Page 65 of Come Back to Me

Callan’s almost as smart as I am (I will claim that IQ point in victory until the day I die), and we both know how hard it is when your brain won’t shut the fuck up.

“I’m in the middle of composing something,” is what I settle on, but even that’s lackluster.

Millie, because she’s a sweetheart, dives into that conversation with both hands, leaning forward so I can better see down her camisole.

But that fucking song!

I want to scream.

But I don’t.

Because I’d look unhinged.

And while I am semi-insane, there’s no need to terrify the nice lady with the pretty tits.

Instead of screaming, I choose the less violent path—taking note of the chord that’s driving me crazy. Maybe that’ll help me focus on Millie.

As I rifle through my purse in search of a pen, I swiftly realize that I picked up my notebook but the pen was probably amid all the crap I dumped onto the boutique’s floor earlier.

“Do you happen to have a pen?”

Millie’s mouth works in surprise because I knocked her off-topic, but maybe she sees the desperation in my eyes because she reaches for her purse. “I think I have a pencil. Will that work?”

“Sure!” I snag my notepad and grab the pencil. “Thank you. So, you were talking about how A23a is on the move for the first time in three decades?”

The notes tumble from me, chord after chord, as she discusses the Antarctic iceberg.

The relief I feel when I get each one down on paper is immense, obscene really, considering the devastating impact of humanity on the South Pole.

With the notes jotted down, just as I hoped—my focus shifts onto her. Her scent, to be precise.

Light peachy perfume. The tang of something tropical from the laundry detergent she uses.

The booth where we were seated was big enough for four, but that she slid around to be closer comes as a shock.

That’swhy I can smell her.

My hand creeps onto the table, fingers curving around the notepad like I used to hide my work at school from Freddy Freece because he was a cheat.

That’s when I know this date, however nice she and her breasts are, won’t pan out.

She’s lovely. Kind. Interested. Sexy. But I can’t share my music with her.

Because I don’t want to be a bitch, not when I’m her first outoutdate, I force my hand away when it automatically shields my work again.

I flatten the digits against the table, telling myself that she isn’t going to steal them. She might like classical music, but she doesn’t play an instrument. Believing Shostakovich’s string quartets were his most underrated work doesn’t make her a virtuoso…

Tell that to my prefrontal cortex, though.

“That’s what you were humming?” she inquires, staring at the notepad.

(It’s bad that all I want to do is go home and play what I jotted down, right?)

“Yes.” Then I hum it.

“That’s so pretty. What instrument would you play it on?”

Latching onto the question, I murmur, “I think the piano, the violino piccolo, and the oboe.” The sweet but harsh lilt of the oboe would make this more haunting.

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