Heart Note

by Cassandra O'Leary

  I covered my reaction with a shrug. “Maybe. Life is full of possibilities.”

  Christos’s laugh was like liquid, rushing and pouring over my hormone-addled body. I could’ve drowned in his laugh, or the tone of voice he used when he spoke low in my ear, only for me to hear.

  “You always smell amazing,” Christos bent his head, nuzzling close to my ear. “Like a whole garden in spring.”

  Hello, jelly legs.

  Lucky he was holding me close because otherwise I would’ve slid straight onto the floor. As it was, he grabbed me in a complicated low down rock ‘n’ roll jive. It was impressive. And ranking somewhat dirty on the Dirty Dancing scale.

  As he pulled me back up to standing, I rocked back in my heels. I assumed I had permission to sniff his throat in return, so I took full advantage. “Right back at ya. Spice, cardamon, hint of amber. Unusual fragrance.”

  “I don’t think you can get it here. Bought it in Greece last summer.”

  Oh, now I was picturing him swimming in the turquoise waters off the coast of some exotic Greek island. Tanned skin shimmering with silvery droplets of water in the sunshine. An image that was doing naughty things to my hips, as they undulated against him, without my prior permission. Not to mention my nipples straining against the fabric of my lacy bra and my silky dress. It was both excruciating and smouldering hot.

  Excruci-hot.

  Hold on, brain. Get control now. I need you.

  I must have said something out loud or at least made a grunt, because Christos responded. “Let’s get out of here. Did you drive?”

  “No, I got an Uber.”

  A frown marred Christos’s brow and a lock of super shiny black hair flopped over his forehead. “They’re not safe. You don’t know who you’re getting with those drivers. I’ll give you a ride home, if it’s cool with you.”

  I ran my fingertips down his arm. “I’m pretty good at taking care of myself. But I’m cool as a cucumber. No, cool as ice-cream. Or an iceberg. Or a penguin.”

  Christos barked out a laugh, more of a cough really, and offered me his arm. He ushered me towards the front of the bar. “Come on, Happy Feet. Waddle this way.”

  Chapter Eight

  Christos’s motor was running, rumbling under my bottom. Really, it wasn’t as dirty as it sounded. But as we approached my house in his cool car, all the fun thoughts fled. There were lights on in the front windows.

  There had to be a law against it. Men.

  Well, not men in general, but my Uncle Bill. Especially Uncle Bill being home when I desperately wanted him to be out. Why couldn’t he be boozing with his mates at the local pub tonight? No, he had to be responsible all of a sudden, at home, packing for his trip even though there was still nearly two weeks to go.

  Two weeks. Not so long in the grand scheme of things.

  Only it was an eternity when I had ants in my pants, and an enormous, hot, manly man right beside me, eager to get itching. Or into my itchy pants? Eww.

  Uncle Bill’s untimely presence was even ruining the sexy euphemisms popping into my head. Even if the sentiment was true. I crossed my legs, uncomfortably aware of how I’d worked myself up just by thinking about being alone with Christos.

  Christos had pulled up outside my house. It was nearly dark and the lights were clearly on inside the house. More unexpected were the extra cars and motorbikes lined up along the curb, even on our small patch of front lawn. In the quiet cul-de-sac, it was obvious we had visitors.

  “Oh no.” I twisted the end of my hair around my fingertip. A bad habit from childhood when I was stressed. I didn’t need the split ends or the frazzled nerves.

  “What’s the matter?” But Christos likely knew, or guessed something in the correct vicinity. I watched him clock the vehicles on either side of the street. “Is your uncle having a party?”

  A sigh rose up out of my throat and it was tinged with trepidation. “So it seems, unfortunately. I’m sorry. I thought we’d be alone...”

  Christos reached for me, smoothing his thumb across my lower lip. “Come on. I’ll walk you inside.”

  I didn’t know what to make of his bland, gentleman-like comment. He wanted to walk me inside, but did he want to come in? Even if my uncle was having an aging hippie-rocker blowout inside? My brain was stuck in first gear because Christos had touched my lips. He must have set off a chain reaction in my body, because random parts of me were trembling.

