Page 105 of Trapped By the Blood Ruby

He cut into the fluffy stack and began eating off my plate. Off my fork. I stared at him. The casual way he shared my food felt unexpectedly intimate. Comfortable. Natural. “Hmm. I have been missing out. Maybe I should request breakfast.” He returned my fork. “Better yet, I’ll simply share yours. Oh, don’t look so surprised. Carry on.”

He leaned back to watch me as I returned to my food. “So, tell me, how does a foster child with limited resources learn to play the piano? There was nothing of it in your memories.”

The food in my mouth lost its flavor. “You went through my memories.”

“Little flower, let me appease you. I did not see anything to be ashamed of. Come, tell me.”

I set my fork down. He took that as his cue to snatch it up. “Most of my homes were a disaster. One was better than the rest. When I was seven? A married couple fostered me for a short period. They fought a lot. I hated the yelling. But the woman was kind to me. She always dressed up in pretty dresses and shoes, and did her makeup perfectly. I thought she was so beautiful. She was a pianist. I remember hiding in the hallway just so that I could listen to her play. She’d practice for hours at a time. It made me so happy. Something about the music transported me.”

“Music can do that.”

“I only stayed with them for a little over a year. Turns out, fostering wasn’t for them. Or something like that.”

“Or perhaps,” he said, swallowing a mouthful of pancake, “their marriage was falling apart and having a child wasn’t the best timing.”

I shrugged. It was always one excuse or another.

“I always wanted to be like her,” I confessed. “When I was in high school, I got placed in a stabler home for a little while. The high school in that district was nicer. I talked to the band teacher, but the school didn’t offer piano lessons. You could join band class, but you had to have an instrument, or you could rent one. He let me come in during lunch and after school to use the piano in the theater. He got me a few beginners books. I struggled through them.” A soft smile touched my lips at the memory—one of my better ones. “Sometimes he even helped. I really wanted to learn.”

“You’re self taught, then?”

“Well, no…not entirely. I only learned a little bit at that time. I had to transfer schools my junior year. That one didn’t have a piano.” I shrugged. “After high school, I started taking music classes at Tioa City College. They offered beginner and intermediate piano electives.” My eyes darted up to his, only to find his gaze riveted on my face. “It was the best class I’ve ever taken. We each had our own keyboard, and we’d sit in a music hall, twenty of us, with headphones on. Our teacher, this sweet little old man, would sit at his keyboard with his headphones and tune in to ours by pressing a button. He’d offer critiques, play along, all that. I was at the community college for three years and took piano classes that entire time.”

Laurent huffed. “That’s impressive.”

My throat closed up. Later, I’d let myself preen over the complement. For now, I shrugged.

“I practiced as much as I could. My teacher ended up giving me tailored lessons during my final year, outside our regular class. He refused to charge me. I… I think he pitied me. By that point I’d learned to take what I could get, even if it was out of pity. It was almost always out of pity,” I muttered, thinking back over the rare times that people reached out a helping hand. Laurent was very still beside me. When I glanced at him, a fierce look flickered across his features. “Anyway, he also let me come into the music room whenever he wasn’t teaching class. That’s all I did in my free time. I… I didn’t really have any friends.”

My cheeks warmed.

“What about the university?”

“Oh. I joined a club when I got to BU. I also found a used piano—an old upright—at an estate sale for five hundred bucks. Ania paid to move it for me. It’s in our apartment.” I bit my lip at the surge of happiness I felt over that purchase. “I never thought I’d be able to afford my own piano, but that one sort of…fell into my lap. I drained my savings, but it was worth it. After that, I decided to start private lessons. I’d always wanted to take private lessons, so I found a teacher, a decent one. She worked with me for a year before she moved. Since then, I’ve just been self taught, I guess?”

“Would you take lessons again if you could?”

“They’re…kind of expensive,” I admitted. My heart sank at having to admit that lack of money was keeping me from doing the things I truly loved.

He hummed, looking thoughtful. “You’re good, Lily. A natural.”

“I’m not that good,” I mumbled, staring at what remained of my pancakes. He’d eaten almost the entire plate.

“Every time you play, I stand in the hallway just outside the drawing room and listen.”

“You… What?”

He shrugged. “I like listening to you play. Just like you listened to your foster mother. It calms me. I play an instrument too, you know, but not the piano.”

I sat up straighter. “What instrument?”

“The violin. The music I gave you was something I wrote—for you.” I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. All I could do was stare at him. “Maybe you’ll let me join you sometime?”

“Uhm.” The thought of making music together sent an unexpected warmth through my chest.

“Now then, finish your breakfast and we’ll go down to the cells.”

I blinked. “The… The cells?”