Chapter 13
thirteen
IT WAS TWO weeks later when I woke up in the middle of the night to an empty bed and the caressing sounds of a piano lullaby playing.
For a few minutes, I lay there, content to listen as sleep hovered at the edges, but soon my desire to see Reid and make sure he was okay overpowered any need to close my eyes again.
I pushed off the covers and put on a pair of sweatpants before padding down the hall.
Staying in the shadows, I leaned against the door that led into the kitchen, not wanting to disturb him, but close enough to see him.
Illuminated only by the moonlight filtering in through the slats in the blinds, Reid sat at the piano with his eyes closed, his body softly swaying along as he played.
The minutes passed, and every now and again he’d stop, pick up the pen lying on top of the piano, and jot something down before continuing or starting over to play it through, and all the while I stayed silent, taking the moment to just look at him.
He hadn’t dressed before coming out here; his chest was bare and he wore only a pair of boxer briefs.
From where I stood, I could see the strong muscles in his shoulders and arms tensing and flexing beneath the smooth ivory expanse of his skin as he played.
I knew what it was like to run my tongue along the ridges and curves there, how firm his body felt under my lips.
How firm his cock felt as he pushed past my lips, too—a grin tipped my lips at the thought.
Reid’s hair had grown back fast, and it was now the same length it had been back when we were strangers.
But where he used to brush it into a meticulous, perfectly styled do, now he mussed it with his fingers in a wake-up-and-go style that suited him—and I didn’t have to tell him I preferred the mussed, just-fucked look best. Considering that whenever he was around, I could never stop myself from threading my fingers through the strands and drawing him toward me, I had a feeling he could tell, and that was why he continued to wear it that way.
When he saw me standing in the doorway, the music stopped.
“Did I wake you?” he asked.
“Not at all.” I shook my head and stepped into the room. “I want you to play whenever you feel like it.”
“I’m sure you didn’t mean at three a.m.,” he said with a smile, as his fingers moved over the keys again.
“I meant anytime.” Crossing over to him, I smiled and then leaned over the piano to give him a kiss. He hummed in the back of his throat.
“It wasn’t a nightmare tonight, was it?”
“Not tonight. I woke up with an idea of how to end a song I’ve been working on, and I didn’t want to forget.”
“The one you were playing just now?”
“Yeah. Do you like it?”
“It’s my favorite. You played it the night we found the music store downtown.”
He smiled. “It reminds me of you. The way you feel. The way you make me feel.” He started the slow melody again from the top. “Safe…treasured…home.”
“I’m glad I make you feel that way.” I settled my upper body on top of the piano with my chin on my arms and let my eyes fall closed as he played. I couldn’t fathom a more beautiful sound in the world. If he wanted to play every night, there would be nothing more that I’d want to wake up to.
Nothing more than the man himself, that was.
Abruptly, the music stopped, and when I opened my eyes, I saw Reid’s head down, and his forehead screwed up tightly.
“Are you okay?”
When Reid’s head shot up, he smoothed his face and then gave me a small smile. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, getting to his feet.
“You don’t have to stop.”
“No, I think I’ve got it now.” He scribbled something in the notebook and then tossed the pen on top of it.
“Sometimes I have to get it out. But I’m tired now.
Ready to go back to bed with you,” he said, taking my outstretched hands.
I drew him in close, nuzzling my face into the warmth of his neck.
“It’s one of my favorite things in the world, listening to you play.”
“You’re biased.”
“I’m not.” I brushed a kiss below his ear. “Just lucky.”
“I’m lucky too.”
“You may not say that after this week,” I said.
After nonstop hassling from Mike about when he was gonna get to officially meet Reid, I’d finally relented, and to my surprise, Reid had jumped at the idea.
Mike was bringing Deb, and I had no doubt those two would get on with him like a house on fire.
But still, Mike was enough to run anyone off if they weren’t planted firmly enough.
“Have I mentioned I can’t wait to meet your friends?”
“They’re excited to meet you too. But I’m still apologizing in advance for Mike’s mouth.”
“He doesn’t scare me.”
“He should. Hell, he scares me.”
Reid laughed as we climbed back into bed, the conversation fading into languid kisses as we draped ourselves over each other and settled into a peaceful quiet, the kind that came before sleep.
But as the minutes passed, and despite Reid’s comment about being tired, he seemed unable to rest. I could practically hear his mind going a mile a minute beside me, and I untangled myself from him and faced him on my side.
“What usually wakes you?” I said. “When it’s bad?”
He was quiet for a long time, and that alone told me I’d hit the nail on the head. “The doctor said they’re panic attacks. Sometimes they hit so hard I think I’m gonna die.”
“What does it feel like?”
“It feels like someone is sitting on my chest, crushing my lungs, and I have this feeling of… It’s hard to explain.
” I waited as he searched for the words.
“Doom, maybe? Emptiness? Fear? With dreams, I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.
Am I remembering things that happened, or are they made up?
I think maybe that’s the scariest part. Feeling like I have no sense of reality.
I’m pretty sure that’s what triggers the attacks. ”
My heart clenched for the struggle he went through, even after all this time.
He put on a brave face, but inside he was terrified.
There was no telling if or when the panic would ever go away, if he’d ever remember, but none of it was within my control.
All I could do was be there. Be the anchor he needed to the real world.
As if he was reading my mind, he said, “But I don’t feel that way when I’m with you.
It all goes away. You seem to…ground me…
somehow.” Then he lifted up onto his elbows.
“I can’t imagine that what I had before could’ve been anywhere as amazing as what I have now.
Even with the holes, the panic attacks, the frustration…
it almost feels like I have a clean slate.
Does that make sense? Like it doesn’t matter what happened before, and now I can figure out what I like, what I don’t like… what I love.”
A surge of heat flooded my belly, but I wasn’t about to let myself read into his words. Instead, I said, “I’d help you remember. If that’s what you wanted.”
“I don’t know. Part of me wants to know who I am…who I was before my accident. But what if I don’t like who I was?”
I shook my head. “That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because I was drawn to you.” A smile crept across his face, and I kissed him. “So, see? You couldn’t have been that bad.”
“Maybe.” He laid his head on my shoulder. “Can we just stay like this instead?”
“In bed? Naked?”
“Mmm. Those things too.”
I curled my arm protectively around him, wanting to shield him from the nightmares, the emptiness he felt.
Wishing I could give him back the missing pieces.
How would that change him? Change us? And would I do it if it meant I could lose him?
He’d become such an integral part of my life in such a short amount of time that the thought of being without him was unbearable. Unthinkable.
I tried not to dwell on those thoughts, distracting myself by kissing the top of his head and trailing my fingers along his spine. His body began to relax, and soon, sleep overtook him again.
But I stayed awake, the silence I’d once enjoyed now deafening in his absence.