Wow. Get it together, Emma. That wasn’t creepy at all.
I pointed an accusing finger at his chest. “You’re Oliver Bishop.”
Any start to a smile dropped from his face, and I panicked when he pulled a phone out of his pocket.
Oh my God, he was calling for backup like I was some crazy stalker chick.
“You’re actually the reason I’m here!” I wrung my hands together. Where was a pen to chew on when you needed it?
His finger froze on the screen, and he glanced up at me. “Huh?”
“Not like in a stalkery way,” I said, because I definitely didn’t need him calling any bodyguards on me. I sighed through my teeth, trying to pull myself together and show him how nonthreatening I was. “I mean, I didn’t know you’d be here rightnow. And I didn’t meanherehere, in this room. I’mherebecause I forgot my backpack. But you’re the reason I’m going to school for piano.”
A hint of the smile was back. “I’m not sure I’m following.”
I couldn’t blame him. Even when I wasn’t blabbering, I made little sense.
“I’m sorry, I guess I’m a little starstruck,” I admitted, then winced at the understatement. “I just meant you’re a huge inspiration to me.”
Oliver Bishop shook his head and slid the phone back into his pocket. I held my breath as he walked to the piano and sat back down.
“Well, I’m going to need more details than that,” he said before patting the piano bench beside him. “Come on. Have a seat.”
I gaped, hardly believing it. Oliver Bishop wanted totalkto me? This couldn’t be real. I took a step forward before stopping with a frown. “Seriously? You sure you didn’t secretly text your bodyguards and now you’re trying to keep me calm until they arrive?”
He chuckled, and the sound sent a shiver down my spine. Even his laughter sounded melodious. “You’re safe… for now.”
I shuffled closer before perching on the far end of the bench and smoothing out my skirt. I was within touching distance of Oliver Bishop, and it showed in the way my heart flipped over itself with each beat. I took a deep breath to center myself, and my nose caught a subtle whiff of smoke and leather. “Are you always like this with fans?”
“Just the cute ones,” he said with a smile, and the twelve-year-old girl inside of me died a little bit at that.Oliver Bishop thinks I’m cute?He chuckled again, and I warned myself I’d have to stop staring eventually. “I’m kidding. I don’t really get out enough to see fans in the wild.”
Wait. Did that mean he didn’t think I was cute?
“Or they don’t recognize me.” Oliver pulled a grey beanie out of his pocket and tugged it on before adding a pair of sunglasses to complete the look. He smirked. “See? Totally incognito.”
And still as handsome as ever. The disguise worked wonders, but I thought it was a travesty to hide eyes as lovely as his.
“Definitely a different style than we’re used to,” I said while rubbing my palms on my skirt. Everything felt clammy. “Well, I promise not to freak out on you and try to steal a lock of your hair. I’m not that kind of fan. Like, I don’t have a shrine of you in the back of my closet or anything.”
Crime shows taught me closets were the first place people checked for shrines. Smart stalkers knew to put them at a secondary location.
“That’s reassuring.” He slipped off the sunglasses and hung them on his shirt. “So, you said I inspired you to go to school for piano?”
I cleared my throat and looked down at the ivory keys. I was struggling to believe I was sitting next to piano royalty. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. “Yeah, I did. My parents took me to one of your concerts when I was eight, and the next day they bought me a piano.”
My finger tested out the resistance of one lonely key, giving the nerves racing through my body something to focus on. It molded down easily, and I started a lingering melody between two keys before throwing in a third to offset the others. There was hardly any rhyme or reason to it, but fiddling with the notes was a balm to my frazzled nerves.
“Not in the spoiled brat kind of way,” I said. I offered him a sheepish smile before focusing back on the keys in front of me. “But because they saw someone so young accomplish so much, and they’d decided I was inadequate in comparison.”
He cleared his throat. “Excuse me, but your name…”
I cringed before laughing at my rudeness. “Wow, I’m sorry. It’s Emma Fox. And I’d been taking piano since I was four years old or so, but I wasn’t anywhere near your level of talent. So, my parents pulled out the big guns with a baby grand and twenty hours of piano lessons every week. Ten years of lessons and recitals later, and here I am.”
“Here you are,” Oliver Bishop said. One of his fingers reached toward a black key and pressed it intermittently between the first two keys I was fiddling with. Of course it harmonized with my tune beautifully.
“When I heard you play…” I trailed off and shook my head before holding down all three keys at once. The noise was sharp and daunting at first, until it faded away and Oliver’s key was the only remaining sound. “I was entranced. I’d never heard the pieces in your set, and you played so beautifully.”
I stalled, stroking a finger over the nearest black key before I turned to the handsome, talented guy sitting next to me. It was so hard to face him, but almost impossible to look away at the same time. He was a celebrity to me, someone unreachable and practically gold-plated. “It was Debussy, really. When… Well, when every other song was boring my brains out, or recitals weren’t up to my father’s expectations, or I felt like I was suffocating, I had Debussy—because of you. You playedLa Merat that recital when I was eight, and I guess it kind of made an impression?”
