The Singles (64 page)

“Whatever.” He throws his head back and releases a laugh. “We lived in Michigan until I was five, so this is kid stuff.” Before we reach the steps to go to the exit, a male—and impossibly undeniable—voice calls out my name. I stop in my tracks. 

“Not only is he alright, but he’s also personally summoning you,” Nathan teases, lifting his eyebrow. “I’ve got to head to my next class, but I’ll see you around.”

“I’ll be around,” I say a little too brightly. I keep my back turned on Rhys, trying to even out my breathing, to think clearly, before I turn around to face him. When I do, he’s a few feet away from me near a bulletin board. My legs tremble as I walk over to him.

“What do you need?” I ask lamely.

“I sent you a message to your student email about lessons, but I wanted to make sure you received it before this afternoon. Does four o’clock today in Practice Room four on the basement floor work for you?”

I know I should make up my mind, but I’m still wishy washy about Rhys’ role in my future. When I speak, though, I can’t bring myself to tell him that I’m not sure I can work with him and the exact reasons behind my indecision.

Coward.

I’m a big, freaking coward.

“Yeah,” I breathe, “Four o’clock is perfect.”

“Good. See you then.” As he starts to walk off in the opposite direction, he gives me one more look, staring at the top of my head for a long time.

“What?” I demand, causing him to grin. I shouldn’t have said anything because he strides back over to me, leaving only a few inches of space between our bodies. From where I’m standing, I decide that his eyes are definitely more green than blue, and that his lips look entirely too soft. Not only is he gorgeous, but he also smells like trouble—some cologne that’s sexy and exotic and ...

Ugh. What the fuck am I thinking?

“What is it?” I repeat.

“This is the third time I’ve seen you with a hat on. I’m trying to figure out if this is a regular occurrence or if I’ve just been unlucky.”

“Unlucky?”

“I told you—I like seeing your eyes.”

I swallow back the lump forming in my throat. “How many times have you fed that line to girls on campus?”

Shaking his head, he laughs. “Just the one who wore a damn hat around everywhere she went.” Giving me an unapologetic final smile, he adds in a professional voice, “Don’t forget, four o’clock.”

“Sure.”

As I walk down the steps, breathing shallow breaths, I once again try to wrap my head around what twisted stroke of fate brought us to the same place at the same moment in time, knowing I won’t forget our lesson this afternoon even if I spend all day trying to drill it out of my brain.

I just won’t be going.

And for the next ten days, until my second lesson with Professor Cameron in her office on the following Wednesday, this is how my relationship with Rhys plays out. We see each other every Monday and Wednesday in class and in the hallways of the music building, but I miss each of our lessons—three in all so far. He doesn’t confront me on why; he just gives me a shrug or a nod when I approach him to spout off some bullshit excuse about forgetting or something coming up.

But when Professor Cameron interrupts my lesson for the third time in fifteen minutes, she’s clearly irritated. Shutting off the metronome, she takes off her glasses and massages her fingers over the bridge of her nose.

“That was horrible. We have more work to do than I thought,” she says bluntly.

I stare up from the sheet music on the stand in front of me. “What?”

Releasing a sigh, Professor Cameron stands up from the upright piano situated in the corner of her office and cracks her knuckles. “This is a basic piece. Rhys had me under the assumption that you were progressing quickly with the private lessons and with sight singing, but I’m not entirely sure I believe him. So I want to know what’s going on, and I want to know now.”

––––––––

T
oo stunned to react just yet, I simply stare unblinking across the room as she stares back at me expectantly.

Wait.

What
?

Rhys had lied and told her I’ve been coming to my lessons with him? Why would he do that when it’s also his ass on the line? Rolling my tongue over my lips, I pretend to study my sheet music. “It’s coming along,” I say carefully, not wanting to get him in trouble. “Slowly.”

“
Slowly
,” Professor Cameron repeats, drawing that single word out. She taps her index finger thoughtfully against her sharp chin. “I’m going to check your schedule and then, if your other classes allow it, I’ll speak to Rhys about you taking a third lesson with him on Thursdays.”

