Chapter 19
As tempted as Merritt was to keep Niko locked in her room for the indefinite future, he had to leave her bed pretty much immediately to get cleaned up. She sent him to the bathroom with an old towel and a pair of her sweatpants, and while he was gone, she changed into clean clothes of her own.
When he returned, he didn’t get back into bed right away, instead casting his eyes around the shadowy lumps in her cluttered room until he landed on the guitar case resting against her keyboard bench.
“Will you play me something?”
She groaned. “I think the objective of a successful sexual encounter is that nobody picks up an acoustic guitar at any point.”
“Please?” The way he said it was so earnest, the way he looked at her so plaintive.
Coming on the heels of a top-five orgasm of her life, from the man who had just given it to her on his first try, she was less inclined than normal to refuse.
“Fine,” she said with a sigh, scooting up until she was sitting against the headboard. He brought the guitar over to her, then sprawled at her feet, lying on his side, watching as she tuned it. “Just don’t ask me for ‘Wonderwall’ next.”
His face lit up. “I love ‘Wonderwall.’ ”
She bit back a smile. When she looked down at the strings, though, she froze.
Panic rose in her throat, the self-imposed pressure of the moment threatening to overwhelm her: the first time she’d played in front of anyone in a decade.
But when she glanced back up to meet his eyes and saw they were warm and eager, the tension in her chest released.
She was safe. She was cared for. She could do this again—if only for an audience of one.
She was surprised at how quickly a song came to her—not one of her own, but one of her favorites, one of the first she’d taught herself to play—and she started strumming without letting herself second-guess it.
Her voice was tentative at first; she didn’t want to push too hard after years of disuse, and she hesitated slightly before the high notes, unsure they would be there.
But they were, and, to her extreme surprise, they sounded clear and strong.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at him as she sang, but by the time the last chord rang out, her self-consciousness had melted away, warmth spreading from the top of her head to the tips of her fingers, her body flooding with that particular euphoria that only came from this—the one thing she used to know, with complete certainty, she was born to do.
By the time she was done, her fingertips ached from holding down the strings, the calluses long gone, leaving them soft and defenseless. But as soon as she allowed herself to look at Niko, taking in the dumbfounded expression on his face, she barely felt the pain.
Her fingers weren’t the only soft and defenseless thing about her right now.
“Wow,” he said. “That was incredible. Have you ever thought about doing that professionally?”
She blinked at him, uncomprehending, still lightheaded from adrenaline. He was only able to keep a straight face for another second before a mischievous grin took over.
Heat rose to her cheeks, but not unpleasantly. “Shut up,” she said with a laugh, playfully nudging his shoulder with her foot. He caught it, planting a tender kiss on her instep before crawling up her body, taking the guitar out of her hands, and leaning it against the side of the bed.
He sprawled on his back on the mattress again, and she lay down, too, resting her head on his stomach, facing the ceiling. He reached down to run his fingers through her hair.
“Did you write that?” he asked. “Who’s Carey?”
“No, Joni Mitchell did. ‘Who’s Joni Mitchell?’ ” She recited the question in perfect unison with him, hoping to make him laugh, but instead he was quiet, his hand stilling on her head.
“Does it bother you? That I don’t know anything about music stuff ?” The doubt in his voice made her chest ache.
“No,” she said immediately. “I love it, actually. Anytime I’ve been with someone who was really into music, they always turned it into a competition over who knew more, whose taste was superior. It’s exhausting.”
“I want to know, though. I want to know about everything that matters to you.”
Merritt closed her eyes, unexpectedly moved. He must have taken her silence as discomfort, because he added, “Sorry. Is that too much?”
She shook her head. “Just enough.” She tilted her head to meet his eyes, then reached up to take his hand. “I think Carey was a guy she met while she was living in Greece with a bunch of hippies in the seventies. Maybe that’s why I thought of it.”
He stroked his thumb over the pad of her palm. “I liked that it felt happy and sad at the same time. Like, she’s talking about how much fun she’s having, but also keeps bringing up that she can’t stay. She’s homesick, but she already knows she’s going to miss being there when she leaves.”
