Page 29 of Royal Darling
“Guitar lessons to start.”
“And then what?”
“You teach me how to be bad.”
I ignore my dirty mind raging with ideas.Virgin princess here.“You already throw a good punch.”
She beams. “I do, don’t I? I’m pretty handy with self-defense, including using a knife as a weapon.”
I suppress my shock. “Was that part of your proper princess training?”
“No, silly, that was from…never mind.” She scrambles out of bed and heads for my guitar. “Is it still tuned?”
My mind turns over what she said. Why would she know how to use a weapon? There are some unusual quirks to Emma. This is only the third day I’ve spent with her, and I’m getting sucked in. I have to put some distance between us. “You shouldn’t come in here anymore.”
“Why not?” She plucks a few notes on the guitar.
I stand by the foot of the bed about to snap that I don’t want her here, but she’s sitting there on the bench seat, cradling my guitar like she’s in love with it. I remember that feeling when I first discovered guitar. I inherited it from an uncle I’d never met, my mother’s brother. It was his prize possession and she returned from the funeral with it, offering it to me and my brother. I wanted it; he didn’t. That was the beginning of my first and only love affair.
She looks up at me with her big innocent eyes. “I need this. Please keep teaching me in the morning. Lucas will ruin it with his judgmental looks. He’ll tease me and laugh at me for being so terrible at it.”
“Lucas will probably go out in the afternoon. He went to Milan yesterday.”
“But I can’t count on that. I can count on him sleeping in.”
I sit next to her and she hands me the guitar. “Maybe I want to sleep in too.”
“I did let you sleep.”
“No, you talked my ear off.” I tune the guitar, something in me settling down. Maybe it’s me tuning in, back to what means something to me. I play a few notes of “One Thing,” a ballad I wrote for Ignite, and then keep going, singing along. It doesn’t hurt the way it normally does to play the song when it’s just me playing for her.
When I finish, she exclaims, “Oh, Jackson, I got chills! That was so beautiful. Teach me that one.”
So I do.
She fumbles the chords. It’s a more advanced song. She’s blushing, embarrassed over her missed notes. I stop her, my hand over hers. “Don’t put a lot of pressure on yourself. It’s not about getting it right. Just…let your fingers play. Whatever sounds good to you, yeah?”
She does a scale. “That sounds good.”
“Basic, but okay. What else?”
She holds up her fingers. “My fingers are getting sore. Don’t you have a pick?”
I retrieve one from the case. “You can use it, but it’s better to build some calluses by playing a lot.”
“Calluses? That sounds terrible.”
“But your music will sound good.” I stand, walk around to the bed, and flop back on the mattress, closing my eyes. “Play.”
She does her scale and each of the chords I taught her. Then she’s plucking randomly, strumming a few strings before stopping abruptly. I can feel her staring at me.
“I know you’re not sleeping,” she says.
“I’m listening. Play ‘House of the Rising Sun.’” I remind her of the chords.
She does, slowly making her way through it. She’s doing pretty well for only her second lesson. She practiced yesterday. If she keeps it up, she’ll get there really quick.
I sit up. “How about you take the guitar with you and practice by yourself in the morning? You’ve got a good ear. I’ll teach you whenever Lucas goes out.” Her climbing into my bed every morning is trouble waiting to happen.
