Play Me (6 page)

“Yay!” He
punched a fist in the air and we headed towards the stairs.

“Jake?”
Ella called behind me and I turned around.

“Yeah?”

She gave me a smile—a
first—and holy shit, she was beautiful.

“Thanks,”
she said, looking right into my eyes, and then went back into her
apartment.

Ella

“And then he
showed me how to melt chocolate and you’d think it would be
really easy but it isn’t,” Jeremiah was saying, his
little hands gesturing wildly instead of practicing his scales like I
had told him to do. But he was so earnest and excited, I didn’t
have the heart to force him to focus. Especially when I was having
trouble doing the same. “You can’t just melt it on the
stove, you know.”

“No?” I
asked, my knowledge of baking and cooking limited to how many minutes
it took to heat up soup in the microwave.

“You have to put
it in a bowl on top of a pot of bowling water,” Jeremiah told
me, his eyes huge.

“Really?” I
couldn’t help smiling at his newfound knowledge of baking.

“Really!”
He turned to face me on the piano bench. “And then you have to
watch it very carefully because one minute it’s delicious
melted chocolate and then another minute, bam! It’s totally
burned.”

The way he said it made
me think that he was doing a perfect impression of Jake himself. It
looked like Jeremiah had a case of hero worship.

And I was starting to
reassess my opinion of him. Before Jeremiah had come back down, I had
done a little Googling on Jake—as he had suggested—and
what I had found completely surprised me. And caused me to reevaluate
my previous assumptions about his late nights.

Jake was exactly who he
had said he was—the head chef at Grassfed, a restaurant I had
heard of but never gone to. It was a pretty fancy place—for
special occasions or dates where you were really trying to impress
someone. Mark and I had both agreed that it was frivolous to spend
extra money on something that you could get at a more moderately
priced chain restaurant, which is where we had usually gone on our
dates. Not that he had taken me out that much. Clearly I was more of
the moderately priced chain restaurant kind of girlfriend. The
Applebee’s of girlfriends. Not like Jake’s girlfriend
last night. She was probably a caviar and roses kind of girlfriend.

I hadn’t really
minded then, but more and more I was starting to think that Mark had
been a far worse boyfriend than I had given him credit for during
those few months we were together. He always had an excuse for why he
wouldn’t do something that required any extra effort or
romance. Flowers were a waste because they only lasted a few days.
Chocolate was a cliché. Going to the movies was futile since
it was so hard to find something we could both agree on; we could go
separately to the movies we wanted to see. And he never made me
brownies.

Looking at the website
for Jake’s restaurant and the rave reviews from people who had
gone there with their significant other made me really angry that
Mark had never made any kind of gesture like that. It also made me
feel pretty guilty that I had judged Jake so harshly and so quickly.

Grassfed was closed on
Mondays, so that meant that Jake worked until at least midnight,
maybe even later, every other night. No wonder he looked so
exhausted. And according to the articles I had found, he had only
recently become head chef, taking over from a woman who seemed very
well known and well loved in culinary circles. I could only imagine
the kind of pressure he was under to live up to her reputation.

Realizing I wasn’t
going to get any real practicing out of Jeremiah, I let him tell his
Jake stories and do a few simple exercises for the rest of our time
together.

Just as our lesson was
ending, there was a knock at the door.

“Come on,
Jeremiah.” I grabbed his backpack. “That’s probably
your mom.”

But when I opened the
door, Jake was standing there with a grin and a box that smelled
suspiciously like chocolate. My mouth watered, but it wasn’t
because of the brownies. Did this guy only own T-shirts so thin I
could just make out the outline of his tattoos? Then I remembered the
name inked there—Lucy—and told myself to stop lusting
over a guy who wasn’t even single. Yeah, he was delicious to
look at, but he had a girlfriend. And even then, he wasn’t my
type at all.

“Couldn’t
let my sous chef leave without the fruits of his labor,” he
said.

“My brownies!”
Jeremiah took the box and hugged it to his chest.

