Chapter Twenty-One

1.21 Triviawatts

Dax and I walked the rest of the way in relative silence, the only sounds between us our breaths and our footsteps. My need to fill every gap in the conversation melted away as I focused on the drops of rain hitting the umbrella above us, and our walk devolved into a comfortable quiet.

When we entered the house, Dax dropped the umbrella in the hallway as Joanne padded over to greet him. I hopped on one foot as I yanked off my soaking shoes and socks.

Joanne took this as her cue and dashed over to greet me, knocking me backward onto the nearby bench. She jumped on top of me, licking my face and wagging her tail. I laughed while trying to block my mouth from her eager tongue.

“That’s too much, Joanne!” I said, giggling.

Dax pulled her off and helped me up. A jolt of electricity hit me when our hands touched, and I dropped his like a hot pot. “Thanks,” I said, shaking out my shirt, which had become skintight and see through in the rain.

“She likes you.” Dax finished taking off his shoes and socks.

“She has good taste.” Joanne padded back over to me, more calmly this time, and I kissed her soft muzzle. “And she’s a sweetheart.” I was growing fond of this big, lumbering mutt.

He laughed. “I know that, and you know that, but a lot of people are scared of her size. I think she senses their nerves and tries to overcompensate by being way too friendly.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “But that’s fine with me. I’ll take all the Joanne attention I can get. I don’t need to share with anyone else.”

I watched Dax wander into the living room and over to the piano. He ran his hand across the back, and I winced, knowing how much dust he’d just tracked his fingers through. “Sorry about that,” I said. “It’s dirty—”

“Do you play?” He pulled out the bench and sat down.

“No,” I said. “I bought the piano, promising myself I would learn, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

He lifted the fallboard, revealing a set of pristine, gleaming black and white keys. Yes, I knew all the lingo. The guy who’d sold me the piano had been sure to go over everything with me. I’d filed it all away in my memory because that was what I did. I remembered useless facts. I figured maybe it’d come up in trivia someday.

It hadn’t…yet. But I’d be ready.

Dax pressed softly on one of the white keys, eliciting a whisper of a note.

“My dad used to play,” I said. “When I was a kid, my mom said we never had room in the house for a real piano, at least not when my brother and I were living there, but he always swore that he’d get a baby grand for the front window someday.”

Dax grinned. “Did he ever get it?”

I shook my head, swallowing. “But I did.”

A surge of understanding passed between us.

He opened his mouth to say something else, but then lightning flashed in the window behind him, and thunder boomed a moment later. The lights in the living room flickered, and Joanne went scurrying.

“We lose power here all the time,” I said. “Just a warning. But it usually comes back on quickly.”

“Noted.” Dax’s foot pressed the pedals under the instrument. “Do you mind if I play?”

“Please do.” Grinning, I took a seat on one of the rock-hard couches facing the piano, tucking my cold, bare feet underneath me, ready for my private concert. I had no idea if Dax was any good, but he had to at least be better than I was—I could basically only plunk out “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” which was the same tune as the alphabet song, so, bonus—two for the price of one.

He cracked his knuckles, took a deep breath, and played a chord that made Joanne howl all the way down in the basement. Still, the guy could play, apparently. Dax lifted his hands as if he’d just been shocked, then tried playing a scale. “This is horribly out of tune,” he said with a crooked grin.

I winced. “Yeah, I’m not surprised.”

“You have to take care of an instrument like this.” He wiped a hand across the dusty music rack.

“I know.” It was another one of the things the piano salesman guy had lectured me about. But I figured, I never played the thing. How out of tune could it get?

“When was the last time you had it serviced?”

“Um…well, I bought it about three years ago.”

“Three years?” he said. “Annie.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.” He gingerly covered the keys, stood, and tucked the bench back under the piano. “Do you mind if I get it tuned? I know a guy.”

“You know a guy?” I said, smiling. “Who knows a piano guy?”

“Pianists,” Dax said.

I let that hang there for a moment, Dax suddenly coming in to focus for me, just a bit. “You’re a pianist? Why are you a bartender?”

He laughed. “For money?” He paused. “You know the whole ‘starving artist’ trope?” He leaned toward me and whispered. “It’s real.”

“Is that why you were staying with your sister?”

“That’s part of it.” He stepped over to the mantel and peered at the pictures of my mom and dad and my brother’s family.

I hesitated to say anything more, to ruin this little moment by going too far and sending Dax back inside his shell. “My dad went to college for music.”

“Really?” Dax picked up one of the frames and turned it to show me. “This him?”

“Yeah.” I bit my lip. “He’d been in a band of some kind…I don’t know, but then my mom got pregnant with me…” I shrugged. “Long story short, he became a banker.”

“Well, that’s good, too.”

“You still play?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He shrugged, grinning. “I’m in a band of some kind.”

I smiled back at him, my insides warming. “Keep going with it,” I said. “Don’t give up.”

He turned away and set the frame back on the mantel.

I stood and stretched, an idea occurring to me—a way to help this guy, who I was starting to feel an odd affection for. “And, in the meantime, you and I are going to crush the trivia competition for pride, and also so you can have the prize money to keep—” I mimed playing a piano.

He laughed. “Very good technique. But half that money will be yours. I can’t take it all.”

“Please,” I said. “It’d mean much more to me knowing that it was going to help a talented musician keep his dream alive.”

He wrinkled his nose. “You don’t know that I’m talented.”

“I can tell.”

We stood there for a moment in awkward silence. We’d reached the point in the evening where we, as roommates, would have to decide—hang out or go our separate ways? Even for Kelly and me, it was kind of a tough dance. We had incompatible tastes in TV, and, really, we each needed our space at different times and in our own way.

“I was going to watch The Crown…” I said.

“Good,” he said as a smile of relief spread across his lips. “That’s…yeah. I want to get changed, and…I’m pretty tired.”

“Okay.” I stood and fluffed the pillow I’d crushed on the couch as Dax made his way toward the basement stairs.

“But”—he turned around—“if you ever feel like watching a movie sometime, some other night—”

I waggled my eyebrows. “Like a Katherine Heigl rom-com…?”

His face lit up in a crooked smile. “I’m not not saying a Katherine Heigl rom-com.”

I chuckled, and he started to make his way down the steps.

“Hey, Dax!”

He ran back up to the first floor. “Yeah?”

“What’s your last name, anyway?”

“Logan.” Then he waved goodnight and finally headed down to bed.