Perfect Rhythm

by Jae

  Holly touched Leo’s knee for a moment. “Good for you. That must have taken a lot of courage.”

  “Being forced to stay in the closet would have been a lot worse.” Leo climbed off the bed and got her laptop. “So, is the episode with Grace okay for you, or would you rather watch one that isn’t so…um…romance-heavy?”

  Holly’s dimples made an appearance. “As long as we’re not watching porn, I’m fine.”

  Leo barked out a laugh. “No porn, I promise.”

  The smaller screen required them to sit even closer together, so now they were really cuddling, kind of, with their legs resting against each other from hip to ankle and Leo’s arm on top of the headboard, which basically positioned it around Holly’s shoulders.

  It was amazingly nice to sit like this.

  Leo chuckled to herself. Grace who?

  Chapter 12

  Holly closed Gil’s door behind her. Physical therapy was already frustrating enough for him, so he didn’t need an audience to watch him struggle. If the physical therapist needed her help, he’d come get her.

  She went over to the kitchen, where Sharon was rooting through a drawer.

  “Can I help you with anything?” Holly asked.

  “No, thanks. I’m just looking for one of my mother-in-law’s recipes. I won’t start preparing lunch for another hour.” Sharon glanced over her shoulder. “Leontyne is in the living room. I think she’s a little bored too. Why don’t you girls go up to her room and watch another episode of that show you like?”

  If she didn’t know any better, she would think Leo’s mother was trying to matchmake. She encouraged them to spend time together at every opportunity. Not that Holly didn’t want to, but she would have felt weird watching Netflix while she was supposed to be working. “No, thanks. I want to stay downstairs in case Gil and Reid need me.”

  “All right.” Sharon went back to her search for the recipe.

  Holly wandered into the living room.

  Leo sat in her father’s easy chair, her eyes closed and her fingers moving to the rhythm of music only she could hear. For a moment, Holly thought she might be working on a new song, but there was no pen and paper and no recording device nearby. Just as she was about to tiptoe out, Leo opened her eyes.

  An instant smile formed on her lips. “Hey. Are you done adulting?”

  Holly chuckled. “Just for the moment. The physical therapist is with your father for the next hour.” She walked over to the piano bench, which was the seat closest to Leo’s easy chair, and sat down.

  Leo tilted her head to the side and studied her. “You look good there. Do you play?”

  “Oh God, no. I wouldn’t call it that.”

  “So you do play? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Holly scrunched up her face. “Because it’s embarrassing. The only thing I can play is one piece.”

  “Which one?”

  Holly hummed it.

  “Ah. Czerny’s Study in C Major,” Leo said. “Okay, let’s play that.”

  “Um, I thought you didn’t want to play classical music?”

  Leo smiled. “I’ll make an exception just this once.” She came over and motioned at her to slide to the side so she could sit next to her.

  It felt nice and warm to have her so close, but playing the piano with her was like painting in front of Pablo Picasso when you could barely draw a stick figure. “I don’t know about this.”

  “Come on.” Leo bumped her with her shoulder, bringing their bodies into even closer contact. “Dad is busy with PT. It’s just the two of us here.”

  “Yeah, but one of us is musical genius Jenna Blake.”

  “No,” Leo said very seriously and turned a little on the bench to look into her eyes. “One of us is Leo, not Jenna.”

  “Right. You know you’re Leo to me.”

  Instead of answering, Leo stared at something farther down.

  When Holly followed her gaze, she realized she’d put her hand on Leo’s leg, probably to reassure her. It felt natural. But jeez, talk about sending mixed signals.

  Before she could snatch her hand away, Leo covered it with her own and squeezed gently. “Ready?”

  Holly swallowed. “All right. Let’s play.”

  Leo opened the lid with the hand that wasn’t still covering Holly’s. “How about I play the left hand, and you play the right?”

  “Okay.”

  “Remember where to put your fingers?”

  “I think so.” She placed her fingers on the keys.

  Leo finally took her hand away from Holly’s and stroked her fingertips over the hand resting on the piano, from wrist to knuckles. “Relax,” she said softly. “Focus on how the keys feel under your fingers.”

  The last thing Holly was focused on at the moment was the piano. Sharing this with Leo was too confusing. There was something between them; she couldn’t deny that. She felt drawn to Leo in a way that might have seemed almost sexual to an observer, but to her, it wasn’t about sex. This was all about emotion.

  Leo shuffled through her father’s sheet music, found the right one, and placed it in front of them.

  Holly took a deep breath and then haltingly began to play the first notes, stumbling through the piece. God, this was awful. Her tempo was all off, and she had the dynamics of a robot.

  Next to her, Leo’s fingers moved gracefully and without effort. It looked as if it came as easy to her as breathing. Wow. No wonder women were swooning when they watched Leo’s long fingers caress the neck of her guitar during concerts. If she weren’t asexual, she probably would too. As it was, her fantasies ended at those talented fingers giving her a massage or caressing her tenderly. Other people might have considered it foreplay, but for her it was the main course, an experience that was sensual rather than sexual.

