Key Change: A Slow Burn Rockstar Romance (Common Threads Book 3)

by Heidi Hutchinson

  “And then I showed up anyway.”

  She sent him a soft look. “I’m not complaining.”

  The song at her fingertips took off and the music swirled around the room.

  She was unfairly beautiful in the moonlight.

  Her dark hair was loose, in the soft waves she’d been wearing recently, reaching to her waist. It was longer than he ever remembered it being.

  The soft gray sweater she was wearing was too big and the neckline dropped off one shoulder.

  He wanted to hold her and kiss her and soothe her and he couldn’t explain why.

  Just that he wanted it in a way that seemed too nuanced to be impulsive.

  And maybe that was what he’d been struggling with all week since he’d kissed her.

  Not that he regretted it, but that he hadn’t treated it with the importance it deserved.

  He hadn’t treated her with the importance she deserved.

  Is that why she was here, playing ballads to an old vice in the dark?

  He glanced at the wine, untouched, on the top of the piano. She caught him.

  “Saw that, did ya?” she asked. She pounded dramatically on the piano. “Dun dun dunn.”

  He chuckled, not feeling the worry or fear that perhaps someone else might. But he did have questions.

  “Is there a reason you’re treating this Cabernet to an exclusive performance?”

  She looked at the bottle, her hands paused lightly on the keys.

  “Therapy is hard,” she stated after a minute.

  She glanced up at him and the doors were wide open. No pretense, no walls, no conflict. Just raw honesty.

  “Did you have therapy today?” he asked.

  She nodded, took a breath, and started playing the piano again. “Talked about you.”

  Her eyes flicked back up to him and he met her gaze without asking for more. Whatever she wanted to share with him, he’d take.

  “Talked about me,” she went on. “Talked about happiness and consequences. And then I drove around for a while.” She smirked his direction. “Because no matter how smart and gifted your therapist is, you still have to do the work yourself. And I am…so tired.”

  The piano seemed to sing along with her words. Goose bumps scattered along his arms and retreated, only to return again.

  “I stopped at a store and bought this beautiful bottle of wine. An old favorite. And then I came here because I missed you.”

  She closed her eyes and smiled a sad sort of smile. When she opened them, they were glossy with unshed tears.

  “All the people I’ve betrayed in my life—and there’s been a lot—I betrayed myself the most. And I don’t want to do that anymore.”

  A tear slipped down her cheek and he didn’t stop himself from being right there.

  He cupped her cheek in his hand and caught the tear with his thumb, wiping it away. The music stopped. She turned her face into his hand and closed her eyes.

  What could he have ever done to end up with a woman like this in his life?

  At first, he thought she was a temptation or a distraction. Or worse, someone to ruin him all over again.

  Those thoughts felt like a lifetime ago.

  She wasn’t any of those things he’d feared.

  She was a solar flare. An explosion of light and heat, changing the world around her with every burst of her heart.

  And she had no idea.

  She opened her eyes, and again, he saw right to the soul of her.

  “I wasn’t going to drink it,” she whispered.

  “I know.” And he did know. He knew it the way he knew he was going to take his next breath. It wasn’t even something he had to entertain with a thought.

  He moved to join her on the piano bench, taking his hand from her face and sliding it along her lower back. She made room for him and rested her head on his shoulder.

  And together they shared the same space.

  They probably needed to talk through a few things, clear the air, clarify some details.

  But in that moment, he just wanted to hold space for her. Show her she didn’t have to shoulder her burdens alone if she didn’t want to.

  “Play me a song, Johnny,” she requested in the stillness.

  “Hmm, you know I’m not great at the piano,” he reminded her.

  She sat up, removing her head from his shoulder and gave him a look he couldn’t remember ever seeing before.

  “Please.”

  Yep.

  He would do anything for her.

  Weirdly, he knew exactly what he wanted to play for her the moment she brought it up.

  He brushed her hair out her eyes and tracked the movement of his fingers as he tucked the strands behind her ear.

  “Okay.”

  It was too big for them. Too honest, too soon, too much.

  But it was the only song he wanted to sing to her in that moment.

  He tested the keys, finding his chords, and took a deep breath.

  “I assume you’ve heard of Paul McCartney?” he asked, trying to add levity to what he was about to do to both of them.

  “Are you going to make me cry, Johnny?”

  He licked his lips and shrugged.

  Then he played “Maybe I’m Amazed.”

  And he played it with gusto.

  Hoping that his enthusiasm would overshadow his lack of skill.

  But the words…those he meant.

  He just had no idea how much until he’d already sung them out to her.

  He finished the song and waited for her reaction, but she just leaned against his side. Her warmth seeped through their layers of clothes, and the rest of the studio felt cold by comparison.

  After a moment, she sat up and placed her hands on the keys.

  But instead of playing anything, she turned to face him, concern lining her eyes for the first time since he’d walked in.

  “You kissed me,” she said, but it came out like it was almost a question.

