Page 85 of Meet Me at the Metro

I’m filled with the greatest satisfaction when she makes the sound again. “What was that?Let me hear that again.”

“Please!” She cackles, but it isn’t until my hands accidentally catch beneath the hem of her shirt, finding the warmth of her skin, that I stop. Our child-like commotion reduces to a calm quiet as my thumbs smooth along her lower stomach, and our breaths begin to slow.

I carve the feeling of her skin beneath my fingertips and the look in her rich eyes into my mind, hoping that years from now, I’ll still be able to conjure up the memory of them. I don’t ever want to know the cruelty of not being able to remember all these small but significant moments with her.

“You have a good day?” I ask as she settles down against my lap.

“Now I am.”

She averts her eyes, and I can tell something’s wrong. I stroke her cheek with the back of my knuckle, evoking her to look at me. “First day of the new class not what you were hoping for?”

“It was fine.” She lets out a long, pent-up breath. “Just a long day, that’s all.”

“I think I know something that’ll make the long day worth it.”

“Is that so?”

“Mhmm.” I nod toward the brown paper-wrapped box in the back corner of the room. “I got something for you.”

She’s blushing the second her eyes land on the gift. “For me?”

“Yeah, for you.”

Nora jumps up from my lap like an excited child and rushes over to the box. There’s a huge smile blooming on her face as she hitches it off the floor and carries it back over to the piano. She sits beside me on the wooden bench and plays with the bright pink ribbon I’ve poorly tied into a bow.

“First, can I just say how impressed I am with your wrapping skills?”

I chuckle as I look over the over-tapped mess in her hands. “Bite me.”

“What?I think the pink bow is very pretty, Theo!”

“Would you shut the hell up and open the damn thing already?”

Patience is a quality I’m severely lacking, and if I’m being honest, I think I’m more excited for her to open this gift than she is.

My heart is racing like a fool as her dainty fingers begin to pull away the wrapping paper. As she removes the final remaining shred from the tealVictrolacase, I can’t hide my satisfied grin. I can tell she’s still trying to piece together what it is as her palms smooth along its silver carrying handle and leather outer surface.

Her entire face lights up when she releases the latch, opens the small briefcase, and discovers the small turntable built inside. “You got me a record player!”

Her pretty, delighted smile is worth so much more than every single pound I spent on it.

I try to act nonchalant, even though, truthfully, I’m gorged with satisfaction. “I figured you needed one of your own to keep at your place so you’d have another way to listen to those awful show tunes you like so much.”

She smacks my arm at the innocent insult, but her contentment is written in every endearing crinkle around her eyes.

The truth is, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that night she opened up to me about her parents. I loved how animated she got as she recalled all of the memories she had with them at that bookstore back home. When I spotted the record player in the window of the consignment store on my way home from work the other night, I had to buy it for her.

“You seriously shouldn’t have done this.”

“There’s one more thing,” I admit, reaching into my brown-leather bag for the vinyl inside. “Here.”

She squeals as her wide eyes take in the album cover of theFunny Girlsoundtrack. “Shut the hell up! How did you—wheredid you even find this?”

I smirk. “That’s classified information.”

Nora carefully sets her gifts down, and as she turns back to me, she sweetly embraces me. She laces her fingers into my hair and draws her mouth to my ear.“Thank you, Teddy.”

“You’re welcome, Nora.”

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