  Holly was so focused on watching Leo that she stopped her own playing.

  Leo paused too and looked at her.

  “Sorry,” Holly said. “I told you I’m not good at this.”

  “Then let’s play it slower. Want to try playing the left hand, and I take over the right-hand melody?”

  Holly nodded and started to get up to switch sides, but Leo just guided her hand to the correct keys and then reached across Holly’s arm to the piano’s right side. Their forearms touched each other lightly, but Holly didn’t feel crowded. It actually felt…nice.

  They started from the beginning, and this time, Holly played without pausing. She had to admit it didn’t sound too bad.

  When the last notes faded away, they both left their hands where they were for a little longer.

  “Who taught you?” Leo asked as she finally put her hands on her lap.

  Holly withdrew too. “Your father.”

  Leo’s head swiveled around. “My father?”

  “Yeah. You’d think I’d play a little better with him as my teacher, right?” Holly laughed. “He tried to teach me while he was recovering from his first stroke, but I’m hopeless. No matter how much I practiced, I could never coordinate playing with both hands and the pedal.”

  “I bet that didn’t go over too well. After all, if you’re not a perfect student, it means he’s not the perfect teacher he thinks he is, right?”

  “Actually, he took it pretty well.”

  “Are we talking about the same man?” Leo asked. “When I was eight, my mother had to intervene because he wouldn’t let me stop practicing until I got one of Liszt’s pieces right.”

  “I guess it’s different with you.”

  “Yeah.” The one word dripped with bitterness.

  “Maybe it’s because you’re his daughter, and he cares about you,” Holly said softly.

  Leo snorted. “He’s got a funny way of showing it.”

  Holly didn’t know what to say to that, so she just slid even closer on the piano bench
and put one arm around her hip. “He probably never learned how to show it. But that’s his deficit, not yours. It doesn’t mean you’re not lovable.”

  That last word hung between them as Leo slowly turned her head and looked at her.

  Their closeness suddenly made Holly a little nervous, but at the same time, she didn’t want to move away from Leo’s warmth. This close, she could make out the brown flecks in her olive-green eyes. The bitterness in them from before was gone, and now they held only—

  A discreet clearing of someone’s throat made them both jump.

  Reid, the physical therapist, stood in the doorway. “Um, sorry to interrupt, but I could use a second person for one of the exercises. Do you have a minute?”

  “Sure.” Holly quickly withdrew her arm from around Leo and got up. In the tight space between the piano and the bench, her feet got tangled with Leo’s, and she stumbled.

  Leo caught her before she could crash into the piano. “You okay?” she asked quietly.

  Jeez, she really was a bumbling idiot around Leo. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  Slowly, Leo took her hands off Holly’s hips and slid the bench back to give her more space.

  Holly moved past her. At the door, she turned back. “Thanks for playing with me. Uh, I mean…”

  Leo laughed. “I know what you mean. And you’re very welcome.”

  A few days later, Leo stood at the dormer window of her old room. The stars twinkled down on her through the glass. As a child, she had often climbed through this window and up onto the roof whenever she had needed to escape. She slid open the window and paused. Should I…? She shrugged. Why not? It wasn’t as if her parents would ground her even if they caught her.

  She climbed onto her desk chair, gripped the window frame with both hands, and had just lifted one leg over the sill when a knock sounded on her door.

  Quickly, she swung her leg back down and hopped off the chair since she didn’t want to give away her secret spot.

  “Yes?” she called out and turned to face the room.

  The door swung open, and Holly peeked inside. “Hi. Your father is down for the night. I came up to see if you’d like to watch one of the movies with me that we didn’t get to see the other night.”

  Leo hesitated. Her gaze went back toward the still-open window. The spot up on the roof was one place that she had never shared with anyone, not even Ashley. But now the urge to share it with Holly overcame her, and after all, Holly had shared her feel-good place—the room with the puppies and kittens—the week before last.

  “Never mind,” Holly said when Leo didn’t answer immediately. “If you’re not in the mood, we can watch it another—”

  “No. I mean, yes, let’s watch the movie another day. Tonight, I want to show you something else.”

  Holly stepped farther into the room and closed the door behind her. Curiosity glittered in her eyes.

  “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” Leo asked.

  “Um, no. I don’t think so. What are you planning to do? Take me parachuting in the middle of the night?” Her smile looked a little timid.

  Leo chuckled. “No, nothing that spectacular. I’m taking you to my favorite spot in Fair Oaks.”

  “That spot at the creek, where we always stop when we go running?”

  “Nope. That’s my second-favorite spot.” Apparently, Holly had guessed how much she liked that place without Leo having to tell her.

  “So where’s number one?” Holly asked.

  Grinning, Leo pointed at the window behind her.

  Holly stared past her. “Across the street? The high school? I didn’t think you liked that place any more than I did.”

  “I didn’t. I don’t mean the high school. Come on. I think it’s easier if I just show you. Follow me, and be careful. I don’t want to explain to the agency you work for how their employee fell off our roof in the middle of the night.”

  “We’re going up on the roof?” Holly squeaked out.

