My Soul To Keep (Soul Series Book 1) (5 page)

Going back over the piece, I realize a page is missing. I bend down to retrieve it from the floor.

“Grady?”

That hot, sweet molasses voice calls from the door. I hesitate about sitting all the way up because I suspect she’ll dart off as soon as she sees me. She was not just prickly last night. She was full-blown cactus. I’m not used to that with girls. Especially not girls who want to be singers.
Hello?
I’m a walking, talking, fucking opportunity to most of them. Does she not know I could be her big break? It’s like she doesn’t care.

I think that’s what I like most about her so far.

I sit up before she can leave the room. Her eyes go wide before she narrows them, and I can’t tell if she’s giving
me
the no way signal or if she’s trying to convince herself.

“I’m sorry.” Her rich voice smothers the words like gravy, weighing them down in the way I teased her about last night. “I thought Grady was—”

“Grady is.” I push the hair out of my face before slumping a little on the piano bench. “He’s talking to Emmy.”

“Oh, that’s right. They have a date today.” She smiles and glances down at the handwritten invoice in her hand. “I needed to ask him something, but it can wait. His penmanship . . . geez Louise.”

Is she for real? Geez Louise? I haven’t heard that since repeats of
The Andy Griffith Show.
I want to hear what else she’ll say if she sticks around a little longer.

“I’m fluent in Grady.” I motion for her to give me the paper. “I bet I can interpret.”

“Really?” Doubt crinkles her eyebrows, but she hands it over. “Worth a try.”

The first thing I notice at the top of the stationery pad is Grady’s full name. Bentley Gray. Yeah, I’d go by Grady too. I glance at the slashes and marks bleeding all over the paper in my hands.

“Yeah, it says double-check the payment schedule on this student.”

“Wow.” She shakes her head, the dark, silky braid swishing over her shoulder. “I never would have guessed that. Thanks.”

She turns back toward the door. She’s leaving. I’m not the kind of guy who typically encourages girls to linger, but . . .

“So you sing?”

Wow, Gray. Brilliant.

She looks back over her shoulder and around the room like there might be someone else I’m addressing.

“Yeah, you.” Just in case she thinks I’m talking to my imaginary friend. “You sing?”

Everything about her screams reluctance at the top of its lungs. The glance she gives the door, like it’s her salvation. The way she taps the invoice against her leg a few times before turning to face me. The gate she locks over her eyes before she looks back at me.

“Yeah. I sing. I mean, I’ve been dancing more than singing lately, but I sing.”

“What kind of dancing?”

“Well, I do ballet, tap, modern dance, hip hop. You name it, I did it growing up. Right now, I teach a hip-hop class to fourteen-year-olds.” She snorts, twisting her wide, full lips into a half grin, half grimace. “And, yes, it’s as much fun as it sounds. I’ve been doing some small stuff in a few music videos. Nothing major.”

“But you really want to sing?”

“I want to perform, to do it all. Dance, sing, act.”

“Ah, one of those, huh? A multi-hyphenate.”

“Are you mocking me again?”

“Mocking you? No, of course not.”

She narrows those tilted eyes at me and puts a hand on one slim hip.

“Okay. Maybe a little.” The stern line I usually keep my mouth in with strangers contorts into a grin. “Come on. You spout some Jenny-from-the-Block shit and expect me not to mock you just a little?”

“We aren’t all born piano prodigies who get to do exactly what we want from the time we’re children. Some of us have to do it all and see what sticks.”

“Oh, is that what you’d call it?” Her audacity, her ignorance of my actual life, and her
nerve
sends heat crawling up my neck and loosens my lips. “Having no friends your age? Working around the clock? Being on the road more than two hundred days a year? Does that sound like the easy way up to you?”

I’ve shocked myself with that tirade. I rarely talk about my life before I emancipated from my parents. Certainly not to strangers. Even a hot, adorable stranger who stands only as high as my collarbone and has a voice that sounds like it’s been sitting out melting in the sun.

She bites her bottom lip, and as much as her assumptions irritate the hell out of me, that gesture manages to distract me. I’m struggling to remember what she did to annoy me in the first place.

