Page 38 of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

“There’s a wedding upstairs?”

“Oh please! Don’t act clueless.”

“I really didn’t know,” he insisted. “One of my favorite BBQ spots used to be over here. I was looking for it, and it’s gone. Replaced by a spot called Hüd Snacks that sells gourmet versions of Funyuns and honey buns at twenty-five dollars a pop.”

“You must be joking. Are the owners…”

“Of course.” Ezra rolled his eyes. “Anyway, the cleaning woman let me in. I was walking back home, and I saw this piano in the window. I can’t walk by a piano without playing it, just to test out the tone, projection, clarity. It’s a fucking compulsion.” He grimaced. “Apologies.”

Confused, Ricki said, “Why are you apologizing?”

“I don’t like to curse in front of women,” he said simply.

She drew back a little, surprised. “Why, because we’re delicate creatures? The weaker sex? You have some regressive attitudes about women.”

“What I have,” he said, “is manners. It’s how I was raised.”

She narrowed her eyes a bit. “That’s oddly old school.”

“What kind of men you been around?” He huffed out a quick exhale. “Anyway, the true test of an instrument is if it sounds good when you play a corny song. And I watch a lot of TV,” he said. “I was about to playMoeshanext. Wanna hear it?”

She stared at him for a beat, incredulous. He looked at her from head to toe, a quick, furtive glance. He blinked hard, as if Ricki’s mere presence—and her mere presence in that knockout glamazon gown—had scrambled his brain.

“So. We know why I’m here.” He clasped his hands on his lap. “Why are you here?”

“I designed the flowers for the wedding upstairs.” Ricki gathered the skirt of her gown in one hand and stepped up onto the platform. She peered down at him threateningly. “And I know exactly why I’m avoiding you, but I’m still fuzzy on why you’re avoiding me.”

“I told you, I’m a private person with reclusive tendencies.”

“Are you in the CIA?”

“How you figure I’m in the CIA?” asked Ezra, slipping into the country cadence she’d noticed in the garden. “If I were a spy, I couldn’t tell you.”

“Are you married?”

“No sane woman would marry me.”

She sucked her teeth, because they both knew that was ridiculous. His towering frame and intense, blazing eyes could turn the coldest stoic to mush.

Ezra’s physicality was lodged permanently in her brain.

“And why aren’t you marriage material?” she asked, lifting her chin imperiously.

“I’m. Reclusive.”He emphasized each word. “And when I’m not at home, I’m on the road, gigging. Not marketable on the dating apps.”

She let out a frustrated huff. “Look, I’m staying away from you to avoid trouble. But you? You look actually… frightened when you see me. Why is that?”

He chewed the inside of his mouth, looking irresistibly casual in good jeans, Vans, and a wrinkled, high-quality flannel, the kind of shirt you wished a guy would forget in your bedroom. Ricki struggled mightily not to stare, and then she zeroed in on his big, beautiful, long-fingered hands. He clenched his fists over the piano keys, and she tried to ignore the faint outline of muscle under his shirt. Absentmindedly, he began to play a tune. The melody was hauntingly stirring. Ricki wanted to hear more. But as suddenly as he started, he stopped.

“You ever seen a tornado?”

Ricki shook her head. “No, not outside ofTwister. Have you?”

“No, but… folks say that if you’re in the presence of a tornado and it looks still, that means it’s heading right towards you.”

“I have no idea what that means.” She paused a bit. “Though the trivia connoisseur in me finds this information compelling.”

“You’re the tornado, ma’am.”

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