Page 190 of Blue Moon

Ryder’s turn to laugh. “Good luck, man. Have you ever talked to a woman without fucking her?”

“My mom, my sister, and both of my grandmas. And Emmy, obviously.” Slater gifted me a heart-stopping smile. “And your lovely wife.”

Ryder shoved him back a foot. “Get out of here.”

“Your sister can’t go to see her friend?” I asked Slater.

“Blair’s in Australia at the moment. What the hell am I supposed to buy for a little girl?”

Ryder shrugged one shoulder. “Go ask Ana. She has one.”

“Tabby’s favourite toy is a crossbow. I don’t know much about kids, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t normal.”

“How about a colouring book?” I suggested. “Or a doll?”

“And pick up a cock cage so you don’t stick your dick somewhere it shouldn’t go,” Ryder told him.

“Asshole,” Slater muttered as he headed for the door.

“You think we should help?” I asked Ryder. “That’s so sad. The idea of losing… No, I’m not going to think about it. We could send flowers?”

“Slater can handle it. We joke around, but even he wouldn’t be enough of a prick to hit on a grieving widow.”

I tried to enjoy the party, but the fun was tinged with sadness. There was so much loss in the world. My therapist said that although none of my family had died, I was still grieving in my own way because everything I’d once known was gone. No matter that my new life was better, I still needed time to process the changes. But I’d get there. Tonight was another step in the healing process, the first event I’d ever been to where people weren’t staring at me and whispering behind their hands. I was a nobody, and it felt…weird. Almost disappointing, but I knew Dr. Beaudin would say that was only because I’d been conditioned to think that way. And the anonymity was pretty cool. It meant I could eat as much falafel as I wanted without someone calling me Miss Piggy and turning me into a meme with oinking sounds over the top. In fact, I hadn’t seen a single person taking pictures this evening.

The wine flowed generously too, and at least there were plenty of bathrooms here. I wasn’t sure I’d ever live down the peeing-during-a-rescue thing. Bradley had given me a map of the house with the bathrooms marked, but when Ryder saw me studying it upside down, he dipped out of his conversation to show me the way to the nearest one. And maybe more. I recognised the hunger in his eyes, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. Now that the dam had been broken, we were having sex three times a day, and the man had stamina.

“Where’s that music coming from?” I asked as we stole along dimly lit hallways. Riverley Hall was a maze and kind of ugly, and if Ryder hadn’t been beside me, I might have gotten creeped out. There was a cover band in the ballroom, but this was something different. Just a piano.

“Sounds like the music room. You want to see?”

I nodded, and Ryder steered me along a different hallway. How did he find his way around this place? I’d had a music room once, overlooking the pool with a big white grand piano in one corner. I used to sit there and sing for my socials, except I couldn’t play the piano very well, so Jubilee added the sound afterward.

But this pianist was on a whole other level.

Pianists.

When I peeped through the doorway, I saw two people sitting at the piano—Emmy’s husband and a Japanese lady not much bigger than me. They were each playing with one hand, and it was the first time I’d seen the giant’s smile.

Emmy was there too, dancing with another blonde, her arms around the woman’s neck and a glass of white wine in one hand. When they spun, I realised I recognised the blonde from the Cathouse. A few other people were in there too, seated on a big leather couch that faced the piano. I knew the piece they were playing. The tune was “Fastlove,” but slowed down so it wasn’t very fast at all.

I felt like a voyeur intruding on a private moment, and of course, Emmy saw me watching.

“Come in and join the party. Or don’t. I don’t care.”

The blonde took a swallow from Emmy’s glass and giggled, and I didn’t know where to look. Emmy’s dress had slipped, and there was more of her on show than there had been earlier. Thankfully, she was wearing pasties and a pair of flesh-coloured panties. I glanced back at Ryder. He didn’t look entirely comfortable either, but I found myself taking a step forward. And singing. The one thing I felt entirely confident in was my voice, and the music spoke to my soul.

Emmy’s head dropped against the blonde’s shoulder, and how much had she had to drink? An acoustic guitar joined in, and Ryder lifted me to sit on the piano, keeping one arm around my waist even though there was no chance of me falling. The guitarist was a Black man whose face looked vaguely familiar, and Dan was sitting next to him on the arm of the couch, her feet bare, a bottle of red clutched in her hands. These people were all drunk, weren’t they? I was in good company then, because I’d also been indulging all evening. Ryder had arranged for a car to take us home.

The third person on the couch swam into view, and I almost swallowed my tongue when I recognised him. It was a face I’d seen a hundred times but never in person. President James Harrison. It had to be a lookalike, right? The president wouldn’t hang out at a party with his shirt half-unbuttoned and a glass in one hand. He looked quite at home, arms stretched out along the back of the couch, legs crossed in front of him. And his expression as he watched Emmy and the blonde dance was positively feral.

I started coughing, and the Japanese lady leapt up.

“Are you okay?”

“Uh, yes? Yes! Sorry.”

She handed me a glass of water, and I took a long swallow, only to find it wasn’t water at all. It was neat vodka, and now my throat was burning.

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