  “Yep.” She climbed onto the desk chair, held on to the window frame, and swung one leg, then the other over the sill. After two steps onto the roof, she stopped and turned to help Holly. “It’s easiest if you put your hand here and—”

  Before she could finish her sentence, Holly was already out the window and up next to her.

  A light breeze tugged on their T-shirts as they stood on the roof, side by side.

  Leo grinned at her.

  “What?” Holly returned the grin. “You thought I wouldn’t have the courage to follow you, city girl?”

  “I’m not a city girl,” Leo said automatically.

  “No?”

  Normally, Leo was quick to say that she was a New Yorker, but now, up here on the roof with Holly, she was strangely content to be right where she was. She shrugged and climbed up the slope of the roof without answering.

  They made their way around the jutting-out dormer window, arms spread out to the sides to help them keep their balance.

  “Here,” Leo said when they reached the brick chimney. “When I was growing up, I would always sit behind the chimney so I couldn’t be seen from below.”

  They settled down next to each other, both of them leaning against the bricks. The shingles were still warm beneath Leo, even though the sun had set two hours ago, and Holly’s body warmed her on one side.

  The street below them was empty since most people in town were in bed by ten. The crescent moon painted a silvery path across the shingles. Lightning bugs and stars formed a network of light all around them.

  Amazing. Leo stared up into the sky. Another thing she had missed. She had never seen the stars like this in the city.

  No traffic noise, car horns, sirens, or booming radios interrupted the peaceful atmosphere. Crickets chirped, and the louder song of a cicada came from somewhere close to the tree line at the edge of town. The scent of honeysuckle and freshly cut grass trailed on the air.

  It was so beautiful that it felt almost surreal, and Holly’s presence somehow added to it instead of feeling like an intrusion.

  Neither felt the need to speak for several minutes.

  Finally, an owl interrupted the near silence.

  “So this is where you went when you needed to escape,” Holly whispered, as if she didn’t want to interrupt the peace.

  Leo nodded. “My parents never found me. I sat up here for hours, looking at the stars, and dreamed of being a famous pop singer.”

  “And now you are,” Holly said, a smile in her voice.

  “Now I am.” She sighed. It sure wasn’t as fulfilling as she had thought back then, but she didn’t want to spoil this beautiful night by bringing that up again.

  Holly put a hand on her thigh, which was bare below the leg of her jean shorts.

  A tingle climbed up her leg. Oh Jesus. Holly had no idea what she was doing to her. She just wanted to provide comfort.

  Leo cleared her throat and focused on the conversation. “Sometimes, when the need to get out became too bad, I took a map and a flashlight up here and looked up which roads would get me to New York.”

  “Is it really so bad here?” Holly asked quietly.

  Now that Leo’s eyes had adjusted to the moonlight, she could make out Holly’s features. She was looking at her with an almost vulnerable expression, as if Leo’s negative opinion of their hometown hurt her.

  “No,” she surprised herself by saying, “it hasn’t been so bad this time.”

  Their gazes met and held. A slow smile spread over Holly’s face. In the low light provided by the moon and stars, her blue eyes appeared to be a silvery gray, and Leo imagined that she could see them shining with relief or happiness or both.

  Silence settled over them for a bit.

  Leo let her thoughts drift, partly to the past, partly to the present, enjoying this moment with Holly. This
is so ridiculously romantic, someone should write a song about it. She chuckled.

  “What?” Holly asked.

  “Nothing.”

  Holly poked her. “Tell me.”

  “Hey. Don’t make me fall.”

  They paused and stared at each other.

  “Off the roof, I meant,” Leo said hastily.

  “I know what you meant. So why were you laughing?”

  “Um, just thinking about the time I scraped my ass bad when I snuck out one night and slid down the roof to go skinny-dipping with Ash.” She regarded Holly. “How about you? Did you ever do something stupid like that?”

  “No. As you can imagine, I wasn’t into skinny-dipping with girls…or boys.”

  “So you knew you were asexual, even back then?” Leo asked.

  “I always knew I was different somehow, but I couldn’t say what it was that made me different. I didn’t have a word for it for the longest time. I just knew that I didn’t fit in.”

  “It was the same for me.”

  “Yeah, but I think you figured it out a little faster.”

  “True. The giant crush I had on Ash was a big clue.”

  Holly groaned a little. “God, all those high school crushes… My classmates suddenly started to go gaga over someone, and all they wanted to do was hang around the boys or talk about the boys.” She shook herself. “It seemed so stupid to me. I felt like I was the only normal one. It took me a while to figure out that it was the other way around—everyone else was normal, and I was the weird one.”

  “Hey.” Leo reached over and took her hand. “You’re not weird.”

  “I know that now, but back then… I was the only one in my class who didn’t go on a single date during high school.”

  Leo entwined their fingers. “I didn’t date in high school either.” She’d been too hung up on Ash back then. With a rakish grin, she added, “Although I sure made up for that when I moved to New York. I take it you didn’t?”

  “No. I didn’t feel I had anything to make up for. I was too busy with school, friends, and hobbies.”