by Vivian Lux
By the end of practice, when they were calling her Mrs. King and asking her if she was a princess, I knew we'd won them over.
"Thank you," I breathed in relief as parents started showing up for pick-up. I threw my arms around my friend. "I feel like Gid would be okay with us doing a little light editing here and there."
Claire laughed. "You call that light? We rewrote the whole thing!" She shook her head. "He would have gotten his ass fired for this." Then she got that wicked glint in her eyes, the one that made her look most like Jonah. "Maybe that was his plan? Go out in a blaze of glory?"
I fell silent and Claire cleared her throat. "It's still his music. It's a nice tribute."
"Yeah but I still have to figure out some way to play the music." I grinned. "I'm going to be up late practicing, that's for sure."
Claire sighed. "Let me think about this. I bet I can come up with something."
I nodded. Claire knew how to play probably every instrument in the book. I felt my load lighten considerably to know she'd play in my stead. "That'd be awesome, thanks." It was coming together. Everything finally felt under control.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ruby
My day started with my car door frozen shut and went right downhill from there.
Not one, but two of my kindergartners vomited in the classroom, one all over the toys during indoor recess. The smart board broke and three kids got in a knockdown, screaming deathmatch over the favored pair of headphones for computer time. I'd worked right through my lunch preparing reports for a conference, then the parent had called and cancelled, and I spilled tomato soup down my blouse.
The few minutes of silence before rehearsal started was the first moment of peace I had felt all day.
I leaned over and collapsed onto the cool, polished wood of the piano and let out a long, shuddery breath. I could only imagine what Claire was going to say when she saw me like this. She'd probably drag me out for drinks after rehearsal. And I'd let myself be dragged.
I sighed, expecting to hear her calling out for me to stop sleeping on the job.
But she didn't call out.
She was late.
Frowning, I stood back up and fumbled through my purse. I grabbed my phone, intending to send her a "where you at?" text.
There on my screen hovered a message notification from her. From five hours ago.
It had been that kind of day.
I swiped the message open and her breathless apology took up nearly half the screen. I could just imagine her dictating it as she drove to her next client appointment.
Claire: Roo OMG so they fucked up my schedule today. Turns out I have a stupid client dinner starting at 5:30 and it's way over in Reckless Falls so I have to leave at like 4:15 but I have a shitton of work to do before that because did I mention these clients are stupid anyway don't hate me but I can't make it but don't worry I got you covered okay I'm sending help let me know if he gives you problems, he's on official baby-sister notice.
I barely had time to register what she was saying help? He? On official baby sister notice? before the auditorium door swung open. I turned, crossing my fingers it was the kids arriving.
It was not the kids.
It was Jonah.
Upon seeing him, it was like my body tried to feel every feeling at once while at the same time my brain tried to think every thought at once and the end result was that I just stood there, staring at him as he turned in a slow circle, taking in the auditorium with a long, low whistle. "Wow," he said. "This place hasn't changed a bit."
He seemed impossible in this space. I knew there was a time when Jonah King was just a normal kid who sat here in these seats during assemblies. I knew that he'd played a few talent shows right up on this stage, but what I knew to be true and what I felt to be true were two different things. This space was huge, but somehow Jonah was bigger. He was forty feet away from me, but I could feel the electric hum in the air around him. There was no way I should be able to feel his warmth, but that was exactly what my body insisted was happening. There was no way I should feel the ghost of his lips against mine, but that's exactly what I felt.
Hastily, I turned and grabbed my purse, unnecessarily setting it on the floor and closing it just to buy myself some time. My reaction made no goddamned sense. The last time I had seen him was when I was shouting and rushing away, furious with him. I'd been mulling that lunch over in my head, over and over again, playing it on repeat. At this point, I could tell you exactly when he smirked, exactly when he exhaled, exactly when he leaned in and tried to make nice. And somewhere in that obsessive replaying I'd become...obsessed.
I shook my head. No. There was no way this was happening. I straightened back up again. "Jonah," I said, and congratulated myself for how calm my voice sounded. "So Claire sent you?"
He turned and grinned, and goddamn that dimple to hell and back again. "Hey Ruby," he said, much softer than I was expecting. "Good to see you."
I swallowed. We were still very far apart, but I had the urge to step backwards anyway. "You too," I said automatically.
He pressed his lips together and looked down. I blew a breath of air out of my lungs. Both of us shifted on our feet and he opened his mouth to say "You were right about -" at the same time I started to say, "About the lunch -"
And then thirty-three grade schoolers streamed in through the doors and anything we wanted to say was swallowed up in the din.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jonah
I still pictured my baby sister as wearing pigtailed braids, but she was clearly a full-grown adult. Especially when she called my phone six times to wake me up and yell at me about turning lazy.
"You're serious?" I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. "You're calling me lazy?"
"You're hanging around the house doing fuck-all!" she shouted through the static on the wires. "Honestly, what are you even doing here?"