  “Yes,” he replied, his chest tightening.

  So now they were going to talk about it.

  Okay.

  “Why?” she asked, the crease between her eyebrows deepening.

  Why?

  “Because you’re beautiful and I wanted to.”

  A shadow passed through her eyes and he knew he’d said the wrong thing somehow.

  “Is that why you were avoiding me this week?” he asked, trying to be careful. But his heart was hammering so hard in his chest, he thought it might crack a rib.

  “Yes,” she said, eyes downcast.

  Johnny ran his tongue over his lower lip as he tried to understand what they were both saying. Or not saying.

  All the words that came to mind seemed grossly inadequate for what he wanted to convey.

  So, he just sat there silently.

  After a moment, she straightened and her fingers danced along the keys. It was a song he didn’t recognize, but it was beautiful.

  He watched her hands move effortlessly and glanced at her face.

  Her eyes were closed and her lips were silently mouthing the words to the song.

  He wished he knew what it was.

  But he also didn’t want to stop her.

  Maybe they were having trouble finding that easy communication between them, but the music had never left.

  They’d always been able to say more to each other with that than anything else.

  One song turned into three.

  After the third song, she stopped and rested against his side again.

  “I really missed my friend,” she said.

  He put his arm around her, hugging her closer.

  “I missed you too.”

  Wasn’t that the truth?

  A few days without Hannah had him making mac and cheese in the middle of the night.

  Speaking of…

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  She sat up and looked at him with interest.

  “Did you hear my stomach or something?”
she asked with a crooked smile.

  Something about that eased the tension building inside him.

  Maybe things weren’t “better” yet between them, but they weren’t bad. They were still friends.

  And that was more important to him than he had realized.

  “I was making mac and cheese before I came over here.”

  Her eyes lit up and he knew he had her.

  “Homemade mac and cheese?” she asked.

  He scoffed. “What do you take me for?”

  They both stood and he went to retrieve his coat.

  Hannah ran a hand lovingly over the top of the piano.

  “I love this thing,” she said by way of explanation when she caught him watching her.

  He stopped himself before he blurted out that it could be hers. It basically was anyway.

  No matter what happened in the coming days, he would always see that piano as Hannah Lee’s. Because it had never truly been played until she arrived.

  Something occurred to him.

  “Why don’t you have one?” he asked. He’d been to her condo; it was big enough. If she wanted to get a piano, she could have gotten a piano.

  She picked up her coat from the floor nearby and he took it from her. She hesitated as he held the coat open.

  “Well.” She slid her arms inside and he settled the coat around her shoulders. “Waaaay back in the day, when I was someone else, I would require all my hotel suites to have a piano in them.”

  He whistled.

  “Yeah, I was a brat.” She pursed her lips. “I guess I thought I’d already had more than my fair share of things like that.” She frowned, considering. “But I don’t know. Maybe I could get myself one now.”

  She shoved her hands in her coat pocket and froze, giving him a look.

  Before he could ask what it was about, she pulled a bundle of yarn from her pocket.

  “Is that my hat?” He reached out, delicately taking the messy creation.

  “My best one yet,” she declared proudly.

  He held it up, in awe that she had really made him something. Made it. With her hands.

  “Oh my God.” She laughed. “You don’t have to do that to make me feel better.”

  He hugged it to his chest, not joking at all. “I love it. Thank you.”

  “You do not.” She rolled her eyes and strolled out of the live room.

  “I do too,” he argued with a huff. He pulled the door closed behind him and followed her to the back exit.

  He met her at the door and made a point of pulling the hat on over his head.

  She shook her head at him like she thought he was ridiculous.

  “See? Now my ears won’t be cold anymore.” He turned his head right and left so she could get a good look at how the hat covered him.

  She touched the lock of hair that poked out from a hole in the front.

  “What about that, huh?”

  “Adds character,” he replied smugly. “I have a one-of-a-kind Hannah Lee James. It’s priceless.”

  She huffed a soft laugh and he realized how close they were in the darkened doorway. His eyes dropped to her mouth and the way her lips were curved in that smile he had grown to adore.

  She glanced up, eyes glinting in the light of the exit sign.

  Her dark hair framed her face, turning her into a portrait of music and melancholy, wrapped in one.

  Exquisitely intoxicating.

  All at once he was reminded of how he’d missed her over the last few days and how he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize her place in his life.

  In a deliberate move, he opened the door, letting in the cold and extinguishing whatever it was that was trying to fight for a voice.

  She shivered against the cold and buried her nose in the neck of her coat as she stepped outside.

  Johnny set the alarm and locked the door.

  She looped an arm through his, and he told himself that it was because there was fresh frost on the pavement and she was in high-heeled boots.

  But when she leaned her head against his bicep and matched the timing of his steps, he didn’t have anything else to say.

  HANNAH

  For some reason, Hannah didn’t think Johnny’s place would look exactly as it had the night she’d stormed in, offering him a bribe for his silence.