  Christos was out of his door and had rounded the car to open my door before I had a chance to think it through. What if I introduced Christos to Bill? What was the worst that could happen?

  The worst could be pretty bad. Bill fancied himself as a stand-up comedian as well as a muso. If he had a few drinks under his belt plus a microphone, he’d be a menace to prospective boyfriends everywhere. Bill had been known to eviscerate strangers from the safety of a stage. In his own house maybe he’d show some restraint. Maybe.

  Anyway, when had I started thinking of Christos as a prospective boyfriend? Who was I kidding? He’d slotted into the category since the first moment he volunteered as tribute during our retail training, and he caught me when I fell into his yummy strong arms.

  Yep. The moment had emblazoned itself on my brain forever. And possibly my heart.

  I took Christos’s offered hand and let him help me out of the car. His touch was hot, but not scorching. It was reassuring, not to mention sure and steady. Unlike my legs.

  I clambered onto my high heels like they were roller skates, nearly losing my footing and meeting the concrete pavement face first, up close and personal.

  “You’ve got to stop falling at my feet, Lily.” Christos pulled me up with ease, chuckling at his own joke.

  “You don’t really want me to stop, do you?” I squeezed his arm through his shirt sleeve.

  He tensed. His face blanked. I felt my face scrunch into a frown because Christos didn’t look like potential boyfriend Christos all of a sudden. He looked like dead-serious-security-guard Christos.

  He glanced sideways at me, still poker-faced. “Have you been putting on a show to get my attention? Because I’m not into games, Lily.”

  My eyes popped open and I stopped walking. “What? No, I was joking. But I’m not usually so clumsy. I can only assume you have a sex-bomb, anti-gravity effect on me.”

  His expression relaxed, then a slow, cheeky smile spread across his face. “In that case, I like having an effect on you.”

  Without warning, he reached for my hand and placed it on his chest. The rapid beat of his heart beneath the thin fabric of his shirt, the rhythmic, da-dum, da-dum, like a drum beat.

  He moved closer, speaking next to my ear, making my own heart speed as his breath danced across my skin. “You have an effect on me too. You make me want to take a risk...”

  Whatever he was going to say next was drowned out by the crash of cymbals and the beat of actual drums from inside my living room. I glanced up at Christos, his dark eyes like pools of inky night sky, dripped down from above. His pupils were dilated and I wanted to drag him into my bedroom like a cavewoman.

  Instead, I invited him to join the mad carnival of Bill’s world, and mine. “Come inside. I’ll introduce you to Uncle Bill. He’s a riot.”

  I winked, letting him know there was more to discover. But I’d let him draw his own conclusions. Chances are, he’d get scared off and never come back. More than one person had labelled Bill a freak, and me by association. My belly muscles constricted at the thought, and it wasn’t the cavewoman part of me this time.

  Christos took my hand and led me to my own front door.

  My head didn’t stop turning with conflicting thoughts. As my heels click-clacked on the concrete path, I debated my own reactions.

  I knew without a doubt I wanted Christos. Wanted, craved, fantasised about daily. Hourly. It was a concern, for a woman with short-term plans. This city, this job, this house—it was all temporary.

  I suspected my feelings for Christos weren’t
temporary at all. Loving him could be a full-time occupation.

  I UNLOCKED THE DOOR with a shaking hand, nervousness overtaking me. Christos was right behind me, so warm. He was like a radiator, and the spring weather was already sticky.

  The drum beat intensified as I creeeaked open the door, then the strains of guitar hit. When we passed over the threshold, I knew the exact moment Christos spotted Uncle Bill in his full regalia. The man now beside me stopped still, but the man in the swing of a guitar solo, my semi-famous drag queen uncle, was grinning.

  Bill’s red lipstick was crooked again. I’d have to talk to him about the new range of long-wearing matte lipsticks we had in store. Seriously. It ruined the effect of his stunning and slinky red sequinned dress, and of course the trademark fishnet tights and knee high boots. But the glam blonde wig set off the whole look. The Marilyn-esque hairdo was gorgeous.

