His voice is low when he starts and he keeps looking at me until I join in. My knees shake and I have to dig my fingernails into my palms to keep my hands from trembling, but as long as I keep my eyes on Finn’s fingers running over the strings, I can actually do it. There’s a minute where someone scrapes a chair and I turn to look, which totally freaks me out, so I have to pretend there’s no one else here. Because, honestly, the fact that I’m singing in a bar in Tokyo with Finn O’Leary is weird enough.
I falter as I wonder how much of an idiot I’ll feel like afterward until I remember he’s promised me another song after this. And if I get through this, I’ll get that.
We finish and the applause is loud. A few people shout. I have no idea if we were good, but my knees feel like they’re about to give out completely and I don’t care.
Finn begins speaking as the applause dies down. “I promised Zosia if she sang with me, I’d do another, so if you’ll humor me for one more.”
I start back to our seats, and he takes a deep breath through the microphone.
“
She looks like she’s flying on gossamer wings
The night is so black, you can’t see the strings
She’s soaring, she’s floating, she’s touching the sky
She’s an angel, a vision, a trick of my mind
.”
I freeze in the middle of the sea of chairs and face him. His voice is low, but sure. He’s done this kind of thing before. His eyes are steady on mine. He doesn’t look away once. Even when I sink down into a chair, his gaze stays locked on mine.
My hands start to tremble, so I clasp them between my knees, and the back of my neck prickles with sweat. I feel my breath catch in my chest, like my heart needs to hold on to it just a little longer. I don’t know if I’ve ever sat straighter.
“
I can’t help it, I watch her, frozen in place
Afraid if I blink, she’ll go away
I need her, I want her, an unbearable ache
To touch her, to feel her is all it would take
For my heart to break open, for my soul to heal
She’s not even there, yet somehow she’s real
.”
My heart fills my chest, edging out the breath I’ve been holding. My God. He can’t possibly be singing about that night in the playground. About me. But, good Lord, the way he’s looking through me makes me think it’s possible. Hell, the way he’s looking through me right now makes me think anything’s possible. I’m transfixed, hanging on every word, every chord.
“
My heart will break open, my soul will heal
Maybe she’s there; God, let her be real
.”
And it’s over.
Everyone claps. A lot.
Except me.
I stare and he stares back. The air crackles between us. His dark eyes drink me in; his lips part and I feel mine open in response. I’d kiss him if we weren’t twenty feet apart. I would. If he didn’t kiss me first. It could go either way, I think.
At least until he drops his gaze. He looks back to bow at the girl organizing the singers, and when he glances back up, his face only holds a trace of the softness that was there five seconds ago. It’s gone completely by the time he meets me back at our table. His voice is casual, like the past three minutes didn’t just happen.
“You didn’t clap at all. Good thing I got you to sing first.”
I’ve completely forgotten that. “I…sorry. I just…your song was beautiful.” I sound as flustered as I feel.
He shrugs and I know before he says anything else he’s going to blow it off. “It’s something I’ve been playing around with.”
Right. My face stings, and I’m glad for the dark. My earlier facsimile of cool and flirty has been replaced by tongue-tied and bumbling. “It was really good.” My voice trails off at the end. I twirl my empty glass on the table and wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t. He’s not the type to fill an uncomfortable silence, but I can’t help it. “You know, I’m getting tired. Sorry, it’s just—”
“No, it’s fine. It’s late.” He rises before he’s even done talking, and I follow him out of the bar. The crowd has thinned in the past couple of hours, although those who are left are definitely worse for the wear. Two guys in business suits puke outside one of the
pachinko
parlors, and there’s a lot of bowing and staggering going on as groups say goodbye on the sidewalk.
We walk back in silence. It’s less than ten minutes but feels like an hour. I try out a million questions in my head, but everything feels forced. Because I feel dumb. Like I got taken in by Finn’s song and made it into something it’s not and is never going to be. Granted, that doesn’t explain the way he looked at me, but maybe I’m reading that wrong, too.
We’re outside my building before either of us speak, although I don’t actually know it’s my building until he says, “Here you are.”
“Oh. Wow. Okay, thanks.” I look off beyond his shoulder like I’m checking out the street so I won’t have to make eye contact. “Thanks for the night out.”