“I think they’re
the best ones I’ve ever made,” Jake told him, and even
though I was pretty sure that wasn’t the truth, I couldn’t
help smiling at how happy it made Jeremiah. “You’ve got a
future in the kitchen, my friend.”

“Wow.”
Jeremiah stared at the brownies as if Jake just told him he could do
magic.

“If you get here
again early, just come up and knock on my door,” Jake said,
tugging gently on the brim of Jeremiah’s baseball cap. “I’ll
teach you how to make cookies next time. The best chocolate chip
cookies you’ve ever tasted.”

“Cool!”
Jeremiah grinned just as his phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his
pocket and looked at it. “My mom’s here,” he told
me.

“Okay.” I
gave him a smile. “See you next week?”

“Yep!” he
told me. “Thanks for my lesson today.” The thank you was
polite but I could already tell that his excitement was about his
other potential lessons with Jake. I bit back a sigh. If I wasn’t
careful I’d lose all my piano students to a handsome chef with
a skill for baking sweets.

“Bye!” I
waved at Jeremiah as he headed out the double glass doors to the
street. I watched him until he got into his mom’s car, his
hands already gesticulating wildly. I turned back to Jake, who was
also watching the car.

“Looks like you
have a fan,” I told him.

“He’s a
good kid.” Jake gave me a shrug, as if all this was a regular
occurrence in his life. “He likes to bake.”

“I’m sure
he does now,” I said, thinking of how happy Jeremiah had been.
That poor kid had just been sitting in my hallway waiting for the
other lesson to be over. Back at my parents’ house, there was a
whole other room for him to hang out in, and my parents and sister to
talk to. I hadn’t even thought about what was going to happen
to students like him when I moved into my new place. If Jake hadn’t
come along, I don’t know what I would have done.

“I really
appreciate you watching after him while I finished up my other
lesson. I owe you,” I told Jake. It was becoming pretty clear
that I had misjudged him and that we had gotten off on the wrong
foot. “And I’m sorry if I was harsh with you last night.”

But he shook his head.
“You had every right to come upstairs and yell at me,” he
said. “We were being really rude and
I’m
sorry.”

I wasn’t
expecting that and didn’t know how to respond, so we both just
stood there, me looking down at my feet. I already had enough images
of Jake’s chest and arms to power my inappropriate,
still-kind-of-in-denial-because-he’s-not-my-type fantasies for
at least the next fifteen years if not longer.

“There are a few
leftovers in my apartment,” Jake finally said, and I glanced up
to find him rubbing the back of his neck, his thick hair rumpled and
totally touchable. “If you want to come up for a brownie and
some milk?” It was an innocent enough offer, but nothing about
this guy said innocence.

“I’m not
really a brownie person,” I lied, hoping it was a good enough
excuse to end this conversation and go back into my apartment and
practice until I stopped thinking about how soft his hair might feel
against my fingers.

“You sure seemed
like a brownie person last night,” Jake teased, clearly
referencing my “better than sex” comment. Oh god, I was
never going to live that one down. “Okay, well, I can make
something else. Like I told Jeremiah, I make a mean batch of
chocolate chip cookies.” He grinned at me and I got a good look
at his perfectly straight teeth and movie star dimple in his left
cheek. No wonder he had a girlfriend as beautiful as Lucy. He
probably had women throwing themselves at him left and right.

“I don’t
really like sweets,” I tried again. Mark was big on promoting a
minimalist lifestyle—one that allowed a performer to focus
completely on the music. When we first started working together, he
had encouraged me to cut out anything unnecessary in my life. He also
encouraged me to cut out sugar, most carbs, and all caffeine. I
didn’t find it to be much of a sacrifice. After all, I couldn’t
remember the last time I had a brownie before last night—my
parents weren’t really known for their home cooking, especially
not in terms of baking. Unless, of course, they were making “special
brownies.” But I had never really gotten what made people so
crazy for sweets. Until last night.

And Jake clearly didn’t
believe me. He was looking at me like I was an alien.

“You don’t
like sweets?” he asked.

“Not really,”
I told him, backing into my apartment—hoping he’d take
the hint. But instead he just followed me in. The apartment felt even
smaller with him in it, more intimate. Warmer.