The fact that I still had no real answer to this question was driving me towards the brink. I'd even tried knitting, of all things, like Ruby had suggested. Something to soothe myself. But after a few stitches I'd thrown the fucking nightmare against the wall, pissed that it wasn't doing what it was supposed to. "I don't know," I said, slow and steady. "But I'm thinking of leaving right the fuck now, I'll tell you that much."
But instead of backing off, Claire just laughed. I was reminded again at how with the four of us gone all those years she had essentially grown up and only child. She'd gotten very used to having her own way. "Well instead of sitting here on the phone, you should go do something for me."
I smacked my forehead and then dragged my hand down my face. "This was your plan all along," I sighed. "Shaming me into doing your bidding."
"And it's working too, right?" she chirped. "Come on Jonah, it's not even really a favor for me. It's for Ruby."
I sat up straighter. "What's wrong with Ruby?" I asked, a little too quickly.
"She needs help," Claire had said and now, five hours of watching the clock later I was finally here in the auditorium, all set to get right in there and help Ruby with whatever she needed - and hoping what she needed involved minimal clothing. But I couldn't hear a word she was saying because there were a million kids screaming all at once.
She widened her eyes for a moment. And then I watched her square her shoulders. She seemed to grow several inches in height as she whipped around to glare at the screaming kids.
Every single one of them shut up instantly.
It was pretty fucking sexy.
"Okay then!" she said, suddenly smiling as she clapped her hands. "I want you all to say hi to Mr. King. He's here to help us with the music today."
I blinked. When Claire had asked me - not, more told me - to come help Ruby, I'd just agreed without question. Now the pieces were sliding into place. "Is this the Spring Play?" I asked.
She turned and nodded. "Yeah," she said softly. "Gid was supposed to direct."
I felt the downward rush of grief, still so fresh,
still so raw. I was starting to expect it now. But what I didn't expect was the rush of warmth that came with it. "You stepped in?" I asked, and my voice sounded thick and unfamiliar in my ears.
She nodded, her dark eyes bright.
The seven billion children onstage watching us were the only reason I didn't close the space between us and kiss her with all I had. How had I missed who she was all these years? How had she slipped past me?
Because you weren't here, a voice in my head reminded me.
I cleared my throat. "Thank you," I told her. And I meant it.
She blinked and then smiled slowly. "Thank you for coming to help," she said in return. And it sounded like she meant it too.
"So what am I doing?"
She turned and addressed the kids. "Mr. King just needs to practice a little bit before he starts helping. So let's all put on our listening ears and be very quiet while he plays the piano for us." She spread out the handwritten sheet music and gestured for me to sit down at the piano.
I looked at it, and then looked again. "Did...?" I started to say before my words got choked with emotion. "Did Gid write this?"
She nodded.
Taking a deep breath, I sat down at the bench.
Gid and I had played together since I was old enough to hold a guitar. I'd heard his music all my life, but I'd never played it until this moment. My fingers felt clumsy and thick. I could feel Ruby's eyes on me, watching and waiting for me to do what I supposedly did best.
I took a breath and summoned all the years of stuffing down nervousness, fighting back the stage fright.
And I played.
Gid's music flowed from my fingertips and the more I played the more I wanted to play. Each note was a connection with his memory, each phrase a part of him that still existed in my world. The closer I got to the end, the slower I played, not wanting it to be over, but then it was over, way too fast and something was tickling my cheek and I looked up to see that Ruby was quietly brushing the tear away from my face before she brushed them off her own. "I've heard it already," she murmured, low so the kids couldn't hear. "But I didn't cry until now." She dabbed at her eyes and laughed. "That's insane right?"
I took a deep breath. "Sounds totally sane to me, but then I've never been a good judge of sanity," I told her, making her laugh again. I looked back at the music I had just played. "Wow, this piece is incredible. Nice hook, too." I looked back at Ruby. "He really wrote this for kids to sing?"
"Gid was never one for censoring his genius," Ruby said with an eyeroll.
I burst out laughing and it felt fucking good. She grinned back at me and turned to her kids, lining them up in rows to do warm-ups. At her direction, I played the scales, then the first bars of the opening number before turning them loose a cappella.
And all around me was Gid's music. Coming from the instruments, coming from the kids' mouths.
Ruby had stepped in to make sure that this music was heard. That thought was like a bubble, filling my chest, squeezing my heart and making it difficult to breath.
When the first parents showed up to collect their kids, I couldn't take it anymore. "Come here," I told Ruby, reaching out and grabbing her arm.
She looked down at where we were connected. I brushed the pad of my thumb over the delicate bone of her wrist and she pinkened. "Come where?" she asked.
"With me."
"Where are we going?" she asked as I led her away from the piano.
"Right here," I said once we were in the shadows backstage. I pulled her flush against me.
"Jonah...what - ?"
"You're amazing," I interrupted her.
Her eyes somehow got even bigger. "What?"
"What you're doing? What you've done?" I cupped her face in my hands, tilting her so I could look her in the eyes when I said. "You're amazing and I don't know why it took me so long to realize it, but I know it for certain now." And then just so she was certain too, just in case my words didn't mean what I meant them to mean, I kissed her.