“Thanks for coming.”
He does that uncomfortable foot-shuffle thing he was doing on the train, so I turn toward the door. I fumble with my key ring and have to try two different keys before I get the right one. I twist the lock and then drop the keys as I grab the handle.
I bend to get the key ring at the same time as Finn. My bag flies over my shoulder, and as I try to grab it before everything spills all over the sidewalk, I catch the skirt of my dress on the latch of the door. I stretch to reach for my bag, and my dress twists up past my ass. Which is bare because I tossed my underwear a lifetime ago in the ladies room at the restaurant.
It takes the expression on Finn’s face to remind me. “Um, your dress…”
I look down. “Oh. My. God.”
I try to yank the material, which isn’t coming loose, so I move my foot holding the door open and it slams.
On my dress.
The only good thing is Finn has the keys in his hand.
“Can you unlock the door, please?” I say this with as much dignity as I can, given the circumstances, but the only way I can even ask is not to look at him.
To my surprise, he laughs. “Okay. Why aren’t you wearing underwear?”
If I could drop through the floor right now, I would. “I lost them. Open the door.”
He’s grinning. “You lost them? You’re lying.”
My God. I’m going to die. “Okay, I’m lying. Open the door.”
“Why won’t you tell me?” He leans against the doorframe, his smile still wide.
“Because whatever you’re making up in your head is a lot more interesting than the truth.” Anything is more interesting than the truth. “Open the door.”
Finn reaches toward the lock, although he’s definitely taking his time about it. I could grab the keys out of his hand and I’m about to when he says, “And here I thought you might be starting to trust me.”
I force myself to meet his gaze then. “I peed on them trying to negotiate the hole in the ground doubling as a toilet at the restaurant so I chucked them.”
He laughs really loud. “That’s kind of priceless.”
I try not to smile. “It’s rude to laugh. Now unlock the damn door.”
He does it, turning the key in the lock and dropping them in my hand. I twist around to try to unhook my dress from the lock, but my angle is all wrong and the more I yank at it, the higher it rides up on my hips.
I’m not sure what kind of expression is on my face when I look up at Finn, but it’s mortified enough that he reaches over to give my dress two firm tugs and, although it rips, at least it covers my bottom half again. I wedge my foot back in the door and cross my arms over my chest. “Thanks.”
“Any time.” He’s still smiling, and it’s a really good smile. Not laughing or mocking. Just nice.
“I think you need to tell me another embarrassing story so I don’t feel so dumb.” I don’t mean it as a challenge, just a fact.
His mouth twists a little. “I’m not sure I can top that.”
“Oh, and here I thought you were starting to trust me.” I splay my hand on my chest for effect, but my tone doesn’t match my words or my dramatics. I sound almost sad, which may be because of the
umeshu
or the roller coaster ride this night has turned into.
Finn hears it, too, and bites his lip. “Okay, fine. The summer I was twelve I broke my leg, cracked it in three places. It sucked. All my friends were out playing basketball or street hockey, and I could barely move. I watched them from the front porch sometimes, but it was so hot and my cast would itch, so I’d end up going back inside. One day the guy across the street brought over a guitar. Said it belonged to his daughter but she never played it anymore and maybe I’d like it. I had nothing to do anyway, so I started messing around. The first song I learned to play was ‘Stairway to Heaven.’I started making up my own stuff a couple years later when I realized it was a way to figure out things that didn’t make any sense at all.”
That’s not an embarrassing story. It’s an invitation to ask about the song in the bar. I don’t want to hear him say he thought I was somebody or something else, but I have to acknowledge it somehow. “Your song earlier—what’s it called?”
“I don’t know. It’s not finished.” There’s a moment then when we could touch, I think, but neither one of us take it. His voice is low when he speaks again. “You know, the thing about strangers on an airplane is they never see each other again.”
“That can probably be arranged.” I try to sound flippant, but don’t quite pull it off.
He continues as if I haven’t spoken. “I would just think this game could get a little intense.”
“Game?”
“Trust. Honesty. Whatever it is.”
I furrow my brow at him. “That’s not a game. It just is.”