Merritt nodded. “That’s why I love her music so much.
She’s able to capture such complex emotions, create this whole atmosphere, in such a simple way.
My parents used to play this album all the time when I was a kid, and I was so obsessed with it.
I taught myself every song. Everything she was talking about felt so…
adult, like nothing I’d experienced yet, but I could just feel it was true, you know? I think that’s what the best art does.”
She rolled onto her side so she was facing him, her head still on his stomach. “Now, if you were a big music snob, this is where I’d be tempted to pretend to like it less than I do because it’s her most popular album.”
Niko’s brow creased. “Why would you do that?”
Merritt paused. “I don’t know,” she said, more contemplatively than she expected. She stroked a hand languorously up his stomach. “Do you get back there much? To Greece?”
He nodded. “I try to go at the end of every summer, for a week or two. I’ll probably go once I’m done with the house and I’m all moved out.”
Merritt tried to ignore the twinge in her gut at the reminder he was leaving soon—as if that weren’t the reason she was lying on his stomach in the first place. “I bet it’s beautiful.”
“You’ve never been?”
She shook her head. “I had such a bad time touring that it kind of ruined my desire to travel for fun. And I’m still not crazy about flying. I want to, though.”
“You should. Most of my family lives in Athens, which is the least beautiful part, I think. But my grandparents live in this tiny village in the mountains. Even smaller than this one, if you can believe it. I actually ended up living there with them for a while, when I was a kid. Maybe that’s why I like it here so much. ”
“Oh,” said Merritt, a little taken aback. “I didn’t realize you ever lived there. For how long?”
His fingers twitched beside her, like he was counting. “Eight years?”
“With your parents, too?”
He shook his head. “It’s kind of a long story.”
“I don’t know about you, but I have nothing but time.”
His stomach moved with a heavy exhale, her head along with it. She met his eyes, placing a gentle hand on him.
“So, I told you my mom got pregnant with me when she was a teenager. She’d gone to the States for high school, to live with some family friends.
It was a huge fight between my grandparents, letting her go over there alone.
But she and Yiayia wore him down eventually, so she went.
She was really smart, super good in school.
It would’ve been a waste for her to stay in that little village.
This way, she could get a real education, have a real future.
” He paused. “She was fifteen when I was born. My dad, too.”
His voice had grown more serious as he went on, a low rumble against her cheek. She rubbed her hand over him comfortingly. “So she went back when she got pregnant?”
He shook his head. “My grandparents wanted her to, but she was stubborn. She moved in with my dad’s family for a while, and they tried to make it work.
They both dropped out of school and got jobs.
I think I remember the three of us having an apartment alone together at some point, when I was really little.
Anyway, they ended up breaking up for good when I was four, and she brought me back to Greece.
And, um. Left me there. I didn’t see her again until I was twelve. ”
It was clear how hard this was for him to talk about, his words slow and halting. Her stomach twisted in sympathy—for him, for his mother, for everyone involved.
“I’m so sorry,” she said quietly. “That must have been so hard, and confusing, and scary. You didn’t deserve that.”
“It was the right thing for her to do. I know that now. It’s expensive, flying back and forth. It would’ve been a waste of money to visit. She went back and got her GED and her bachelor’s. She waited until she was stable enough to take care of me and then brought me back to Florida.”
She could tell from the defensiveness threaded through his tone that he wasn’t ready to go down that road, so she took his lead and backed off. “That’s really impressive, the way she was able to turn things around for herself.”
He nodded. “She’s the strongest person I know.
Well, besides my Yiayia. But…” He hesitated, and she could tell he was trying to find the words.
“The way the rest of my family talks about her…she was some kind of math genius, I guess. She should be working at NASA, or Google, designing space lasers or something.”
“What does she do now?”
“She’s the office manager at a pediatrician’s office.
And there’s nothing wrong with that, but…
I don’t know.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“Even if things turned out okay in the end, having me did still derail her whole life. And it ruined her relationship with my grandparents. They don’t talk anymore. ”
“That’s a pretty heavy responsibility to put on yourself,” she said gently. “No one actually told you that, did they?”