Page 31 of Muted

“So, tell me something, Susu. How are you liking your job here?”

The skin between my brow feels tight when it pinches together in confusion. Leaving my first message on the screen in hopes he’ll read it, I add to it.

‘I’m running a bit late and am supposed to be meeting for practice with Vance, and I like working here just fine. I enjoy it.’

Again, I hold my phone out to him.

Again, he ignores it.

For fuck’s sake. Why ask me questions if you don’t want the answer, you dick?

His lip lifts in a smile that’s anythingbutfriendly, and my heart sinks into my stomach. “See, this is the thing. Maintaining the financials for a successful business requires a lot of trust. You understand this, right?”

I nod my head slowly, nervous about where he’s going with this line of questioning. My eyes look toward the empty bar, wishing I could be out there instead of here. I try to swallow against the ball of panic rapidly choking off my air.

The sight of him standing in front of me flickers in and out as my vision blurs, and a flash ofhimis standing where Cliff just was. I squeeze my eyes to shut it out, then blink them back open only to find my boss scowling at me.

Cliff smacks his lips, then stares at the papers in his hand with a grave look. “The thing is, I started to do a little digging around. You know, because you play a large part in my success here. And I found something that has me questioning things.”

Flipping around the paper in his hand for me to read, I see he’s holding my application. Then he points to the top where my basic information is. Glancing up at him, I wait, offering nothing. His nail scrapes on the paper before he points out what he’s brought me in here for.

“Your previous address.” He pauses for me to respond, and then red blooms on his cheeks before he snaps out, “That’s not a real fucking address.”

Yeah, I can’t fucking breathe now. My brain tries to come up with an excuse, but nothing sounds feasible other than saying I just made a typo. But if I do that, he’ll demand my correct address and I can’t give him a second fake. I certainly can’t give him myrealaddress. Nothing can link me to back home.

“Whywould you fill in a fake—”

He stops speaking when we both hear a door slam, and then footsteps walking toward us. Vance fills the doorway, taking a sip of coffee from a to go cup. When he sees me sitting on the couch, he jerks his head toward the pianos. “Ready to get started? I got your text and grabbed a coffee before I came in.”

Ignoring Cliff’s sputtering that we weren’t done speaking, I haul my ass out of the death trap that was holding me in here and bolt toward the door. Vance’s eyes widen as I squeeze past him and I barely hear his muttered, “What the hell?” as I make it into the main bar room, sucking in air like I’ve been held under water for the last five minutes.

The office door slams by the time I’m stepping on the stage, and I sit in front of the piano to wait for our practice. Vance is moving slower, so I use the time to calm my shaking hands, twining them together to ease the nerves wrecking me right now.

Once he moves into my line of sight, I watch him side-eye me as he calmly sets his things down and pulls out his set binder. “You doing good?” His question comes out as simply curious, not accusatory, or worried, or angry. I hesitate because I’m also not sure if he’s asking because he actually cares, or just thinks it’s something he should say.

I’d rather err on the side of caution with him. The last thing I need is Vance thinking that I love drama. So, I nod once and look away from him, focusing on getting my music set out in front of me. He’s already set up, so he continues to watch me, which makes my hands tremble again, causing the pages to rattle under my fingertips.

“Let’s warm up twice. My hands are feeling stiff today,” he tells me, finally looking away and sitting down. His bench creaks as he gets comfortable, and he doesn’t wait for me to acknowledge that I’m ready before he begins.

I can feel his eyes on me when I fumble through the first few notes, and I’m fucking horrified. Cliff’s confrontation is really messing with my head. My fingers lock up more and more the longer we play, right along with the aggressiveness of Vance’s notes.Shit. Fuck. Goddamnit.

He deserves credit when he only sighs and says, “One more time.”

Before he can start over, I jump as a shadow falls over me and I jerk away from whomever is coming up behind me. A massive arm reaches over my shoulder and sets a glass of ice water on top of my piano.

“Damn it, Theo. You can’t set that there. It’ll fuck up the wood,” Vance snaps out. “We’re also a little busy here.”

“Cool your jets, piano man,” Theo rumbles out. He’s still standing behind me, not having moved away after bringing me a drink. Why he brought it, I don’t know, but I realize that my mouth is overly dry when I try to lick my lips.

The air shifts around me as Theo moves to my side and leans down to bring his face eye level with mine. This is the closest he’s been to me, and I inhale sharply when his eyes lock with mine. It’s intense as hell, with his full attention focused only on me. His eyes bounce between mine before, with a quiet voice, he says, “Take a minute. Drink some water.”

Vance is watching this interaction with more of that damn curiosity. I hope if he figures something out, he’ll fill me in because I have no idea what’s happening right now. I didn’t know Theo was evenhere.

This bear of a man doesn’t move away, apparently waiting for me to follow his instructions. I need him to stop looking at me with so much intensity, so I reach out for the glass, but he tsks before setting an overly warm hand on my thigh to stop me. Grabbing the glass himself, he hands it to me. I wrap my fingers around it and shift as he slides his palm away from me.

He drops his hand heavily on my thigh, and the first thing I notice is his paw spans the full width of my thigh, from outside to inside. My eyes find his again, consumed with the way he’s waiting. Watching. I feel the condensation from the glass run down the underside of my wrist and drip onto my leg, an obvious contrast to the heat still warming my skin.

“Take a damn drink, Susu. We only have a few hours before I need to get out of here.” Vance’s voice brings me out of whatever trance Theo has sucked me into.

---