Page 69 of Shattered Chords

“Hmmm.” Harper stared straight ahead for a long moment and tapped his chin with his index finger. The wind mussed his hair into a frizzy mess. “So what are you saying then?”

I drew a deep breath and hit the brakes as the light farther down the street switched from green to yellow. The 4Runner slowed and came to a complete stop behind a silver Mercedes.

“He’s not what he seems and I don’t know if it’s a good idea to continue with the lessons.”

Several taut seconds ticked by.

“Oh my god!” Harper exclaimed. “You’re attracted to him!”

“I’m not commenting on that.”

“Yes, you are.” He grinned, all the rage over Tallulah’s kidnapping evaporating into thin air.

“The more he comes over, the more we talk, and the more we talk, the more I get to know him.”

“And he’s not the guy the media made him out to be,” Harper finishes for me.

“Not exactly. He’s still an entitled asshole, but he actually has...some morals... They’re sort of gray... And I can’t stop thinking about him. It’s infuriating.”

There, I said it.

“And your answer to this conundrum is to stop the lessons?”

The light flicked to green and we pushed forward. “I can’t change how I’m feeling when he’s sitting there, in the next room, and being all fatherly with my daughter, who never had a father to begin with.” My voice took on a bitter tone.

“I find that a positive, not a negative.”

“Okay... How do you see this working? Let’s say, hypothetically, he asks me out and I agree. What then?”

“You go out with him, have some real fun for once.”

The idea of “fun” with Dante Martinez nearly made me jump. The other day, I’d secretly googled him again. His photos, to be specific. I didn’t know why. The images hadn’t told me anything new about the man who came to my house twice a week. They’d simply confirmed the fact that I’d become interested in him. I’d also watched thirty minutes worth of Hall Affinity concert footage on YouTube. Wearing my headphones.

“You’re overthinking it, sweets,” Harper said. “A man expressed a desire to take you out. You go out with him. What else is there to do?”

“You’re forgetting I have Ally.”

“Ally is almost an adult. Everything you’ve done has always been for Ally. How about you do something for yourself now?”

“She’s fifteen. She’s fragile.”

“You keep coddling her like your own mother coddled you. You know what happens next.”

Harper’s words were like a slap to my face. They stung. “I’m not my mother. I’ll never be like her.” I gritted my teeth so hard, my jaw ached.

“I’m sorry. That was harsh.”

There was a long pause as I considered what my friend had just told me. Was I really as impossible and domineering as Eloise Rockwell? “Okay,” I murmured after a while. “Let’s look at your scenario from a different angle. How will it affect Ally when the press finds out? They don’t love him.”

“You worry too much about something that hasn’t happened yet, and judging by how unadventurous you are, sweets, all this is going to stay in your head.”

“I have to take into an account the fact that I have a kid before I jump a man’s bones, you know.”

At that, Harper laughed.

“See.” I grinned. “At least my problems make you smile.”

“Ah.” He stuck his hand out the window, fingers fanned out to catch the wind. “Dante Martinez is a nice problem to have.”

---