Play Me (3 page)

“Yes?” a
small, but steady voice asked.

I cleared my throat.
“I’m one of your neighbors,” I told her, the rasp
in my voice clearly indicating the rough night I had had. Why had I
drunk so much beer? “2B.”

“Oh,” she
said, but still didn’t open the door. Smart girl, I thought,
though I really didn’t want to have this conversation through
the door.

“I was hoping to
talk to you about your playing,” I said. “Could you open
the door please? So I can at least introduce myself?”

There was a pause and
then I heard her undo the locks. The door opened slowly and a face
peered out. Yep, same big brown eyes I remembered from yesterday, and
the sight of them gave me the same strange gut punch. Ridiculous, I
told myself. I was hung over. This was nausea, nothing more. Okay,
maybe a little horniness, but who could blame me after what I had
seen last night.

I tried to give her my
most winning smile, but the exhaustion made it more difficult than
usual. Still, she seemed to relax a little and the door opened a bit
wider.

She was pretty—there
was no doubt about that. Her hair was still down, thick black locks
that fanned out over her shoulders and down her back, giving her a
sexy, disheveled look. I imagined sliding my fingers through that
hair, tangling it in my hands as I took her mouth with mine. But when
I glanced down, I was disappointed to find that she was wearing the
same kind of boxy black clothes as yesterday instead of the silky
nothings she had been in last night. She looked a little bit like a
nun. But kind of a sexy nun.

My imagination was
happy to help me out with that. My fantasy of bending her over the
piano, of sliding myself deep inside her, her hips flush against
mine, came back at me in vivid Technicolor.

I cleared my throat,
trying to get the image of her shapely hips and the long, smooth
expanse of her back, her hands flat against the surface of the piano
as I thrust . . . dammit. This was not the time
to be entertaining fantasies about my new, annoying neighbor. Her
looks didn’t change the fact that she had been playing the same
song for at least twenty minutes, probably even longer.

“Can I help you?”
she asked, and fuck, her voice was sexy too. Low and husky. I
imagined the way my name would sound on her lips.

My pants tightened and
I shifted on my feet. The last thing I wanted to do was introduce
myself to my new neighbor with a raging hard-on. Think of pigs’
feet, I told myself. Pickled pigs’ feet. When in a pinch, the
thought of my least favorite food was as effective as a cold shower,
though this time it barely seemed to register, completely overwhelmed
by the fantasy of fucking this girl on her piano. Jesus. Get it
together, man. I took a deep breath and willed myself to focus.

“I’m Jake,”
I said, holding out my hand.

“Ella,” she
said, opening the door even wider to take it. Her fingers were long
and slender, unsurprising given the instrument that dominated her
apartment. How in the hell had she gotten the piano in here? I
wondered. The thought of maneuvering the thing reminded me how
exhausted I was.

“I couldn’t
help noticing you play piano,” I said, trying to force my smile
back on my face.

Ella nodded, looking at
me cautiously, but offered no apology.

“Can I help you?”
she asked again, sounding irritated.

Suddenly
I
was
annoyed. I was the one who had been wronged here. She had woken me up
with her incessant playing. I needed my sleep.

“I just thought
I’d let you know that there’s kind of an understanding
around here,” I told her. “I usually get home pretty
late, which means for the most part I sleep late.” I waited,
hoping she would connect the dots and apologize. But if she realized
what I was getting at, she said nothing, just watched me with those
big eyes. I took another deep breath. I just wanted to go back to
sleep. “The walls here are really thin,” I tried again.
“So most everyone is pretty understanding about my situation.”

“I thought they
were all at work,” she said. “I tried to wait until
everyone was gone.”

“Yeah, well, I’m
still here.” I gritted my teeth. “And I usually am in the
mornings.”

“Well, I’m
practicing for something quite important,” she told me, clearly
missing the point. “And ten a.m is not that early.” She
gave me a long, assessing look that I did not appreciate. “At
least for most people.”

I could feel my temper
rise. “Well, it might not be early for you,” I said
through my teeth, “but it sure as hell is early for me.”

“Well, maybe you
should get to bed earlier,” she retorted. “Your late
nights are not my problem.”

Whoa, I thought. This
little nun has attitude. But I wasn’t one to back down.

