Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
“Budge over, Farraday.” My heart thumped like a drum in my chest as his tall frame towered over me. Because I wanted Cromwell sitting at this piano beside me. I wanted to see what he would do.
I didn’t dare let myself hope that he would play.
My stomach flipped at his proximity. But I did as he said and shuffled over on the stool. Cromwell wavered. I wondered if he was having second thoughts, but a moment later he dropped beside me.
He smelled good. Of spice. And although I hated smoking, I couldn’t deny that the linger of tobacco that clung to his clothes only made his scent more appealing. “Your hands are too stiff.” Cromwell didn’t look at me as he spoke. Ironically, his hands were rigid too. His posture was ramrod straight. “You need to relax more.”
I laughed. “You’re not exactly the picture of relaxation, Buddha.” Cromwell glanced at me from the side of his eye. I thought I saw his lip twitch. But it was too quick to confirm if it’d actually happened.
Cromwell reached for my hands, shocking me half to hell. I held my breath as his hands took my fingers and laid them on the keys. His hands were warm, but his fingers were rough. I wondered if that was from his years of playing so many instruments. I didn’t ask him. I knew I’d only lose this curious side of him if I did.
“Play,” he ordered.
I frowned. “Play what?”
He looked at me like I’d spoken another language he didn’t understand. “Whatever you need to.”
“Need to?” My head shook. I was so confused.
“Play.” His eyebrows were furrowed. “Just play.”
I closed my eyes and began. I swallowed when I realized I was playing the bars Cromwell had written. When I stopped, I took a deep breath then met his gaze. His black eyebrows were pulled down in confusion. Then it dawned on me… “You just play what’s in your heart, don’t you? You don’t need music? You simply just…play.”
His blank face told me everything. He had no clue that other people didn’t do that. Couldn’t do that. I felt dizzy. Dizzy from the knowledge that Cromwell must look at a piano and just play something that was his and his alone.
His hands ghosted over the keys. I watched his tattooed fingers. The inked skulls and the numbers were a stark contrast to the purity of the keys. Yet they meshed seamlessly like they were long-lost soulmates.
My chest was tight. Had been all the while I’d been sick and showed no sign of letting up. But it was nothing to the taut string that pulled in me as the most beautiful music poured from the instrument. I felt like I was listening from outside of myself. I remembered that night when I’d seen him play a piece so sad it brought me to tears. Now, I was watching him up close, experiencing this beside him. And it felt like a taste of the divine. There was no other way to put it.
I risked a glance at his face. His eyes were closed. That look…that look of pure peace was etched on his usually lined and pinched face. My heart stuttered. My eyes widened.
Cromwell Dean was so beautiful.
My stomach stirred, and flutters I couldn’t explain swarmed in my chest. Panic set in. I wanted to rub my chest. Shift on my seat and run from what was working its way into my brain. No, no, no, no…I couldn’t…I couldn’t let myself go there—
Cromwell pulled my attention from my freaked-out thoughts with a swift change in tempo. His body swayed to the rhythm, and I knew he had no idea he was even doing it.
This—playing, creating—was as natural to him as breathing.
I didn’t dare breathe in case I broke the spell he was under. If I could have, I would have chosen to sit here on this stool until Cromwell tired of playing completely. I let myself exhale only when his hands stopped playing, the piece I’d never heard before fading to nothing but an echo in the silent room.
When the final note hung in the air, Cromwell’s eyes fluttered open. His jaw clenched a few moments later, and a thick wave of sadness eroded the happy serenity that had possessed him as he played. He was once again conscious that he was back in this room with me and not wherever his music had just taken him. Tormented again. The expression on his face seemed hurt.
This close, witnessing his playing, I realized it actually pained him to play.
“Cromwell…” I whispered, fighting the need to hold him in my arms. In this moment he looked so alone. So completely alone with his pain.
“That was…there are no words… How…?”
“It was the concert,” he said, so low I could barely hear him.
“What?”
Cromwell ducked his head. He ran his fingers down his stubbled cheeks. “I was thinking…” He sighed. I wasn’t sure he was going to finish his sentence, but thankfully, he did. “I was thinking of the concert.” His lips tightened as if they were fighting back whatever it was he was trying to say…No. Had to say. “Of that night…the music…” He focused on the bare white wall in front of us. “Of…”