  Bill, or should I say, Regina, stopped playing. So did his sidekick on drums, Barry, aka Stella, who was decked out in punk-rock-chick style. The look was working for him.

  I cleared my throat and hoped the evening wasn’t about to go for a U-turn to awkward-land. “Hey, Bill, I’d like you to meet Christos. My new...friend. From work.”

  “Welcome! Take a seat. If you can find one.” Bill waved us inside and I finally scoped out the rest of the room.

  An assortment of characters were strewn about my living room, including a few old faces. I spotted Dad’s old on-again, off-again girlfriend, Carrie. She smiled and waved hello, while ushering me to sit down.

  I plonked myself down on the small armchair beside her and Christos hovered next to me. I shuffled over and he grinned, squeezing into the gap next to me.

  “I didn’t know there would be a floor show. I would have visited weeks ago.”

  Then I knew it would be all right. Christos was cool with the weirder elements of my small family. I reached over and squeezed his knee. Then bit my lip. Because I actually wanted to leap into his lap and kiss him until my head was spinning and I felt his hardness under me. But it probably didn’t need to be a floor show.

  Bill struck a few chords on his guitar again, then a couple more members of the group rose to the makeshift stage area in front of the fireplace. Then they were into an up-tempo version of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, an old favourite. I reckon I must have watched the music show on TV about a million times, with all the hundreds of cover versions of Stairway. It was a part of my childhood.

  “They’re really good. How do they play so well, impromptu?” Christos asked, turning to me a second after he spoke. “Hey, it’s okay.” He reached for my face and wiped his thumb across each of my cheeks.

  My own hand went to my cheeks and found my skin damp. Tears. I hadn’t even realised. Dad had loved this song, and the flashes of him playing keyboard and piano at home, along with Bill, and me and KC running around dressed in black and playing roadies, swooshed through my head in a rush. Because this had been Dad’s band once.

  This time I did clamber into Christos’s lap, and I liked the way he groaned under his breath and clenched his jaw. His stubbly jaw, which I so desperately wanted to run my fingertips along and feel the friction. There was a whole load of friction I wanted to feel with this man.

  When I looked up and zoned into what was going on around me, Bill’s eyebrows waggled in my direction even as he strummed his guitar. He mouthed the word ‘handsome’ and grinned, his pearly whites glinting. Then he turned his attention inward, falling into the music as he so often did.

  Christos, meanwhile, had his hand on my hip again. It was distracting in the absolutely best way. There was no denying the attraction between us anymore. It zinged and zipped in the space around us like the swooping, soaring notes of the music. No longer so in control, I snuggled back against him and there it was. Unmistakable proof—Christos wanted me too.

  Hooray, halleluiah and hello, handsome!

  I’d picked it, picked him, almost from the first moment I saw him. My body had known. He was half hard, sitting here in a room full of people he didn’t know, because I was close to him. I didn’t even want to shift my legs, in case I made the situation more inconvenient. Because it was bloody inconvenient.

  Why couldn’t we have gone back to his place? An interesting thought.

  “Later we can go back to my place.” It wasn’t a question, the way it was rumbled out on a huff of breath, low enough so no one else could hear.

  Clearly, the man was psychic. Or else my body was giving off so many ‘take me’ signals, I didn’t require subtitles. No words at all.

  “Uh-huh,” I breathed. I was clearly a conversational genius.

  I couldn’t focus on my surroundings. The music had stopped, but the beat of my heart thundered on. Around me, a bunch of guys I didn’t know, sitting on the floor, clapped and whistled as Bill took a bow.

  I couldn’t focus on anything but the urgent need to be with Christos, right now thank you. I know what I want, just ring it up. I don’t need any fancy gift wrapping. Because the customer is always right, after all.

  Bill was probably an evil wizard putting a curse on my love life, because suddenly he announced my presence. “Hello to my niece, Lily, who’s house-sitting for me while I’m in the US. She’s going to be the queen of her own perfume empire one day. What you might not know is she’s a talented singer, like James back in the day.”

  I shut my eyes and willed him to stop talking. No such luck. Evil wizard he was.

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind jamming with us old folks and getting some air in those lungs of hers. Up you come.”

