Layla wondered if he would mind if she rubbed his leg. Just a little. Purely for the sake of satisfying her pants-lust, of course.
"Yeah. We are soooo similar," she said.
Derek ignored her sarcasm. "We have plenty in common."
"Like what?" She couldn't help but sound doubtful, but a secret part of her wanted him to convince her she was wrong.
He played a few measures of an old Cole Porter number, playfully nudging her with his elbow. "Like this."
"Like the piano?"
"Like music. You're just as passionate about it as I am, only you've chosen to share your gift in a different way."
Layla shook her head. "I could never make music like you do."
Derek shrugged. "You make musicians. I think that's way more important."
Her face flushed at his compliment. It was way more important to her. She just wasn't used to anyone else thinking so.
"What's your instrument, Ms. M.?" His voice held a genuine curiosity. "Can I assume it's not the piano?"
She opened her mouth to respond, but he cut her off.
"Wait. Let me guess." He turned to look at her, his head tilted as if trying to figure out a riddle. "You look like...a tuba. No...a crumhorn."
She laughed, realizing too late that her hand was still on his thigh, and her thumb had started tracing a path up and down the top of it on its own accord. Her eyes darted down to the offending digit, then back up to Derek's face. She was so close she could kiss him if she wanted.
And boy, she wanted to.
Layla cleared her throat. "I play the bassoon."
"Sexy. I should have known." He waggled his eyebrows.
Her eyes drifted to his mouth as he spoke. She couldn't imagine anyone in the history of ever had called the bassoon sexy, but one thing was for certain, she'd never be able to touch the damn thing again without thinking of him.
"So..." she said, desperate to change the subject so she wouldn't say something stupid. Like how she'd like to play his, ahem, bassoon if he'd let her. "Why are you still here? I'd have thought you would have gone back to L.A. or wherever by now."
"I don't live in L.A."
"New York, then."
"Don't live there, either."
"I said 'or wherever.'" She forced her hand from his thigh and played a middle C with her index finger. "Where do you live, anyway?"
He lifted one shoulder and let it fall. "Hotels, mostly."
"Oh." That made her sad. She might have lost a lot growing up, but one thing she'd always had was a place to call home. "That must be difficult."
"Yeah." He began playing something else, a delicate piece she didn't recognize. "How was your day? Mine was kinda shitty until about twenty minutes ago."
"Mine was shitty, too." Stupid Gary with his stupid face.
"Was shitty. But it's better now?" He looked at her hopefully.
She watched his fingers move across the keys. "You know what...it's getting there."
Derek leaned into her encouragingly. "Would you like to tell me about it? Believe it or not, I'm a very good listener."
If he would have said as much a few days ago, she wouldn't have believed it. She would have believed he was way too interested in himself to waste time listening to someone else's problems. But now...she believed it. She believed he actually cared, too. And that scared her a little.
"But you are so much more interesting," she said.
He scoffed. "Not really. I'd much rather talk about you, if that's okay."
She sighed. She typically only unloaded her troubles on Gabi or Bertie, and even then, it was rare. Bottling things up to fester until she could figure it out herself was more her style. Venting was fine in small doses, but anything bigger than that left room for sympathy to sneak in. She hated pity almost as much as she hated handouts, and sympathy was nothing more than pity wearing a pair of pink, fuzzy slippers.
The words she'd been contemplating saying clogged in her throat just thinking about it.
"You can trust me." Derek kept playing, the soft notes of the unfamiliar melody urging her to give in.
"I don't need you to feel sorry for me," she said.
He paused to hold up three fingers in a scout's pledge. "I solemnly vow to not feel sorry for you."
"Fine...I love my job more than anything else in this whole world...the music, the kids...they're so important to me. All I've ever wanted was to make a difference. To show the kids that no matter what, if they hold on tight, they'll always have their music to keep them from falling." The way hers had kept her from falling after the fire had destroyed her life and killed her friends in the process.
Derek nodded but didn't say anything.
"I feel like the people who count just don't get it." Once she pulled the cork out of the bottle, the words kept flowing, spilling over until she didn't think she could contain them even if she tried.
"There's no money in the district. Not for the arts, not for music. I've got a trunk full of uniforms that should never see the light of day again, but we're stuck with them. They're old, they're worn out...and all the dry cleaning in the world can't fix how hideous they are. I've been paying for instrument repairs and supplies out of my own pocket since my first day on the job. And right before I came here, my principal informed me that I can kiss my new brass section goodbye."
Layla shook her head. "Our fundraiser was supposed to pay for new uniforms, but I doubt that will happen. Even if we raise enough money, I'm still left to deal with barely functional instruments and sheet music that's almost as old as I am. I'm just so fucking tired of it."
It felt so good to let it all out, with Derek's body warm against hers and his music weaving its spell around her. Even if it didn't fix anything, it felt good. Just like it had in the car.
Like she'd been holding her breath for years, fighting for every last molecule of oxygen in order to stay alive, and she only now discovered she needed to breathe out before she could breathe in again.
Before she knew what she was doing, she dropped her head to the side, letting it rest against his shoulder.
Maybe it was the weight of everything lifting off her chest leaving her exhausted or maybe it was just having this man who was practically a stranger make her feel safe twice in the last week, but her head on his shoulder felt so...right.
His body tensed and his fingers faltered when she sagged against him, but he recovered quickly, resuming the dance of his fingers across the keys.
She thought that maybe she'd gone too far, gotten too comfortable with a superstar who would probably only let women touch him by gold-plated invitation, but she decided it was too late to regret it now. Her head was staying right where it was.
"I get it," he said softly.
"What?"
"You said the people who count don't get it...well, I know I don't count, but I get it. I'm sorry, Ms. M. You deserve better," he said.
Something brushed across the top of her head, sending a shiver down her spine. Either she was hallucinating, or he'd just smelled her hair.
"No pity...you promised."
"It's not pity. It's a statement of fact. You deserve better," he said.
"No...my kids deserve better."
"Yes, but I think they're pretty damn lucky already. They have you."
She sniffed, dismissing his words as a compliment she didn't need. Honeyed words from a man who used his honeyed tongue to seduce women far better than her.
"I'm serious." He stopped playing and tilted her chin up with one finger so he could look into her eyes. "Maybe you don't feel like it, but you've made a difference, Layla. I saw the way the kids look up to you. I saw it with Cody, and I saw it again the other day at practice. Maybe you need more money to do things the way they should be done, but you...you've given them more than any money ever could...just by being yourself."
She blinked up at him, searching his eyes to see if he believed his own sweet words or if they were just something he said because he thought she wanted to hear it.
His clear, blue gaze met hers, but she could see no deception there, no false flattery. Instead she was met with a sincerity that twisted her insides and made her pulse drum in her ears.
And fire. His eyes blazed with something...a need to match the one she'd been trying to deny since the moment she first saw him.
"I want to kiss you now," she whispered, her eyes dropping to his mouth. "Was that part of your plan? Part of your game?"