Shit.

Another lesson added to the two that I’m already avoiding at all costs.

Wonderful.

After a few moments of awkward quietness between us, Professor Cameron asks me in the gentlest voice I’ve heard her use to date, “You don’t have a problem with Mr. Delane, do you?”

After that first day of class and missing my lesson with Rhys, I fully planned on meeting with her to discuss my issues. I was going to take Kendra’s advice, tell Cameron discretely what my problem was, and hope that she’d understood. That was until I had dinner with both Mac and Nathan—who already knew each other from the music department choir, which is obligatory for all music majors and minors—last Tuesday night.

Even though they knew nothing about my specific situation, their discussion about my advisor’s quick dismissal of what she deemed “petty problems” swayed my plans. Like a coward, I simply chose to avoid the situation instead of confronting it directly.

Now, with Professor Cameron’s frustration at my lack of progress and her preparing to speak to Rhys directly about her dissatisfaction, I realize it’s time for me to do
something
.

“There’s no problem,” I rush to assure her. “But, I ... I can send an email to Rhys to see if we can make our lessons a little longer.” Closing my eyes for a second, I curse myself for being too stupid to realize this would happen. “If that’s alright with you, of course.”

When I open my eyes, I see that she’s giving me one of her rare smiles—or at least, what closely resembles a smile.

“I can always appreciate initiative, so yes, it’s fine with me. I’ll check in with Rhys as well.” Assuming her seat behind the piano again, she slides her glasses back on and flips to the beginning of the sheet music. “Let’s see if you can sludge through this a couple more times in the next fifteen minutes.”

Flustered, as soon as my lesson is over I search the music building for Rhys. I want to get to him before Cameron has the opportunity to. When I’m unable to find him, I take off for my dorm room, passing by Nathan and promising to text him later along the way. When I reach my room, pausing for just a moment in the doorway to let the air conditioner blow over me, I’m not at all surprised to find Daniel with Corinne. They’ve been spending a lot of time with each other lately—which means she’s had less reason to dig into every detail of my personal life—but I’m reserving my opinion on him.

He hasn’t tried to talk me into going to his room again since that first night, but he reminds me so much of James, my douchey ex, that I can’t help but distrust him.

“Trying out for cross country?” he jokes from his spot on Corinne’s bed where they’re playing some PS3 game. I shoot him a sharp look because the first image that pops into my mind is that of my sister in that red and white cross country tracksuit.

“Evie swears she hates sports,” Corinne states, and Daniel grabs his chest in mock injury.

“You’re killing me, Miller,” he says as I slide down behind my computer chair and flip my laptop open. “Besides, I could’ve sworn I saw you wearing a Duke basketball shirt last week.”

“I like Duke.” I cast a wary glance over my shoulder, not missing the way Corinne flashes a slightly hurt look at him. “Lend me that kickass memory of yours for my world history test tomorrow,” I say jokingly, trying to lighten the mood.

I turn back to my computer. It takes me a few tries to access my campus email—I’ve only checked it once since the first day of class—but once I’m logged in, I see there are two new messages from Rhys, one for each lesson I skipped after the first.

“Let me guess, late assignment?” Daniel asks, and I nod, glad he can’t see me rolling my eyes.

“Tell you what, you let me get this in on time, and I’ll come with Corinne to all your baseball games and show tons of ... school spirit, okay?”

Temporarily placated, Daniel returns his attention to the video game, but I can feel his eyes on the back of my neck as I open Rhys’ first message.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 4:42 PM

Subject: Time

It’s now past 4:30 (your lesson started at four, in case you were curious) and I’ve made a list of all the things I could have done with my time while I waited for you to stand me up again.

In the second email, the one sent Monday around noon, his message is much less scathing—a simple request for me to let him know by three if I’d be at our four PM lesson, otherwise he would assume I didn’t plan to show up.

