?”

She exhales as though I’ve stepped on a bruise. “Why the interest? Seriously. Did you come all the way here just to interrogate me? ”

I laugh. Loud; enough that heads turn.

“Shut the fuck up, dickhead.”

I laugh harder because she’s perfect this way. All fury and flinch and contradiction. “Sorry. Don’t want to be seen with me?”

She gives me a look. “Are you kidding? No. Absolutely not.”

A smile flickers across her lips. “All these questions, and you’re not even listening to the answers.”

“Maybe I think your answers are bullshit.” I toss a peanut in my mouth. “You seriously don’t think you’re talented?”

She pushes back from the table. Abrupt. Controlled. “I’m going. I don’t need pity from a washed-up pop star with a God complex. If I wanted that, I’d go sit on the sofa with my dad. So go back to LA. Write whatever moody record you need to write. Just leave me out of it.”

She walks. No pause; no glance back.

The door swings shut behind her, and heads turn. I ignore them; drop a wad of notes on the table and toss the waitress a grateful smile.

“First date teething issues.”

More stares. I don’t care. I chase after her; because I’m that guy now.

A masochist chasing a hurricane in Doc Martens.

The March air hits me with the force of a slap. Sharp. Wet. Unforgiving.

London’s doing that thing where it can’t decide between rain and mist, so it settles for both.

The drizzle hangs in the air, turning everything grey and slick.

Street lights blur into halos. The pavement gleams under my feet, treacherous with that fine layer of water that makes every step feel uncertain.

I pull my jacket tighter and scan the street. There—thirty meters ahead, her silhouette cutting through the gloom. Hair whipping in the wind, shoulders hunched against the cold.

“Hey. Wait.”

She stops so abruptly I almost crash into her.

The cold has turned her cheeks pink, droplets of moisture clinging to her hair. She’s shivering, arms wrapped around herself, but her eyes are blazing.

“Harrison.”

The way she says my name makes my blood rush. Too fast; too hot.

“Serendipity.”

She opens her mouth, but I lift a finger.

“A chance. A twist of fate. The unexpected.”

“You can read a dictionary. And you’re pretty. Congratulations. That’s the full package.”

I step closer. The drizzle mists between us. “You think I’m pretty?”

“No.”

“Not even a little?”

There’s a flicker. The tiniest curve on her lip; it’s enough to make me greedy.

“Surface level only.”

“You wound me.”

Her brow arches.

“I’m human. I have feelings. Right now they’re black and oozing and incredibly dramatic.”

“Of course they are.”

“What do you want from me, Harry?”

The way she says it. Not Harrison. Harry. It unravels me.

I can’t answer. Not truthfully. Not yet.

“Are you going to ask me for a kiss?” She smiles, but it’s guarded, teasing. No teasing is to nice a word, it’s downright tormenting.

“No.”

“Oh.”

She starts to turn, but I catch her fingers and reel her back in. Straight into my chest.

Her body fits against mine. And it aches.

“If I ask for a first, there has to be a last. And I don’t want to think about lasts.”

“What do you want to think about?”

“Beginnings. Energy. Hope.”

She doesn’t blink. “I gave up on those. I hide now; I stay small. Do you get that? My mum never recovered from my dad choosing his career over us.”

I nod. It’s the only thing I can do; because I understand more than I should.

“To me.” Her voice drops to barely a whisper. The wind threatens to steal her words. “You’re danger. You’re the thing I’ve built my life to avoid. I have my shop; I have my friends. I have my quiet. And I don’t see where someone goes.”

My chest aches. Deep and loud and stupid.

Dex would be jealous of the rhythm my heart is pounding.

“I don’t know why I came here.” I admit, her name slipping from my lips. “I just know I couldn’t get on the plane.”

“You should’ve.”

“Write a song with me.”

Her gaze flicks up.

“I know you can. I felt it. Write one song with me, and I’ll leave. I swear.”

“Any song?”

“Worth not getting on the plane for.”

“Then you’ll go?”

I nod. Even though it guts me.

Her smile cracks me open. “You’ll need to pinky promise on that. ”

I raise my hands, cup her cheeks, and feel the faintest tremble under her skin. The cold makes her skin even softer.

“You have my very honourable word.”

I lean in and press my lips to her cheek. The wind bites my face, the drizzle soaks through my jacket, but I don’t care. It’s real.

“Can we go inside now? I’m freezing.”

“Harrison...”

“Harry. Please.”

Because Harry is who I used to be.

And with her, I might just remember how to be him again.