Page 68 of Down Beat

She’s not asking to hurt you. “Bipolar.”

Tabby doesn’t say a goddamn thing, and I can’t decide if that’s good or bad. She simply nods a couple of times, and then glances to her right.

“Where are you?”

“Shopping.” She holds up a spiral-bound notebook. “I might have fibbed: I do write my music on paper.”

Her smile fucking undoes the last six days of doubt and regret. “Ice-creams, or polka dots?”

Her lips part as her smile widens. “Polka dots.” She raises her voice to be heard over my laughter. “But only on the shorts.”

“How far are you from home?”

Her brow pinches, the breeze catching the ends of her hair. “A block.”

“Are you headed there?”

“Soon. Why?”

“Play me something.”

Her frown deepens. “When I get home?”

I nod. “Yeah. Play me one of the pieces you wrote.”

Tabby ducks her chin, a low chuckle sounding from her. “Confession.” She twists the phone a little, showing me her violin case beside her. “I was busking as well as shopping.”

Fuck-all coins sit on the velvet. I can’t explain why that makes me so mad, but it does. “How often do you do that?”

She twists the screen back to herself. “When I need to. Hang on.” The picture blurs as she jostles the phone around, setting it down on the ground beside where she’d been seated on a low brick garden edging.

Her legs come into the shot, narrowing as she walks away from the phone, her violin at her side. A sense of amazement comes over me as I look at this effortless beauty, kitted out in her gray coat and white scarf to ward off the cold, her legs kept warm in black skinny jeans, a pair of heavy boots on her feet.

She pauses with the violin to her shoulder, her chest expanding on a deep breath before she begins.

I stretch my arms out before me on the table, my phone held between my hands, and watch with awe as she plays a slow, sweeping piece. The image is blocked momentarily while somebody drops a coin in her case, and I break my spell long enough to find Toby now awake. He stands in the aisle between the ends of the beds, arms stretched over his head to the curtain rail, and listens. Tabby sways with the music, her song building tempo. A flash of jealousy takes me surprise as Toby drops onto the seat beside me to watch her also.

She plays for me. This is my show, even if it is in the middle of a park. She didn’t start the song for any of them, and she didn’t start it for Toby.

She started the song for me, and I want it for myself.

I want the way she makes me feel for myself.

Damn it—I want her.

“She’s fucking good, yeah?” Toby’s fingers knit in front of his mouth, his elbows on the table as he watches her finish up the piece.

Tabby walks back toward the phone before I get a chance to tell my brother where he can stick his appreciation of my precious treasure.

“Oh. Hey,” she greets as she picks up the device.

Toby lifts a hand as he slides away. “Fucking awesome, Tabitha.”

“Thanks.” Her gaze tracks him as he leaves the shot before I get a single raised brow. “So?”

“What he said,” I grumble, still sore over sharing my things.

I’m fucking five all over again.