  She tried to hide her embarrassment, because obviously it was the same place.

  It was the same small living area where she’d realized he hated her, but she didn’t know why. The guitar in the corner that had almost triggered the right memory on its own, but then got the job done when combined with the magic words.

  And Shawn walking in, and the hope falling from his face as he realized why she’d really been there.

  “Where’s Shawn?” she asked, letting Johnny take her coat. A small thing that he probably had no idea she noticed.

  But she noticed.

  “Sleeping, hopefully.” Johnny cast a look toward the upstairs and the dark rooms at the top. “What about Miss Piper?”

  “Same. Hopefully.” Hannah thought about the conversation she’d had with her sister earlier in the evening. She’d been worried. Not about Hannah, but about Johnny.

  Hannah couldn’t tell her that she was worried about Johnny too, but for different reasons.

  Reasons that seemed so clear earlier and were now…murky.

  “They must have stellar security at that place,” Johnny remarked.

  “They do. I wouldn’t live there without it.” Let alone leave the twelve-year-old there in the middle of the night.

  “I just have to pop this in the oven for a few minutes to heat it up,” Johnny said from the second level. “Come up here. Talk to me.”

  She wanted nothing more.

  How she had gone a few days without his particular brand of nonsense, she had no idea. How had she lived her entire life without it?

  Because living was living. And blooming was something else.

  She slipped off her ankle boots and left them by the door.

  “Is it okay that I’m barefoot?” she asked, scrunching up her nose.

  He stood at the top of the steps and tossed his head back with a scoff, like she was being stupid.

  She laughed at his response.

  “I had to ask. Some people don’t like feet,” she pointed out.

  “Those people need to get over themselves,” he grumbled, not moving as she ascended the four steps to the kitchen.

  They came face-to-face and he finally stepped back and held out his arms. “So, here’s the kitchen. Nice, right?” He ran a hand over the granite countertops. “I added these myself. Put in all new appliances one at a time as they failed. Did all the floors myself too.”

  Johnny crossed his arms over his chest and leaned a hip against the counter.

  She studied flooring, the countertops, the cabinets. “I didn’t realize you were a carpenter.”

  “Started working for a contractor right when we moved here. He paid me cash to do the ugly jobs no one else wanted. Over time he showed me how to do pretty much everything. I could probably build a house from the bottom up by myself.”

  “Johnny, that’s really fucking impressive,” she said, meaning it.

  “Thank you.” He ducked his head, the tops of his ears turning pink. “It’s not the East Randolph Residence, but it’s okay.”

  She shook her head because she knew he was teasing, but she wasn’t falling for it.

  He grinned and ran a hand under the cabinet to his left. “And I added this.”

  Lights lit up under the top cabinets, bathing the counters below them in a soft glow. And music began to play from under-the-counter speakers.

  She tilted her head, listening.

  “Reggaeton?” she asked.

  It wasn’t a genre she was overly familiar with, but she had heard quite a bit of it when she’d been to his aunt’s house.

  He shrugged. “I like to dance while I cook?”

  She snickered. “Now that
I wouldn’t mind seeing.”

  “It’s hooked up to my phone, so it’s usually a random assortment that plays.”

  “Sure, sure, sure. Or you could stop lying and show me what really happens in this kitchen.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously, but the lopsided slant to his lips told her he wasn’t serious.

  She pumped her eyebrows once, challenging him.

  His hips began to wiggle from side to side, seemingly of their own volition.

  That’s when Hannah realized she’d made an error.

  She had not anticipated how Johnny Enamorado Torres would turn into liquid fire when he started dancing.

  Her heart did that thud thing, but she felt it in various pleasure points around her body.

  “C’mon, you have to do it too,” Johnny said, dancing closer to her.

  “I don’t know how.” It sounded like a lie, because she obviously knew how to dance. He’d seen her do it. But she was telling the truth. She didn’t know how she was supposed to move from where she was planted in awe.

  Their eyes met and he held out his hand.

  She took it with a small groan because she had no idea how she was going to manage this without turning into molten lava.

  “It’s the punta,” he explained. He put his hands on her shoulders and held firm. “You don’t move the upper body. Hold your shoulders level. All you move is your hips. Keep your feet as flat on the floor as you can and take small steps. Watch.”

  Oh, she was watching.

  His hips wiggled to the beat. The light blue Henley he wore stretched and moved around his chest and trim waist.

  She did her best to match the rhythm while following his instruction.

  “Yeah, like that,” he encouraged, sounding proud and happy.

  A laugh bubbled out of her—half excited, half nervous.

  This man had a way of making every moment important. Whether it was because he was being thoughtful and still, or silly and fun.

  She loved it…being with him.

  “Were you ever gonna tell me what happened at work?” he asked, keeping his eyes on her. But she knew what he was doing. He was using the distraction of dancing to disarm her.

  And it worked.

  “I called a woman ugly and she slapped me.”

  Johnny’s smiled slipped and the expression in his eyes grew concerned.