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“No, I know. I just thought you might like some company.”
“I’m fine.”
Despite me saying this, she doesn’t get up and leave.
I pick up a slight tremor in her voice. “Are you nervous?” I ask.
Her feet shuffle on the floorboards. “Oh, umm...it’s just you’re Darius Riviera.”
I huff out a laugh. “Yeah, I know that.”
“And you’re kind of intimidating.”
“I’m really not.”
“Yeah, you are. You’re kind of...unapproachable.”
“And yet you’ve just approached me.”
It’s her turn to laugh. “I did. I figured I needed to get over it, considering we’re going to be stuck in this cabin together for goodness knows how long. I thought we should get to know each other a bit better.”
I nod and lace my fingers between my knees. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
She settles into the wooden chair beside me. “When did you know you wanted to play the violin?”
I smile to myself. “The first moment I put my hands on one.”
“It was when you touched one? Not when you heard it?”
“It was like touching a beautiful woman. It still is. The moment my finger connected with the wood, my heart beatfaster, and my blood rushed through my veins. It was like my body came alive.”
She draws a breath. “You felt a connection.”
“Exactly.”
“Do-do you feel that same connection when you touch people?”
“I guess that depends on the person.” I shift my position slightly and put my hands out.
“Wh-what are you doing?” she asks.
“Seeing if there’s a connection.”
I wait to see if she jerks away, but when she doesn’t move, I reach out and place my palms against her cheeks. Her skin is hot to the touch, and I know she is blushing. I’m unsure why that causes a swell of emotion inside my chest, but it does. I like that I’ve affected her. I run my thumbs across her cheekbones, her skin incredibly soft, like velvet.
“Well?” she asks, her voice almost a whisper.
I nod. “Yes, I think there’s a connection.”
“Is that because we’re family?” She still has that breathy tone, as though she can’t quite fill her lungs.
“We’re not family, Laney. You said yourself that we don’t know each other.”
She pulls away, and my hands slip from her face. I said the wrong thing. Does she want us to be family? Why?
It dawns on me, and I feel like a fucking idiot. She doesn’t have anyone. Her mom died only a couple of days ago, and she’s alone in the world. She’s so desperate to have someone that she’ll even put up with assholes like Cade and me, and our father. Reed Riviera is not father material. Sure, he got his shit together for us when we were younger, but we’d already spent a large chunk of our childhoods believing we didn’t have a dad. He had no idea how to be one, and we had no idea how to have him in our lives.
Reed only raised me the way he did because he saw my potential. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but I’m fully aware that I’m the only reason both he and my brother have been able to lead the lifestyles they have. What would either of them be doing if it wasn’t for me? It might seem like I’m being boastful or resentful by thinking such a thing, but that’s not how it is at all. I wonder, have always wondered, that if it wasn’t for my talent, who would I be? Would my family continue to stick around if I wasn’t able to provide them both with an income? What reason would they have to help me? Cade would be off doing whatever the fuck it is Cade lives for—drinking, fucking, and fighting as far as I can tell—and Reed would have decided he’d done his duty by getting us to adulthood and would be getting on with his life.
