Page 17 of The Sound of Harmony

ChapterFive

One of the things Emma liked about living alone was never compromising on takeout. Every Friday night, she got barbacoa tacos from Casa Mucho and ate them while sitting cross-legged on the floor, elbows on her coffee table, letting the television news tell her what she should be outraged about this week.

She was pulling into Casa Mucho’s parking lot when her phone rang. She glanced at the screen. Kendrick. Most clients didn’t call her unless something went wrong, but she’d only started yesterday. It was early for the uh-oh phone call. She parked her truck and answered it. “Hello?”

“Hey, Emma. I’m calling about your email. Is this a good time?” Kendrick’s voice sounded like caramel bathing a sweet autumn apple.

She cracked her truck’s window and breathed deep, calming herself. “Sure. Go ahead.”

“Thanks. I was going to email, but I thought we could go back and forth in a ten-email chain, or take care of it in a ten-second phone call.”

Emma didn’t answer. She’d already said this was a good time, but he’d continued in what sounded like a rehearsed opening. Interesting.

“Are you still there?” Kendrick asked after a moment.

“I’m here.”

“Yes. Cool. Brilliant. Thanks.” Kendrick’s words tumbled out. He sounded nervous. Or perhaps just busy. He’d said he was at a weekend music conference, so he was probably rushing from one session to the next. “You asked about my furniture.”

“Mmm hmm?” She’d taken measurements of the rooms and needed a catalog of what furniture he was bringing. Exact dimensions would be nice, but not necessary.

“My couch originally came in three pieces,” he said.

“If the movers take it apart, I can reassemble it.”

“Fantastic,” he said. “My bed is a queen, but there’s no box spring so they should be able to squeeze the mattress through the front door. I want to keep it because it’s insanely comfortable.”

Emma gripped the door handle. Why was she picturing Kendrick reclined on a bed, surrounded by pillows, with sheets pooled at his feet? And why was she picturing him naked?

She clamped down on that thought immediately. So what if Kendrick was tall, with gentle eyes and easygoing confidence? So what if that secret smile they’d shared at Ben’s expense had made her heart feel like it was glowing? So what if Kendrick was nice? Of course he was nice. He was nice to her because she was working for him. There was nothing else to it.

But there was no harm in enjoying Kendrick’s lush and resonant voice in her ear. She pushed back her truck’s seat so she could stretch her legs as she waited for him to go on.

“I have bedside tables and a coffee table. That’s it for furniture. The rest is all personal stuff. Clothes, music, books.”

“No TV?”

“I use my laptop.”

“Got it,” Emma said. “So you don’t need an entertainment center.”

“God, no,” Kendrick said. “And no Barcalounger either. I’m semi-retired. I’m not eighty.”

Emma smiled. This wasn’t the first flash of humor she’d seen from him and she hoped it wouldn’t be the last. “Semi?” she asked.

“I’ve taken a short leave from my orchestras,” he said. “I have a condition called Meniere’s disease, which you’ve never heard of and I won’t tell you about because it’s very boring.”

“You don’t have to tell me.” Emma wrote it on her legal pad, spelling it phonetically, knowing that Google would help her correct it when she looked it up later.

“Then again, all the interesting afflictions are painful and fatal, so boring is probably better.”

“Wouldn’t you rather have no affliction at all?” Emma asked. “Call me strange, but—”

“Strange.”

“What?”

“You said ‘call me strange’ so I did.”