39. Liv
Liv
Theo edged into the apartment, careful not to touch me. “Hi back,” he said, shrugging off his jacket. Beneath it, he wore what he’d had on earlier—a forest-green Henley that complemented his eyes and dark jeans that made him look edible.
Self-consciousness seized me. Should I have put on a bra or wrapped myself in a cardigan? Maybe he’d decided what happened this afternoon was a big mistake.
Which it was. Probably. But why did I feel so disappointed?
An awkward silence hung between us, which we made even more awkward by breaking at the same time.
“Do you want—” I began, just as he cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry for—”
“You go,” I said, waving a hand in his direction.
“I was going to apologize for what happened…in the cab.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I was out of line.”
A blush heated my cheeks. “Don’t apologize. I-I liked it,” I said, the heat spreading over my entire body.
“Shit, Liv. Don’t tell me that.” Theo shoved his hands into his pockets, glancing at the walls, the floor, the windows—anywhere but at me.
“It’s the truth.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. And I’m just going to keep apologizing for what happened next, with my mother.”
“That wasn’t your fault.” How could he think otherwise?
“I’m still sorry. I should’ve texted you back. It was shitty of me.”
“Apology accepted.” Before I could think better of it, I laid a hand on his arm.
It was rock hard under my touch, the muscles tight.
“Please don’t feel bad about your mother.
I told you about how my bio mom had drug problems. I’m not judging you based on how your mother behaves.
Just don’t judge me based on mine…either one of them. ”
His eyes were shadowed, pained, but he gave me a small smile. “Deal. So, um…do you want to talk about your dream some more?”
I shook my head. “I’d rather forget about it, honestly. But I did make some interesting discoveries after I left you.”
I told him about what I’d read about Maisie and my theories about her granddaughter’s true identity. “It’s crazy, I know,” I finished, “but what if, when we meet her tomorrow, we’re meeting the granddaughter of the real Ella Carter?”
“I suppose it’s poss—” Theo began, and then his jaw snapped shut, so hard I was afraid he’d bitten his tongue. I was about to ask him what the matter was, but then I heard for myself: Grandma Ella’s piano, playing that now-familiar melody.
I stiffened, and Theo straightened, every muscle in his body going taut, like a dog on point. “Please tell me,” he said slowly, “you hear that too.”
“I hear it,” I said, an icy tingle creeping over every inch of my skin.
His shoulders sagged. “I thought I was losing my mind.” There was a dark edge to his voice, a painful admission that shattered my heart.
“No,” I said, my voice hushed. “I definitely hear it. But Theo, what the hell does this mean? Because I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“I don’t either. But something in there is playing your grandmother’s piano, and I’m not going to hide in here like a fucking coward while we try to figure out what it is.” Squaring his shoulders, he strode from the room.
“Great,” I muttered, following him down the hallway. “You’re charging right at it instead, like a virgin in a horror movie.”
Despite everything, he laughed. “People have accused me of a lot of things, Liv, but being called a virgin is a new one.”
We were both just trying to distract ourselves. Because the alternative was that the ghost of May Dressler was sitting at the piano, and the two of us were about to catch her in the act.
“What is that song?” I said, the words hushed, as if I was afraid she’d overhear. “Do you know?”
“It’s Bye Bye, Blackbird. The same song I heard before. And my grandmother…earlier tonight, she told me it was a song May always used to play.”
Before I could ask him anything else, we made it to the bottom of the stairs and Theo headed straight for the living room. He froze in the doorway.
The piano had stopped playing. Adrenaline coursing through me, I shoved at his shoulder, trying to get a glimpse. “What do you see?”
“Absolutely nothing. Here, take a look for yourself.”
He stepped aside so I could slip past him. Taking comfort from the line of his body behind mine, I looked.
The piano was still; no one sat at the bench, and the keys didn’t move. Still, I had the unmistakable, eerie sense that we weren’t alone...and I knew what I’d heard.
Maybe it was a crazy idea. But I was suddenly sure it was the right one. “Theo…why don’t you play for her?”
