Page 113 of Love You Like That (Excess All Areas 4)

“Good, I’ll go make your baps. Oh, I learned a cool phrase to describe what it’s like to be pansexual…hearts not parts. Is that about right?”

He squeezed Zoe’s hand. It over-simplified it, but she’d stuck up for him, as always. “Yeah. That’s about right, Nan.”

An hour later, with his heart and stomach full, they climbed into Alex’s car.

Zoe bit down on her lip. “There’s somewhere I want to take you, if you don’t have plans.”

“Only spending time with you and digesting the fact Nan is now an online celebrity.”

Zoe glanced back toward Nan’s house. “She loves you.”

“That she does. Where do you want to go?”

Ten minutes later, as they parked up near the Royal Northern College of Music building, Alex knew exactly what they were doing. Once they’d negotiated the entry and hallways, she took him to a room set up with a five-octave marimba. It was a stunning piece of equipment. Smooth wood with a polished sheen.

“This is Betty. Sometimes called Betty-boo, Betty Boop, Miss Betty, Booper, or when she is being a pain in the arse, Queen Elizabeth,” Zoe said running her hands over the keys the same way she’d run them over his ink when they’d laid in bed talking. “She’s mine.”

He wondered if that was how she claimed everything she wanted. He was getting hard just watching her.

Passion was everything.

You could see when a person had it for the thing they were doing. It was there in the excitable way they talked about it. The way they’d spend every minute doing it. The way it didn’t feel like work. The way things came to life in their presence. Hell, it could be a spreadsheet or sweater display or how someone applied stitches. And most definitely in music.

“I want you to see where I’m at, and what I’m struggling with. This is Ney Rosauro’s four movement Marimba Concerto. It’s got some great sextuplet runs and passages that have a beautiful switch between piano and forte with simple and exaggerated sounds to create different dynamics as the piece progresses. You want sheet music to follow along?”

Alex grinned. “I can’t read music.”

He heard all four mallets hit the keys. “We should fix that.”

“I’ve done fine without it.”

“We should fix it.”

He laughed at her repeated statement. “Rocky, Bob Dylan made the Hall of Fame without knowing how to read music. Aretha Franklin. The Beatles. Clapton. Elvis Presley.”

“Don’t worry, Betty. I will never let his hands touch you.”

Alex put his arm around her waist and pulled her close. “Yeah, but as long as you let me touch you we’ll be okay.” He kissed her with a longing that told him they should have stayed home. But hearing her play was something way more important.

It showed she trusted him.

“Now play,” he said.

She changed the page on the score, and he could see there were pencil notes on it. “What’s with all the pencil?”

“Just markers for structure, transitions I need to be careful of. Like measure sixty-one needs to be graceful. Things I’m still working on for my own interpretation of the piece.” Zoe grabbed the four mallets, ensured their placement in her hands, then she took a deep breath.

Before long, the piece caught flight. Zoe moved from one end of the marimba and back again, over and over. The two mallets in each of her hands lifting and falling fully independent of the other. While he’d heard her play in their hotel room that evening, and he’d been given a glimpse of her on stage in the video Cerys has showed him, watching her now was out of this world.

He didn’t particularly love classical music. It wasn’t his jam. But he could sit there and watch Zoe play for hours. He even recorded a minute or two.

And she didn’t need to worry. Because passion shone from her and filled the room.

Was her playing technically accurate? Only a way more technically competent musician than him could answer that. It sounded heaven-sent, the way she moved up and down the octaves with grace and precision. But when she slammed the mallet on the last note and swung her arm away as if dancing, he raised his hands and waved silent applause.

Zoe looked over at him. “You’re biased.”

“You’re fucking amazing.”

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