Page 6 of What He Never Knew

But I’d watched videos of him playing online. I’d seen the magical way his hands moved over those keys, the way his body bent with the music, the way his soul seeped into every note like his flesh was transparent.

I didn’t know why he wasn’t still playing in New York, claiming his spot in Carnegie Hall like he should have as soon as he graduated with his masters. I didn’t know why he was teaching at a prep school inPennsylvaniaof all places. I also didn’t know why he looked absolutely miserable in every video that had been posted of him in the last two years.

But honestly, I didn’t care — as long as he could help me beat my injury and get my dream back on track. That’s what I needed from Reese Walker. Nothing more.

I wasn’t in Pennsylvania to make friends.

“Wine?” my uncle asked when we finally made it to the table.

I shook my head, unwrapping the light scarf around my neck and hanging it over the back of my chair. “I don’t drink.”

Uncle Randall smiled, but I noticed the tight edges of it. “Of course. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed that just because you’re twenty-one now that you’d drink.”

“It’s okay,” I assured him. “I used to, when I first turned twenty-one.”And before.“I just don’t like to have my judgment impaired.”

Uncle Randall smiled genuinely at that. “You are wise beyond your years, Sarah. And too smart for your own good.”

I returned his smile, but my thoughts ran away with me as we both glanced over the menu. I wondered how he saw me now, if he missed the young lady I used to be. I would have bet money that he wasn’t used to his sweet, bubbly niece being so short and direct. In fact, I’d thought both he and Aunt Betty were going to have to scrape their jaws off their front porch when I first arrived. I guess I should have warned them I’d changed a little since they’d seen me last summer — in the way of all my hair was gone now, and the dresses and skirts I used to live in had all been burnt — but I’d lost the desire to explain my actions or my appearance.

I was this way because I was this way, and that was really all there was to it.

“Thank you,” I said, trying to make amends for not being the best guest in our little round of introductions. I’d barely said more than two words to the sweet man who was graciously letting me work back of house for him while I stayed with my uncle and studied with Reese. “For everything you’ve done for me. For letting me stay with you, for this job…”

Uncle Randall lit up again, bouncing a little in his chair as he filled his glass with red wine. “Oh, don’t even mention it. As I said before, we’re happy to have you.”

A hush came over the room, and Uncle Randall’s eyes went wide. He glanced over his shoulder, smiling with a tilt of his glass toward me when he turned back around.

“And now, it’s time to meet your new teacher.”

He turned back around, adjusting his chair for a better view as my eyes found the piano. And as soon as I did, the lights in the restaurant dimmed, the chandelier shining brighter, and the man everyone had come to see appeared.

Reese Walker emerged from the shadows as if he didn’t exist if not in close proximity to a piano. He was so tall, his presence so commanding that it was hard to understand how no one had seen him before the light from that chandelier touched his skin. He’d walked the shadows of the room unseen, like a ghost in the night, and now he was the only thing anyone in the room could look at.

His long hair was pulled back into a hair tie just above his neck, his tuxedo black and tailored, his eyes like a forbidden mystery novel that somehow escaped a book burning as he glanced around the room. I didn’t have to pull my eyes away from him to know everyone else was watching with the same rapt attention I gave him. It was impossible not to stare, not to wait with bated breath for him to speak. But he simply greeted the crowd with a small, modest bow before taking his seat at the piano.

And only then did he truly come to life.

A small, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips before it quickly disappeared, and his fingers hovered over the keys for what felt like the longest moment of my life.

Then, without an introduction or even a single word, he played.

To anyone in that room who had never studied piano, it likely just seemed like a talented man playing a beautiful song. I managed to tear my eyes away from Reese long enough to survey some of the faces, and they were smiling, eyes wide and glistening like children watching Christmas tree lights.

But whenIlooked at Reese?

When I watched his hands move, his chest inflate with every new breath, his eyes close on a rest before slowly opening as he began to play again?

I didn’t see anything to smile about.

This was the power of Reese Walker.

He played like he was a man who’d lived three-hundred lifetimes of immeasurable joy and unbearable sorrow, like he’d seen so much despair that no words would ever do justice. Instead, he bent down and bled at that piano, shedding his skin and baring his soul for the entire room to see. Each note struck a chord in my heart, each crescendo sent a new rush of chills from my neck to my ankles. My eyes watched his hands, his furrowed brows, his flat lips — but I didn’t see a man. I saw the song he played, the music he’d created, and it revealed so much more.

Reese was an entire universe, and the piano was a mere telescope we tried to see him through.

When he finished, he reached for the glass of water on the small table next to him while the room erupted in applause. I couldn’t even hear it at first, not until I blinked for what felt like the first time in the fifteen minutes he had been playing.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?” My uncle asked, chuckling a little as he reached into his pocket for a handkerchief. He offered it to me. “You’re crying.”