One of Theo’s finely etched eyebrows rose. “You want me to go over there and have a duet with a dead woman?”
The air in the room stirred, and I shivered. “I don’t think,” I told him, “that it’s about what I want.”
He rolled his shoulders, as if readying himself for a fight. “Of course. Well, then, why the hell not? Though if I get possessed or something, you’re gonna have to call the exorcist.”
“Not funny.” I rubbed my arms, trying to rid myself of goosebumps.
“Not joking.” Theo crossed to the piano, giving the space around him a suspicious once-over before settling on the bench. He stared at the piano, as if waiting for it to play itself, but the instrument remained silent.
“I really have lost my damn mind,” he said, putting his fingers to the keys. The familiar melody filled the room, flooding the spaces between us, picking up where the song had left off. And then, taking me completely by surprise, Theo began to sing.
“‘Pack up all my care and woe. Here I go, singing low. Bye-bye, blackbird…’”
His voice was still low and sexy. But now it was sad, too, filled with the haunting words of a woman who was desperate to communicate from beyond the grave.
I sank onto the couch as his hands came down on the keys, echoing May Dressler’s ghostly melody. His voice rose, filling the room. “‘No one here can love and understand me. Oh, what hard-luck stories they all hand me. Make my bed, light the light, I’ll arrive late tonight. Blackbird...’”
Theo’s voice was thick with emotion, and it occurred to me he could well be singing about himself: his loneliness; the self-imposed isolation in which he lived; the darkness he believed followed him wherever he went.
I knew Theo didn’t do love or dating. He’d made that clear enough. And God knew I wasn’t interested in getting my heart hung out to dry, not after Gray. But listening to him sing, his heart in his voice and his inky hair tumbling into his eyes, I let myself admit the truth.
I was falling hard for Theo Dressler.
His voice trailed off, the notes lingering in the room, and a breath of air swept past me. Easily dismissed; just as easily acknowledged. Except I had the undeniable sense that it was saying goodbye.
“I think she’s gone,” I told Theo, my voice hushed. “If she was ever here at all.”
Theo segued into another melody, shaking his head, as if all this was too much for him to handle. I didn’t blame him. “Theo,” I said, watching him, “this is going to sound off-the-wall, but…what if the journal I saw in my dream, the one Charles was writing in, really exists?”
His fingers stilled on the keys, then resumed. “It was a dream, Liv.”
“But maybe it wasn’t only a dream,” I argued.
“It felt so real. He kept saying forgive me, like he felt guilty about something. And look what just happened. Look what’s been happening, with the photos and your dream and Bye Bye, Blackbird.
My dad donated a ton of stuff to the New York Historical Society when we moved my grandma to Wilmington; I’m going to call them tomorrow morning and ask them if they have any of Charles’s journals. ”
Theo’s lips curved, and the pace of the melody he was playing sped up. “Okay, Nancy Drew,” he said, his voice soft, teasing.
I hated to break the peace that had sprung up between us, but it had to be said. I drew a deep breath for courage. “Theo…what your mother said about you. Why didn’t you tell me?”
The piano’s melody didn’t change, but his shoulders set and his jaw clenched.
“If it’s just that you’re a private person, I can understand and respect that,” I said. “But what worries me is that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. That you thought I’d use it against you, somehow, the way your mom did.”
His head jerked up, and his eyes met mine, a startled expression in their depths. “I trust you,” he said, the words coming slowly, as if they surprised him.
“Really? Because everything we’ve been through—all the times we’ve talked about your great-grandmother and your mom’s depression—and you kept your own from me. How come?”
His hands tensed on the keys. “Can we drop this?”
My voice caught. “Friends tell each other things, Theo. Especially the important ones.”
“Friends?” he repeated, like he’d never heard the word before.
“Yes, friends. I mean, unless we’re not.”
Despite the tenor of our conversation, his mouth quirked at the corners. “We’re friends, Liv. Sure.”
“Okay, fine.” I folded my arms over my breasts. “Then, why?”
“Because.” He stood, stepping out from behind the piano. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I didn’t want you to think I was broken.”