My grin grows bigger and bigger on the drive there, making my cheeks ache in its refusal to go away. Smiling is as much a part of me as the clothes he picks out, the pain he pleasures me with, and the music he resonates in my heart.
With the address mapped on my phone, I follow the directions to a popular breakfast place in the French Quarter. The warm breeze kisses my face as I walk quickly along the flagstone passageway, surrounded by the ambiance of New Orleans’ salient history and architecture.
Sunlight glints off the steeples, gables, and dormered rooftops. Dew clings to the gas lamp posts. Eager tourists gather around the vendors setting up booths beneath the blooming trees in Jackson Square. It’s a beautiful southern morning. How could I have ever moved away from this?
I step into the restaurant and immediately spot him in a corner booth sipping his coffee. His blue eyes find mine, and for the second time this morning, I melt.
He watches me intently as I cross the busy dining room, his gaze roaming up and down and deep inside me.
When I reach the table, he stands and laces our fingers together. “You look ravishing.”
Black hair falls over the cropped sides in disheveled strands, no doubt molested by his fingers since the moment he woke. His cobalt blue button-up matches his eyes and hangs open over a white t-shirt. The relaxed denim of his jeans sits low on his tapered hips, a fit so perfect it’s as if every thread was woven to embrace his long-legged strides and cup his impressive bulge.
He looks like a man who intends to spend a lazy day strolling along the pier. Maybe that’s the plan?
“You look damn fine yourself.” I smile up at him. Rather than sitting across from him, I follow him in on his side, wrap my arms around his wide shoulders, and hold my lips to his. “Thank you for Kodaline.”
“Fast friends, I take it?”
“Insta-love.”
He steers the conversation through breakfast, keeping the chit-chat carefree and unassuming. He hasn’t told me how he spent my last three weeks of school, but his entire demeanor has been focused and fueled with purpose. When I pry, it’s always the same response. Trust me.
I’m getting that look now, the wait-and-see glimmer in his eyes. I don’t care what he’s keeping from me. I’m content to simply enjoy his company, holding his hand as his girlfriend and kissing his lips in public. No more hiding or living in fear. We’re finally free.
After breakfast, we meander along the narrow streets of the French Quarter, fingers intertwined, sharing lingering glances and smiles.
With shops below and homes above, the rows of buildings dazzle with scrolling brackets of hand-wrought iron, fluted ionic columns, and balconies famous for bead tossing.
He stops in front of one of these structures, pulls a keyring from his pocket, and tilts his head up. I follow his gaze and lose my breath.
A huge, round sign dangles on metal chains from beneath the towering overhang. Framed in black wrought iron scrollwork, the name of the business makes my mouth go dry.
EMERIC AND IVORY
DUELING PIANO BAR
My breath returns in a whoosh, only to be taken again as Emeric swoops me off my feet. Cradling me against his chest, he unlocks the glass door and carries me over the threshold.
“Holy shit.” My heart pounds. My arms shiver. My entire body floats through a dream. “How did you—? When did you—? This is ours? I can’t even.”
“Easy.” He sets me down on wobbly legs and locks the door behind us. “Deep breaths.”
My chest heaves as I take in the deep mahogany walls, Gothic mirrors, and black and ivory mosaic floor tiles. It’s classy and sophisticated, trendy and cocktail lounge-ish. Right in the heart of the French Quarter, the property value alone on this place must’ve cost him millions. I’m stunned into stupefied silence.
Two grand pianos sit on a platform at the center, facing away from each other. The keyboards are close enough together to share the long bench between them. Those will be our pianos? Where we’ll play together? With the lights, the audience, the music?
“Oh my God, Emeric. Pinch me.”
He does, right on the nipple, hard enough to make me yelp.
Leading me to the ornate wrap-around bar, he leans against the edge. “When I bought it a few months ago, I tried to find a loophole, but because of this”—he points at the shelves of liquor on the wall—“your name won’t be on the business license until you’re twenty-one.” He lifts my hand and presses a kiss to my fingers. “By then you’ll be Mrs. Ivory Marceaux.”
My heart sings a swooning melody. “You sure about that?”
“You bet your sweet ass.” He slams his palm against my butt with an echoing whack. “Go explore.”
There’s so much to take in I’m trembling against the significance of it. A piano bar. Just like my dad.
Shivery, joyous tears fall down my cheeks as I make a circuit around high-top tables, soft red velvet chairs, and black leather settees. Candlelight chandeliers illuminate the space in a warm glow. And the pianos…