“Look, I’m sorry.” She lays the invoice on the piano and slides her hand into the pockets of her cargo shorts. “I don’t know you. All I have is what I see from the outside and read in tabloids. I wouldn’t want anyone to judge me by that.”

“You wanna make it up to me?”

At least my parents taught me to exploit every opportunity. Sadly, I was the opportunity. Still, lesson learned.

“Depends.” Kai gives me a cautious, considering look. “What did you have in mind?”

“Sing for me.”

“Sing?” Uncertainty takes over her face, and for a moment, I think she’s going to turn and run. “Just sing? Like right here? Right now?”

“Unless you’re scared, of course.” I deliberately keep my eyes glued to my fingers picking out a scale on the piano.

“Did you learn that in
Reverse Psychology for Dummies
?”

My mouth pulls into an involuntary grin even though I don’t look up from the keys.

“I’m just thinking anyone who wants to do it all,” I finally glance back at her, my fingers still playing the scale, “Should be able to sing in front of one guy.”

She rolls her eyes, but her mouth starts tugging up at the edges just a little. She takes a step closer, leaning her hip against the piano.

“What should I sing?”

Her smell surrounds me. Something fruity and sweet, but not one of those scents girls wear that scratches your throat and burns your nose.

My fingers traverse the keys in a basic scale before I look up at her, prepared to be underwhelmed by the pipes hiding in that lovely throat.

“Sing this scale and hold the last note for me as long as you can.” I pick out a basic scale I’ve heard Grady do with dozens of students over the years.

She closes her eyes, draws a deep breath, and duplicates the notes I just played with her husky voice. She holds the final note for a few seconds, and then her breath wanes, causing the note to fade away.

“Your tone is great.”

Sliding her hands into her pockets, she rocks back on her heels, faking nonchalance.

“I bet you say that to all the singers.”

“Then you really don’t know me.” I hold up a finger. “And you didn’t let me finish.”

She offers a quick nod, her posture deliberately casual. But I can tell she’s nervous about my opinion. Believe me—I’ve lived enough of my life looking for affirmation, so I recognize the need right away.

“Your breathing is off. Not by much. I can tell you know
how
to breathe, but you aren’t executing. Your notes aren’t supported well enough.”

Even though she’s standing and I’m seated on the piano bench, she’s only a few inches above me. I reach up, my fingers hovering over her throat, but not quite touching.

“Too much energy here.”

I envy the slim fingers she rubs against the smooth skin of her neck. My fingers float over her abdomen, and I lock my eyes with hers.

“May I?”

She lowers her lashes, eyes on my hand suspended and waiting for her permission.

“May you what?”

“Touch you here?”

She clears her throat, but if I’m not mistaken, her voice still comes out a little breathier than moments before when she speaks.

“Um, sure. Of course.”

I press my hand to her stomach, and my pinky finger strokes across something resting in her bellybutton. I look at her, brows lifted to ask the silent question.

“Belly ring.” A blush rises over the slant of her cheekbones.

Everything about this girl turns me inside out. The muscles beneath my fingers tense at my touch. The thin cotton of her shirt is a semi-conductor, passing electric current from her skin to mine. I look up to see if she feels the same shock of sensation that I do. Even though she looks away, she can’t hide that she does.

“So, your breathing.” Even to my ears my voice sounds deeper and heavier. I force a little cough and continue. “I always say singing is the two M’s, mental and muscular. Think about what you’re doing every time, and about using the right muscles and breathing properly. Do that until you don’t have to think about it anymore and doing it right is second nature.”

I press gently into the muscles of her stomach and lift my eyes to her face.

“More energy and effort and breath here.”

I reach up and rest one finger against her throat. Her skin is like warm velvet, her pulse strong under my fingers.

“You’re singing too much from your throat. Pull from your diaphragm. Better support, and you’ll be able to sustain your notes longer.”

“You’re right,” she says. “I’ve been out of consistent vocal lessons for the last six months. I do some with Grady, but I mostly work for him, and my breathing has deteriorated some.”

“Let me hear something else.” I pick out another, slightly more demanding scale. She matches the notes easily, her eyes flicking to my face for the verdict as soon as she’s done.