This time there was no testing. This time I went in, meaning to mark her. To sear her mouth with mine and make her feel all the awe and wonder she'd made me feel from the moment I'd returned to this town. To make her understand that I'd been thinking about her non-stop and now I was done thinking and ready to start doing.
I meant to brand her as mine because that was how I saw her now. Mine.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ruby
I'd come loose. The last bonds that kept me tethered to the ground - keeping him at arm's length, staying angry at him for my own protection - had come undone and I was suddenly soaring upward. I felt weightless, and then heavy, soaring and then falling as he kissed me there in the dark of the wings, just out of sight of the arriving parents.
"We should - "
"Sssh," he hushed me, dragging his thumb over my bottom lip. Somehow, even in the gloomy shadows, his eyes hadn't lost their magic. I could still see the green in the hazel, faint like the haze over newly budded willow trees in spring time.
This was so new, so unexpected that I didn't know what I was feeling at the same time I was feeling everything. He slid his hands back from my cheeks to cup them at the nape of my neck, and his fingers moved, stroking and soothing, skillful, just like I'd imagined. I tilted my head, and my hands slid up his chest to twine around his neck, and the whole time my brain was circling around and around the fact that this was Jonah, Jonah King, I was kissing right now.
"I can't believe I didn't know," he sighed, letting his lips fall to my neck, and I knew what he meant because I was feeling it too. This felt like jumping into a swimming hole just after Crown Creek thawed. The shock was almost painful and made your skin feel like it was on fire and you whooped and yelled, feeling brand new and alive.
That's what this felt like and I couldn't believe I didn't know that it would feel this way. I'd spent so much time hating him, resenting him along with his family, letting what I'd heard crowd out what I now knew.
"Ah!" I hissed as his lips found my earlobe. I was falling, spinning, spiraling, but a kind of heavy need was pulling me back down, back here with him. By the time his hand slid up from my waist, I was practically panting, and he covered my mouth with his again and kissed me a second time. I got the feeling that the first tender kiss had been for me but this punishing kiss was for him.
His fingers were at my blouse buttons now, two quick flicks had the tops of my breasts exposed. He hissed in triumph before dragging his lips across them while his fingers delved and kneaded. "Ruby," he growled then groaned into my mouth, walking me backwards until my back was up against the cinderblock wall. When his hard thigh pressed between my legs, wedging them open, I made a sound I'd never heard before, and I could feel his wicked smile curve against my lips. "Fuck," he whispered, rough and guttural, and his hand slid up my leg, testing and testing, seeing if I would stop him and when I didn't he groaned again and cupped it over that place between my legs. "So warm," he murmured against my ear as he slid his finger over the seam of my slacks.
I yelped before I could catch myself, and then buried my face in his neck, muffling my sounds as he began stroking faster. We were fully clothed, dry humping like teenagers, but the aching need was already clawing up my thighs and settling in my core. I rose up on my toes, mindlessly giving him more, spreading my legs wider when I heard my name. "Miss Riley?"
We froze, Jonah's hand still wedged between my legs. I swallowed, heart pounding. "Hi Luke!" I squeaked. "Sorry, be right out!"
"Who the fuck is Luke?" Jonah growled into my ear.
"Parent," I whispered, shushing him.
"Make him go away," he instructed, moving his hand again.
"I've gotta drop Maddy off at her Grandma's!" Luke was babbling. "But don't forget about the winter fest this weekend, okay?"
I licked my lips. I was currently in the middle of being ravished by a world-famous rockstar with really skilled fingers. I'd forgotten all about the winter fest. "Yeah, I gotta che
ck my calendar Luke!" I called. I glanced at Jonah and deliberately stepped back and straightened my blouse. His face was thunderous and his eyebrows looked knitted together and he shook his head minutely as I took a step away from the wall. I shook my head back, and even though my lips were bruised with his kiss, and even though my whole body still throbbed with the ache of being denied what it craved, I still managed to pull myself together and step out onto the stage with a smile. "Good job today, Maddy," I said to Luke's daughter. "See you in class tomorrow."
Luke stared at me. I smiled blandly back and waved. "Have a good night."
He took a deep breath. "Sure," he said crisply and grabbed Maddy's arm and roughly hustled her out the door.
And that was when I looked down and saw my blouse was still undone down to my bra.
Jonah snorted and stepped from the shadows. "I tried to warn you," he said as I buried my face in my hands.
"Oh my god," I groaned, then laughed. "Oh god, poor Luke. What an awful way for him to find out I'm not interested." I shook my head and looked helplessly over at Jonah.
He was watching me with the strangest expression on his face. "What?" I asked, busily re-buttoning my blouse.
"I meant it," he said. "When I told you you're amazing." He shook his head in disbelief. "You're just...good."
I licked my lips. Watching him play Gideon's music, the expression on his face as he remembered his uncle, had finally made my decision for me. "Jonah, there's something I need to tell you."
He came over immediately. Grabbing my hand, he pressed it to his lips and gazed at me so adoringly that a stab of guilt tore through my stomach. "Go ahead," he said.
I took a deep breath. "Before he died," I began. "Gid gave me a box."
Jonah let my hand drop. He furrowed his brow but said nothing.