She rubbed her forehead, hoping Susan would take the bait. All she’d wanted was to call her best friend and moan about her wrecked car. And maybe, God forbid, talk her way through the confusion that Walker had stirred up inside her. Instead, here she was trying to keep Susan from forcing her into an faux relationship with someone Keira wasn’t even sure she had room for in her life—no matter how scaldingly hot he was.
“That would be great, actually,” Susan said. “My teacher was happy, but she seemed a little worried about whether I’d be able to pull it off. If you help me, though, I know I’ll be able to get it. What about Sunday afternoon?”
“Perfect,” Keira said. “I’ll see you then.”
They hung up. With the phone still in her hand, Keira flopped back on her pillow and threw her arm over her eyes.
There was no way she was getting out of this double date. And, in the darkest little corner of her heart, she knew she didn’t really want to get out of it anyway.
What am I thinking?
She was thinking about his low-note voice.
She was thinking about his knowing grin.
But mostly, she was thinking about the things he’d told her after she’d played for him, and how much she wanted a chance to talk to him again. Even if it meant breaking her own rules.
Chapter Eleven
THE NEXT MORNING, KEIRA wandered into the kitchen, her eyes gritty with sleep and the bitter taste of yesterday’s weirdness still thick on her tongue. Her mom was sitting at the table. She’d obviously been waiting for Keira.
“Hey, sweetie. How’d you sleep?” she asked. Her hands were curled tight around her coffee mug. There was something overly alert about her—like she was spring-loaded. Keira was surprised to see her. Usually her parents both evacuated the house early on Saturday, like refugees fleeing a coming war.
“Fine, I guess.” Keira opened the pantry and blinked at the boxes of tea.
Her mother relaxed the grip on her cup a bit. “Oh, good. I was worried. I didn’t want to leave until I knew you were okay.”
“I’m okay,” Keira said, doubting every word, but telling her mother she was seeing strange stuff wasn’t exactly something she was going to throw out there first thing in the morning. She stumbled over to the cupboard and got out a mug. “Is Dad here too?” Her parents hadn’t both stayed home on a Saturday morning since last fall, when they’d simultaneously come down with the stomach flu.
“Um, no. He isn’t.”
Something in her mother’s voice made Keira freeze with her hand halfway to the faucet handle. Her mom was strangling her coffee cup, staring down into its depths like it was going to tell her what to say.
“Is he playing racquetball?” Keira asked, slowly setting her empty cup on the counter. Her dad had a standing racquetball time on Saturday mornings.
“I’m not sure,” her mother said, still not looking at her. “He didn’t come home last night.”
“Okaaay.” Keira’s voice was slow and thick as honey. “Why?”
Her mother’s eyes traced the pattern of the placemat in front of her. “We had a fight.”
“You have a lot of fights,” Keira pointed out.
Her mother blanched. “It was a particularly bad one. I’m sorry, honey. I hate that you see so much of this.”
“So, where is he now? Where did he stay?” Keira asked.
“I don’t know.” Her mother’s lips pressed into a thin line.
“When is he coming home? He—he is coming home, right?”
Her mother stood up from the table abruptly. “I’m sure it will all work out,” she said. “I’m going to take a shower. I didn’t get much sleep last night and this coffee isn’t cutting it. Be out in a minute, okay?” Keira heard her mother’s voice crack on the last word, but she was already halfway down the hall. The shower thrummed to life a moment later.
Keira slumped against the kitchen cabinets, trying to make sense of everything her mother had just told her. She’d known things between her parents were bad, but not that bad. Her mother hadn’t even said for sure that her dad was coming home at all.
Keira abandoned her tea-making and headed into the living room. She sat at the piano with her hands in her lap, staring at the keys. She put her fingers in position and started running scales, but they sounded wooden.
How could she not have realized things were so terrible in her own family? Her parents were on the verge of splitting up and she was losing her mind.
Fabulous.
Shaking out her shoulders, Keira launched into one her favorite études. Something simple, that she’d been playing since she was thirteen. It was like the musical version of sweatpants. Soft. Comfortable. Easy. But three lines in, her fingers froze. Her hands didn’t know what to do next, the muscle memory pushed aside by the worry ringing in her head.
Dad slept somewhere else last night.