“Okay, you have a great voice. Really.” I meet her eyes frankly. “But if you don’t want to be just a dancer who sings, you need to work on adding some tone and texture. You do vocal compressions?”

“I haven’t been as consistent with them lately.”

“Get back to it. You dance every day?”

“Of course.” She shrugs. “It’s my job, so yeah. I dance every day.”

“If you want singing to be your job, make sure you’re doing vocal compressions every day too. Add some flavor. Something that’ll set you apart from every other girl after the mic. Give me one more scale. Focus on the breathing.”

She closes her eyes, and the muscles in her stomach tighten under my hand. Her tone, which really is beautiful, sounds stronger. The final note, she holds longer. She hears the difference like I do, and a smile lights her face up.

“It worked!”

“You sound surprised.” My laugh blends with the notes I pick out on the piano. “I
do
sing for a living. Maybe you hadn’t heard?”

She rolls her eyes and nibbles at her bottom lip.

“I think I
may
have heard something about you being God’s gift to the stage.”

“Wow.” I have to laugh at that. “Once you get started, there’s snark under that hood, huh?”

Her sweet smile chips away some of the sarcasm.

“I’m just saying. I’m from Georgia, not another planet. Even in my little backwoods town we know you’re one of the biggest names out there.”

“Yeah, that just kind of happened.”

“Things like that don’t just kind of happen for most people, you know?”

“I’m not saying I didn’t work hard at it. I did. I just didn’t know if I’d ever perform professionally again. When I graduated from high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I knew it had something to do with music, of course, but not exactly what. So I taught voice here with Grady for a while before going to Full Sail for production.”

“Are you kidding?” She grins at me. “I had no idea. So that’s why you two are close.”

“Yeah. That and the fact that he’s my uncle.”

“No way.”

“He and my father are twins.” I link my hands behind my head. Talking about my father usually makes me want to play less, which is why it took me close to seven years to play again professionally after I left his house.

“Twins? Grady’s a twin?” She shakes her head. “He’s never talked much about his family.”

“Yeah, well, we aren’t exactly the Brady Bunch, and they aren’t close anymore. Thanks to me.”

“To you?”

“You’ve heard that I emancipated from my parents, right?”

She looks like she doesn’t want to admit it, but she nods.

“Yeah.”

“Well, the judge may have ruled that I was basically ready to live on my own, but Grady knew better. I came to live with him and went to the L.A. School of Performing Arts for my last two years of high school.”

Without realizing it, I’ve started playing Tchaikovsky’s
Romance in F Minor
. Even my subconscious wants to seduce her.

“It’s like breathing for you, isn’t it?” She runs her eyes over the ebony and ivory keys.

“Sorry?” I sit back and drop my hands to my lap for a few seconds before returning to the keys. “What?”

“Playing. It’s like breathing. You’re playing something so beautiful, and it’s like you’re not even conscious of it. Like it takes nothing for you to do.”

How do I admit she’s right without sounding like an arrogant prick? I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t play. I don’t even remember a time when I wasn’t good at it.

“I guess it is like breathing. It’s just an extension of who I am.”

“Oh, give me a break.” Grady strolls back into the room, pocketing his cell phone. “
It’s just an extension of who I am.”

He actually does a frighteningly good imitation of me.

“What a load of crap. Don’t listen to him, Kai,” Grady says. “It’s one of his lines to pick up girls.”

She grins. I don’t. I want to strangle Grady when she picks up the invoice and heads for the door. Does she believe it was just a line?

“I don’t think that even occurred to him, Grady.”

She’s wrong. It definitely occurred to me. I’d have to be dead not to want to sleep with this girl, but it doesn’t have to be now. I think I can wait. I think I want to know her first.

Damn. What’s wrong with me?
I want to know her first?
Who is
this
guy?

“I’m almost done.” She waves the invoice in the air and moves toward the door, giving us only her back. “San’s on his way to pick me up. I’ll let myself out.”

As soon as she’s a few seconds down the hall, Grady turns to me with his eyebrows bunched together.

“I thought we had an agreement.”

“I don’t remember actually
agreeing
to anything.”