“Is it?” His snort makes it clear that he disagrees with me. Completely.
“You either trust someone or you don’t. You tell the truth or you lie.” Almost as an afterthought, I add, “Don’t you?”
“There’s a sliding scale and you know it. You tell your dad one thing and Mindy another. Everybody does it.”
“So what’s your point?”
“I’m going to need to work on my honesty if we keep this up, so I should know your scale.”
“Hmmm…” I’m buying time. All of a sudden I’m not sure how truthful I should be. “Well, you were right about the night I ran into you. I only told Mindy I went for a walk.” But I didn’t even tell Mindy everything. I told her about Finn, but not the end. Not the part where I thought he might kiss me.
“That doesn’t count and you know it. One to ten? How honest are you?” he asks.
“Probably a six. Maybe seven,” I say. “How about you?”
“I’m pretty comfortable around a four. Five, tops.” I’m about to feel bad, but he adds, “Except tonight. That was a ten.”
I’m glad my arms are crossed over my chest because my ribs might shatter from the way my heart slams against them. Hard and unexpected. I expect him to say something else or do something or…something. But he doesn’t and I finally turn toward the lobby. “I should, um, go. Thanks for tonight. For everything.” I gesture to my dress, but that’s not what I mean.
“Any time.” His black eyes hold mine, then slide to the corner of my lips, my jawline, up to my hair. I follow the path of his gaze and imagine his mouth tracing the journey his eyes are making. His eyes linger in the hollow of my cheekbone, next to my ear. I can almost feel his hot breath on my face, even though he’s an arm’s length away. My stomach floods with anticipation as Finn lifts his hand and runs his finger lightly down my bare arm. His touch is just a whisper, but it burns like he’s holding an open flame to my skin.
His hand closes around my wrist for less than a second before he thrusts his hand back in his pocket and takes a deliberate step backward.
“I, um, need to go,” he says.
“Why?” It comes out before I can stop it, although thank God I stop before I blurt out the
No you don’t
on the tip of my tongue.
“I…It’s late. I just need to go.” He says the last part without spaces in between. As though saying it fast makes it true.
“Yeah, okay.” I nod and swallow hard. “Yeah. Me, too.”
I let go of the door and walk across the shiny tile floor. My sandals slapping against my feet is the only sound, even though I half-hope to hear Finn’s voice calling me back. I pause at the foot of the stairs. I could wait for the elevator, but I’m not sure I could stand there, wondering if he’s still there. And I don’t think I trust myself not to go running back out that door if he is.
I falter on the first step, which is enough to bring me back to earth. I’ve already bared my ass to Finn tonight; the last thing I need is to face-plant on the stairs. My foot is on the third step when I hear the door click behind me. I turn just enough to see him still standing there, watching me go.
T
he next time I see Finn isn’t that weird after the first half hour or so, which doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, but it is. Especially since he shows up at 1:30 on Sunday afternoon and I’m still in my pajamas drinking coffee.
“Hey. I would’ve called, but I don’t have your number,” he says when I open the door.
“I don’t have a phone yet, actually. What’s going on?” I stay planted in the doorway, my pulse butterflying up and down in my chest. Did he give me anything on Friday night to hold on to? Whenever Mindy and I go out, I end up with her lipstick and her phone every time, but Finn isn’t the lipstick type and the outline of his phone is visible through the front pocket of his dark blue shorts.
“I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d be neighborly.” He gives me a killer grin that carves a dimple in his left cheek I haven’t noticed before.
“Oh. Well, in that case…” I step aside to gesture for him to come in, straightening as his eyes flicker over me. My heartbeat gives another kick in my chest, and I swallow hard against it. We spent hours together less than two days ago. He
sang
to me, for God’s sake. Or, if not to me, then about me. Maybe. Either way, I need to get a grip.
“Are you busy?” He glances at the laptop perched on the arm of the couch and the coffee cup on the table.
“No. I’m just surfing random crap and drinking coffee. Do you want some? It’s instant, but it’s all right.” I brush my hair behind my right ear and force myself to stop. Finn’s in my living room. I’m in boxers and a tank top. He seems perfectly fine with it. I’m getting a grip. Starting now.