“Actually, lady,”
I told her, “they are your problem. One call to the
superintendent . . . ”

“And what?”
she snapped back. “You’ll have me evicted? I signed a
lease.”

“Leases can be
broken.”

She narrowed her eyes
at me. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s a
warning.” I pointed at her. “And one you should listen
to.”

“I don’t
have to listen to you.” She began to close the door, but I
stuck my foot in her doorway, stopping it.

“Just be
reasonable,” I tried, but she ignored me and began shoving the
door against my shoe. Ouch.

“Move. Your.
Foot,” she ordered.

“Maybe we should
start over,” I tried, even though I realized there was no
coming back from this.

“Maybe you should
get out of my apartment.” She slammed the door against my foot
again.

“Maybe you should
learn another piece of music,” I shot back, trying to hide my
wince.

She glared at me.
“Maybe you should learn to appreciate classical music.”

Though
I might have appreciated her fire another time, at that moment, I was
exhausted and crabby. And my foot really hurt. “Maybe you
should get curtains on your windows before you give the neighbors the
same show you gave me last night,” I said and watched her face
turn bright red.

Ella

My mouth dropped open.
Oh no. OH NO. Yesterday, I had told myself to buy curtains and then
promptly forgot. So of course it made total sense that I then spent
hours last night at my piano in my underwear. My best underwear.
Something my new neighbor had gotten a front row seat to. My
incredibly handsome new neighbor. It was the guy I had seen
yesterday—wearing the same clothes he had been wearing then,
only more rumpled. In fact, all of him was a bit more rumpled—his
hair was a mess, his face covered in what could only be considered a
7 o’clock shadow. And somehow that didn’t detract from
how drop dead gorgeous he was.

His ratty Astros
T-shirt was stretched taut across his chest. And what a chest it was.
The shirt was so thin that I could pretty much see every pack in his
six-pack. And I couldn’t take my eyes off his arms—lean
and dusted with dark hair, decorated with half a dozen tattoos,
several which I could only see half of, the rest hiding away
underneath his shirt. I felt the urge to discover the rest of them.
An urge I quickly pushed away.

This was the guy who
had seen me half naked last night. At least I had been wearing
something sexy. What? No. That’s not what I should be thinking.

I wanted to disappear
into the floor. But instead, I squared my shoulders and tried to
ignore my red-hot face. No doubt I was as bright as a tomato. There
was no way I was going let this guy—this Jake character—come
down here and embarrass me. He shouldn’t have been looking in
my window in the first place. And who did he think he was, coming
down here and demanding I adjust my schedule to fit his? It wasn’t
my fault if he liked to go out drinking every night. I wasn’t
going to waste precious rehearsal time so he could sleep off his
hangover every morning. So what if he was cute? I had the right to
practice in my own home whenever I wanted. Well, not whenever, but I
had waited several hours for everyone else to leave. I needed to
practice. The next round of the competition was coming up and I kept
screwing up the same section. And I was not going to let this cute
but totally annoying guy keep me from what I had been practicing for
months. He wasn’t my type. Not at all. But somehow, that
message hadn’t made its way between my legs.

And the way he was
looking at me didn’t help. Like he wasn’t sure if he was
going to kill me or kiss me. He licked his lip and my pulse skipped.
His foot was still jammed against my door. “Maybe I’m the
one who should be calling the superintendent.” I lifted my
chin. “To tell him one of his tenants is a Peeping Tom.”

“Hey!” He
looked offended. “I do not peep.”

“Clearly you do!”

“Look.” He
took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, okay, but you didn’t
have any curtains and . . . ”

“That’s not
an excuse!”

“I’m trying
to apologize!” he argued, his foot still against the door. “It
was a late night, okay?”

“Perhaps if you
were more responsible with your evenings, your mornings would be
less . . . rough.” I tried to inject as
much primness into my voice as possible.

He frowned. Perfect.
There was a reason that other students in high school had called me
the Ice Queen. If I was good at anything, it was freezing people out.
I had a black belt in resting bitch face.

But instead of backing
off, he merely crossed his arms. My one super power had failed.

“I’ve never
had complaints about my roughness before.”

My face went hot again,
but I was not about to let him get the upper hand.

“I’m sure
you’ve heard how easily it is to fake something like that,”
I shot back.