“Are you more of
a savory person?” he asked, and I turned back to him and
shrugged.

“I guess.”
I felt exposed in his stare. “I’m just not that into
food.”

“What?” He
placed his hand to his chest as if I had mortally wounded him. “How
can someone not be into food? You need it to survive!”

“I didn’t
say I didn’t eat,” I explained, even though I really
didn’t feel like I should have to. What did he care what I ate
or didn’t eat? “I eat.”

“What do you
eat?”

“Soup,” I
told him hesitantly, but his eyes lit up.

“Oh, soup is
great! I make an amazing butternut and ginger soup, pair that with
crusty sourdough bread—homemade, of course—and a bottle
of wine.” He touched his fingers to his lips and kissed them,
looking a lot like a cheesy television chef. “Delicious!”

But I could only shrug.

“Really?”
He asked. “Nothing? No stomach rumble? Nothing?”

“I like
Campbell’s chicken noodle soup,” I told him.

He shook his head.
“That’s not soup,” he responded. “That’s
salt in a can.”

“Have you tried
it?” I asked.

“Nope,” he
told me. “Don’t need to. Prepackaged food is never as
good as the real thing.”

“I disagree.”

“Well, I’m
happy to prove you wrong.” He gave me that smile again. It was
time to end this flirtation—I was pretty sure Lucy would be
annoyed to find out her boyfriend was trying to lure his neighbor
into his apartment on the guise of making her soup. From the look in
his eyes, I knew exactly what he was hoping to heat up and it wasn’t
anything resembling a can of soup. And the last thing I needed right
now was to be tempted by a sexy chef who wore his shirts too tight
and his smile too big.

“I hardly think
your girlfriend would appreciate you offering to cook for me,”
I told him bluntly.

His eyebrows furrowed.
“My girlfriend?”

“The brunette
from last night?”

He burst out laughing.
“Dakota? She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my sous
chef at the restaurant.”

“Oh,” was
the only thing I could think of to say. Then who was the Lucy that
was special enough to have her name tattooed on his chest? On his
heart, even? But I couldn’t ask, because that would mean I was
confessing to staring at his naked chest long enough to get a good
look at his tattoos.

“Though, I guess
you’re right,” Jake said, looking a little sheepish.
“Your boyfriend probably wouldn’t appreciate my offer
either.”

Now it was my turn to
be surprised. “My boyfriend?”

“The guy who
helped you move your piano?”

“Oh.” I
shook my head. “Mark’s my teacher.”

“A piano teacher
with her own teacher,” Jake teased. “So he must be pretty
good.”

“He’s the
best,” I said sincerely.

Jake shrugged. “I
guess I’m just not that into classical music.”

It wasn’t
anything I hadn’t heard before.

“Most people
don’t understand how rich and interesting classical music is,”
I told him.

He raised an eyebrow.
“Oh yeah?” he asked, sounding way too inviting.

Usually I would just
end the conversation there, accepting that most people would never
understand what was so special about classical music, but I heard my
thoughts tumble out of my mouth in a long, passionate rant.

“Maybe it’s
not as cool or exciting as pop music or rock and roll or even jazz,
but it has an incredible history and remains just as vibrant and
affecting as it did hundreds of years ago. You can find classical
music in the roots of every single form of music that exists today,
so really, if you like any kind of music, you like classical music,
you just haven’t bothered to listen to it without all the bells
and whistles that we like to add to our music today. In fact,
classical music is completely pure, completely without ego. When you
play, you are connecting to the person who wrote the music and
everyone else who has played it before. You are part of history and
that is an extraordinary thing.”

When I finished I was
completely out of breath. Jake didn’t say anything for a
moment, just stared down at me, and the intensity of his gaze made me
blush. I felt totally exposed, as if I had just taken off my clothes
in front of a stranger instead of telling my neighbor the reasons I
loved playing the classics.

“I—”
I started to say, but before I could get the sentence out, Jake
pulled me into his arms and slanted his gorgeous mouth against mine.