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“I can do better than biscuits,” said Billie, letting Jules put her arm around her waist again.
Jules squeezed her tight. “Biscuits are fine by me,” she said, drinking in the feel of Billie, the smell of her. “More than good enough.”
Chapter Twenty Seven
Jules stopped abruptly and looked up at Billie.
“Not bad,” Billie said, secretly swelling with pride inside. “If you want I can find something else for you to practice, though you should keep up the work on this one.”
“Something else?” Jules said. “But there’s another two pages of this left to go.”
Billie looked at the carefully hand-written music trying hard not to wonder at the woman who had written it. She wasn’t the jealous type, never had been. “No, this section here is exactly the same as this section back here which you’ve already learned, and then there’s one final chord, which is the same as this one back here,” she said, marking the places she was talking about. “You need to fit the pieces together, but essentially you’ve learned the whole thing.”
“You’re kidding,” Jules said, looking at the music, then down at her fingers with awe. “I’ve learned an entire song?”
“Looks that way,” said Billie. “And I’ve got dinner to see to.”
“Need help?” Jules asked, still looking at her fingers as though they were some kind of magical sausages.
Billie grinned to herself. “Nope, I’m on it. You play through everything, go on.”
Jules didn’t need much prompting. Billie left her to it, the echo of music ringing through the house as she went back to the kitchen and started chopping garlic.
It had been a long time since she cooked. It had been a long time since she’d heard music in the house.
It occurred to her for the first time that maybe Jules was fixing her. No, fixing was the wrong word. Jules wasn’t physically doing something. It was more like the presence of her allowed Billie to heal. She snorted as she rinsed off her knife. Like Jules was an antibiotic.
She started work on the onions, slicing them thinly, being careful to keep the sizes uniform. Joking aside, she felt… better. Not that she was whole, far from it. There was still a startling space in her life that her music had occupied and that she needed to fill. There was still horrific uncertainty and fear.
But somehow, Jules’s presence quelled those things, made them seem smaller than they really were. Somehow Jules, with her obstinate chin and her sarcastic tongue and her ability to cut to the core of just who Billie was, made her feel better. More herself. More… human.
Jules’s playing wove around the kitchen as the smells of pasta sauce rose from the stove. Billie found that she was humming as she worked, singing along under her breath to the song that Jules was playing. The song that had been written by another woman and that had become the soundtrack to her life with Jules.
Her life with Jules.
The thought of it bubbled warm in her chest.
This might work, she found herself thinking. This might actually be something. She might be starting something, building something, right here back in the house that she’d grown up in. A house that for once seemed warm and inviting, a house that wasn’t a prison anymore.
Billie’s phone rang and she picked it up without even looking who it was. “Billie Brooke.”
“Oh, hello Billie, it’s Mila here.”
Mila… Right Mila. “Yes, is Agatha alright?”
There was a chuckle on the other end of the phone. “Actually, that’s what I was calling about.”
Billie sighed a little because this was all too common with small children. “It’s quite alright,” she said. “She’s small, and the little ones change their minds like the weather. You didn’t sign a contract or anything, and I can always give you the spot back if she changes her mind back.”
There was a crackling pause at the end of the line. And absently Billie noticed that the piano playing had stopped.
“Um, sorry,” Mila said. “Sorry but I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding.” She laughed. “Ag doesn’t want to stop playing, far from it. In fact, I’ve been bullied by my own child into phoning you and asking you if she can’t come more often. I know, I know, you must be run off your feet with kids wanting lessons, but I promised I’d ask, so here I am, asking.”
Jules appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, raising an eyebrow.
“You want Agatha to have more than one lesson a week?” Billie asked, making sure she was understanding properly. Her stomach flipped over. Jules rolled her eyes and shook her head and in a second, Billie’s stomach set itself right and her spine straightened up.
“That’s right,” Mila said.
