Page 45 of Four on the Floor: A Menage Romance

“You know how to play?” he asks, jolting me from my half-thinking-about-him-naked-and-half-trying-not-to-be-awkward reverie.

“Not at all,” I admit. “My best friend in high school once tried to teach me to play flute and I held it backwards.”

Slate doesn’t say anything, just scoots over, a slight smile still on his face.

“Want to learn?”

I sit next to him, our sides touching, my heart beating faster.

“All right,” he says, and puts his hand in the middle of the keyboard. “Put your hand right here, with your thumb on middle C. I’m gonna teach youHot Cross Buns.”

“Are you going to put coins on my wrists so I hold them right?” I ask, carefully placing my fingers atop the keys.

“That’s advanced level only,” he says, so close that his beautiful, deep voice vibrates through me. “Don’t worry, it’s a three-note song. I’ve got every confidence in you.”

He puts his hand an octave down, plays the first three-note phrase.

Slowly, carefully, I imitate him.

He plays another and I do the same, playing three notes at a time, the sound booming through the empty ballroom. It’s a short song so we reach the end in no time at all, the last note still ringing through the space.

“See?” he says when we’re done. “Nothing to it. Let’s take the whole thing from the top.”

We play it again, with him going first and me repeating, then we slowly, painstakingly play the whole thing in tandem, all at once.

When we finish, he’s grinning, and he leans on his left hand, gives me a long look.

“Next stop, Carnegie Hall,” Slate says, and I laugh. It’s the most at ease I’ve ever felt with him, the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him. I guess the solitude’s been healthy.

“I think I’ve got some more practicing to do first,” I say, running one finger lightly along the keys. “I do wish I knew how to play an instrument.”

“I’ll teach you,” he offers.

I raise one eyebrow.

“What, you don’t think I can teach you?”

“I think you might regret that offer once you realize how tone-deaf I am,” I say.

He smiles again, his gorgeous blue eyes crinkling at the corners.

“You don’t need to have a good ear to play piano,” he says. “You hit a key and it goes. That’s the beauty of the thing.”

I mash down two black keys at the same time, an ugly sound ringing through the ballroom.

“Okay,” I say. “I’d like that.”

Just then, the wooden door swings in and Gavin’s head pops through.

“Thereyou are,” he says. “I was starting to wonder whether you hadn’t finally gone mad and wandered out into the snow. Come on, Cash has made his grandmother’s chicken casserole and I’m certain you don’t want to miss it.”

He closes the door behind himself and Slate stands, surprisingly graceful for someone as tall and huge as he is. He offers me a hand, I take it, and he pulls me in a little closer than I was expecting.

“Start tomorrow?” he asks. “Same time, same place?”

I’m starting to blush, being this physically close to him, thinking thoughts I’ve got no business thinking about my piano teacher.

“Same time, same place,” I confirm.

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