Staring at the words on the screen, I feel my face heat up at the shame that starts to roll through me. Selfish. Always,
always
selfish. Hitting reply to the email he sent me two days ago, I type a quick note,
Rhys, I was wondering if you might have a chance to talk this afternoon?
and then hit send. I barely have enough time to check my Gmail account before I see a new email from him pop up in my campus email.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 5:03 PM

Subject: Re: Time

Will twenty minutes from now in PR#4 work for you?

It takes me a minute to grasp that PR#4 refers to the practice room that I should’ve been to at least three times by now. I respond that I’ll see him there. Shutting my computer, I grab my purse and room keys from my bed and head toward the door.

“Oh, you’re already going to dinner?” Corinne asks, her dark eyebrows knitting together. Pausing her video game, she glances down at the phone beside her on the bed. “It’s early, but we can come with—”

“No,” I say quickly, the word a little too harsh even to my own ears. Shaking my head, I backtrack. “I mean, I’m not going to dinner yet. I’ve got to go meet my advisor but after that—say six-ish?”

“Definitely.” Her shoulders sag in relief and as she grabs the controller, she tells me, “Good luck with your advisor. I have Communication Theory with one of her old students, and I’ve heard nothing but absolute horror stories.”

I give her a cool smile, tell her thanks, and wave goodbye to Daniel. Racing back to the music building for the third time today, I go over what I’m going to say to Rhys. In the back of my head, I can hear Kendra’s cool voice of reason telling me that the truth is always nice.

Too bad the truth is often crippling.

When I arrive, I find the door open and Rhys is already sitting behind the piano, touching the keys carefully. At the sound of me rushing into the room, he lifts his chin, a wave of surprise passing over his face because he probably didn’t expect me to show up. He quickly replaces it with a cordial smile.

“Shut the door behind you?” he requests.

“Yeah, of course.” I close it with the heel of my foot and then press my back up against it, wringing my fingers together. “Look, let me start by saying—”

Giving me a view of the top of his dark hair, he keeps his gaze down on the piano keyboard as he interrupts me, explaining in his soft Southern accent, “My wording on that email last week was all wrong.” I finally recognize the song he’s playing as a version of “Yesterday,” stripped of any extra accompaniment, and I can automatically hear the lyrics in my head. “It wasn’t the best of days for me, and I took it out on you. I’m gonna be honest and tell you that I don’t regret calling you out, but I do regret the manner in which I did it.”

Well, hell. Can he be any more blunt? “I—”

“I know I’m not Professor Cameron, and  I might not look like what you’d expect from a voice instructor, but I know what I’m doing. I’m fucking
good
at what I do. If you’ve learned anything about Cameron, you’ll know she doesn’t screw around when it comes to this department.”

“I know.”

Drawing in a harsh breath, he stands up, leaning against the backside of the piano and standing close to me. I blink, unable to form a response. “I’m not gonna beg you to come to your lessons, Evelyn. I don’t beg, and I’m sure as hell not gonna do it when it comes to something that only serves to benefit you, but I would think you’d
want
to improve.”

“I do.” I splay my palms out against the door behind me, pushing as hard as I can. “I’m sorry I missed our lessons.”

“Do you plan to start coming?”

“I—” I feel my face heat up under his intense scrutiny. I’ve wrestled with this in my head since figuring out who he is, but this is something I have to do. Not only if I want to end this year on a positive note, but also if I want to grow up, as Rhys had put it in his email. No matter how much it screws with me, I can’t spend my life maneuvering out of everything that makes me face my past and all my screw-ups.

I
can
get through this year.

And I can do it without ever telling Rhys about our shared history.

I have to.

“Yes,” I say in a small voice, “I’ll be here on Friday.”

“Next Tuesday,” he corrects me. When I lift my eyebrow, he continues, “I’m leaving town Friday for the long weekend, and Monday is a holiday.”

Damn. I’d almost forgotten about the long weekend, and neither of my parents has made a move to even ask me if I had plans to come home during it.