His eyebrows went up
and I could tell I had surprised him. “I can tell when a woman
is faking,” he responded, his voice very low.

“That’s
what all men think,” I told him.

“Is that so?”
he asked and leaned forward, just slightly.

“No!” I
said, far too quickly and too loudly. This Ice Queen was on the verge
of melting in the face of his scruffy hotness. Don’t let it go,
I told myself. Keep it together, Elsa.

He laughed and leaned
back. “Just wait a few more hours before practicing in the
morning, please?” He ran a hand through his hair and for the
first time I really saw the dark circles under his eyes. Maybe he
wasn’t just hung over. But before I could respond, or even
really react, he had removed his foot from the door, turned, and was
trudging up the stairs.

I let out a huff,
annoyed that he had gotten the last word, and went back into my
apartment.

A few hours of not
practicing later, I headed over to Mission Street to meet my sister
for our weekly lunch and afternoon of shopping. Or rather, her
afternoon of shopping.

Like always, I spotted
Nina from a block away, wearing a bright vintage wrap dress and big
colored sunglasses. She didn’t even wait for me to sit down.
“Ella,” she said. “Why must you always dress like
you’re attending a funeral?” Lately she had been speaking
with a slightly affected accent, probably her attempt to sound more
worldly. I tried not to roll my eyes. I loved my sister, but
sometimes she was too much for me to deal with. Sometimes meaning
always. “Please tell me today is the day you’re finally
going to let me find you something sexy and beautiful.”

Nina lowered her
sunglasses to give me the once-over I always got when I saw her.
Usually I didn’t mind her scrutiny. But for some reason, this
morning, after the conversation I had had with my hot but annoying
neighbor, I really didn’t want to listen to the lecture I knew
was coming. Nina’s hair, while naturally dark like mine, had
been dyed a variety of colors over the years. Right now, however, she
was sporting the latest trend—mermaid hair, the ends of her
dyed platinum blonde hair painted sea green. Like always, it looked
amazing on her, while it would have looked ridiculous on me. The same
was the case with all the colorful clothes she kept urging me to buy.
But it wasn’t new clothes that she wanted me to get. It was a
new personality. One that was more like hers. Like my parents. I
often wondered if I had been left at their doorstep or something. I
was way too normal to be from the same gene pool as them. “I
don’t need more clothes,” I told Nina, trying not to
think of how my new closet looked so empty with my meager wardrobe in
it. But I wore everything in there on a regular basis. I didn’t
need anything else.

“It isn’t
about need,” Nina said. “It’s about want. About
indulging yourself once in a while.”

I didn’t bother
to tell her that I knew how to indulge, and when I wanted to, I
bought myself a new lingerie set. That, of course, no one saw.
Except, of course, my new neighbor. For a moment I wondered what he
would do if I didn’t buy any curtains and wore my red lace bra
and panty set tonight. Would he be banging on my door the next
morning, but for a different reason?

The thought was so
ridiculous and so out of character that I pushed it aside. What was
wrong with me today? First I had wanted to check out his tattoos, now
I wanted to willingly parade around my apartment in lingerie, hoping
he would check me out again? The thought that someone like him, all
rough edges and late nights, would be interested in me, with my
practical clothes and love of following sheet music, was totally
absurd.

“So.” I
unfolded my napkin and spread it out on my lap. I was eager to change
the subject. “How are mom and dad?”

After a lunch of
hearing how my parents were distraught because I hadn’t stayed
at home longer, Nina dragged me to her favorite thrift store. She
piled clothes I would never wear into my arms, and I tried to ignore
her as she insisted our parents were worried about me and how I was
taking the break-up with Mark. They didn’t want me to be alone.
But she hadn’t wanted me to move, either, so I took everything
she said with a grain of salt and ignored the guilt pangs it gave me.
I didn’t want to admit it, but it was nice to have some space
from her. Even though I was the older one by two years, I always felt
like I had been in her shadow. She was the one who had followed my
parents’ ambitions, becoming the free spirit they wanted us to
be. Everything about her was free and wild and exciting. I loved her,
but sometimes she exhausted me. “What about this?” Nina
asked, holding up a bright red dress. Although loud in color, the
shape was pretty simple, a basic form fitting sheath, which wasn’t
really her style. It was a beautiful dress, though. And it was hard
to find something that my sister didn’t look amazing in.