  “No.” I shook my head.

  I didn’t need another crying incident with all of these people looking at me. It all reminded me too much of Dad, James. He’d been a fine singer and Bill was only trying to be friendly. I didn’t need to put myself in an uncomfortable spot for him.

  The applause was overwhelming though. My fingers shook as I smoothed them down my thighs, erasing non-existent wrinkles from the lower half of my silky dress.

  Christos shifted, and I didn’t think I could take it if he forced me to get up there. “Lily, is this okay with you? You don’t have to sing if you don’t want to.”

  Then Carrie leaned over close to my right hand side. Her greying blonde hair hung loose and wavy around her shoulders and she pushed it back with one hand. “I always loved your voice, Lil. Why don’t you sing us a tune? Then you two can nick off somewhere quiet.” She rubbed my shoulder and the simple gesture was fortifying somehow.

  “What about a Blondie tune?”

  I heard myself say the words before I knew what the hell I was doing. I had been known to jump in at the deep end, even if I only knew how to doggy-paddle. What did I really have to lose?

  Bill looked fit to burst with excitement. He actually bounced on the balls of his feet. “Of course, kiddo. Heart of Glass?”

  So, I found my legs moving. I found myself standing in front of a microphone in my living room, before a miscellaneous crowd of bikers, old-school hippies, cross-dressing rockers, plus Bill’s mates from the local pub. And Christos.

  Christos, who was currently running his hungry gaze over me, like I was chocolate sauce he wanted to pour on ice-cream, maybe with whipped cream. Like he’d devour me whole. Heat rose from the pit of my stomach to the roots of my hair. If I wasn’t blushing as deep as my scarlet dress, I’d be mighty surprised. Shockingly, I didn’t care.

  I let out the opening lyrics of the song, then fell into rhythm with Bill and the gang, swaying my hips and bobbing my head to the pop beat. I sang only for one person in the room. And the words floated in the air, about an old love and a new one, a fragile heart made of glass and hoping for more.

  The real thing.

  Chapter Nine

  This time in the car with Christos, I didn’t just have ants in my pants. I thought I’d actually expire. My clothes had effectively become a boa constrictor, cutting off all the air to my lungs, squeezing me tight, stopping t
he blood circulating. My pulse thudded wildly in several important places.

  Clothes. Who needed them? Bah, humbug! They needed to come off, and soon. I tugged at the low neckline of my dress.

  As we drove towards his place, my own heartbeat was amplified in my ears, loud as the thrum of rain on a tin roof. Like the annex of my gran’s old house where I used to sleep over some nights as a kid when Dad was playing with his band. But then the sound changed, a swoosh-swoosh woke me from the memory of Christmas Eve at Gran’s, waiting up to spot Santa Claus arriving on the front lawn.

  It was actually raining. Melbourne’s weather was changeable from one minute to the next. No wonder it felt so humid inside the car. Huge droplets of rain went splat on the windscreen, round mini-puddles for a second before the wipers chased them away.

  Christos was quiet. I was acutely aware of him though, his scent surrounding us in this capsule of a car, his essence teasing my nostrils and urging me closer as we sped through the night towards our destination.

  His place. His bed.

  Was I making a huge mistake? Too soon to say.

  But I wanted to take a chance, for the first time in a long time.

  I let my gaze drift from the splatting rain drops to the man beside me. His hand taut on the gearstick, tendons in his exposed forearm shifting with the change of gears. Up to his shoulders, broad and muscular under his shirt, to his neck and jaw. So strong. Masculinity in its essential form. His profile was highlighted by the street lights, the straight line of his nose slightly crooked, under close inspection.

  I blurted out a question before I could think. “Did you break your nose once?”

  Christos turned to me quickly, then looked right back at the road ahead. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “I noticed your nose is a little crooked. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”

  “It was a fight back in high school. Stupid kid stuff.”

  The way he responded, too dismissive, too fast, told me it was anything but. I tangled my fingers together in my lap. I didn’t push it. I didn’t know why I’d even said anything to break the silence. Besides being completely nervous, verging on completely uncommunicative. Dumbstruck by him and his male beauty.