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TEN DAYS.
Joshua and Ayoluwa had been stuck in his family's lake house for ten whole days.
And he had realized that she was right.
Well partially.
They had no idea what the other person was going through and being nicer wouldn't kill him while they were here.
Joshua only had to be nice enough to give himself enough time to figure out another way to get home.
Joshua limped around the kitchen in an attempt to not mess up the gauze on his foot as he tried to make his own peace offering.
On the counter was a paper plate that had a bag of chips and a turkey sandwich that was piled with the works.
Piano notes were flowing in from the basement, giving Joshua Ayoluwa's exact location.
Once he had the cup of iced tea and the plate of food gripped in his hands, Joshua began to slowly amble over to the open basement door.
These stairs are steeper than I thought.
It was purely by the grace of God that Joshua didn't slip or trip or fall, especially now that his dominant foot was out of commission for another few days.
When he finally got to the bottom level, as expected, Ayoluwa was sitting behind the piano, her hair tucked into a bun on the top of her head.
"I made eggs and I'm not cooking anything else until-." Ayoluwa stopped herself when she saw Joshua holding food.
"I know. But I saw you only made enough for me and I noticed that you never ate this morning so..." Joshua awkwardly held up the plate with the sandwich on it.
"Wow, uh." Ayoluwa's eyes were bugged out as she gestured to the top of the piano, "You can put it there."
But as soon as he put it down, Ayoluwa began to pilfer through it, throughly examining the ingredients.
"Um, what are you doing?" Joshua was mystified.
"Just checking that you didn't slip like rat poison or something in between the cheese and the lettuce. Okay, looks safe." Ayoluwa said then took a dainty bite of the sandwich.
"Oh, haha. Okay, I get it." Joshua rolled his eyes.
Ayoluwa gave him a smirk as her fingers returned to tickling the ivories.
"What's that you're working on?" Joshua sat on the onyx piano bench, only a few inches away from her.
Ayoluwa squinted her eyes at him in suspicion, "Why?"
"I was bored and whenever you play it doesn't sound bad. I kinda like it." Joshua admitted.
Ayoluwa immediately put the sandwich down and held her hand to Joshua's forehead, "You don't feel hot but you must be sick or something 'cause that sounded almost like a compliment."
Joshua shook his head, backing away from her just a tiny bit, "I'm being for real. Your voice is uh, nice."
Ayoluwa stared at him, "Um. Thanks."
"What are you working on?" Joshua repeated, his eyes on the open notebook on her lap.
"Just this song I wrote a couple of days ago." Ayoluwa answered in an uneasy tone.
"What's it about?" Joshua pressed.
Ayoluwa gave him another look, "What is up with you right now? First the sandwich, now you're pretending to want to listen to my music..." She shook her head.
Joshua let out a deep breath, "I'm not pretending. I was thinking about when you were yelling at me yesterday and you are half right. Me easing up on you is probably gonna make both of our lives easier."
Ayoluwa touched her hand to his neck this time, "Yeah, you're definitely coming down with something. Or this is a dream? Quick, pinch me really hard," She held her left arm aloft.
Joshua gave her an exasperated look, "You are so confusing, Palmer. You ask me to be nice to you and then when I try you think that I'm lying or some shit."
"I'm confusing? You're confusing! You'll be somewhat decent to me one minute and then you'll go back to being an asshole the next." Ayoluwa pointed out.
Joshua licked his bottom lip at being called in the span of twenty four hours, "I'm being for real. I'm willing to try this whole cohabitation thing if you are."
Ayoluwa turned back to the piano slowly, "I'm working on trying to find the correct melody. If I had my keyboard, I could sing it over my old beats but..." Ayoluwa spread her hands in a helpless manner.
"Can I try?" Joshua offered.
"You can play the piano?" Ayoluwa's tone was incredulous.
"My grandpa taught me. I'm a little rusty but..." Joshua trailed off as he slid his hands onto the keys.
He hadn't properly played a piano since ninth grade and the touch of the ivories underneath the pads of his fingers were leaving Joshua a bit nostalgic.
Nevertheless, Joshua started to play a slightly despondent piano melody, sliding his fingers from note to note.
Ayoluwa began to sing in a lower octave than Joshua was used to from her, "But don't you lose all that makes you you, you will be scared, unprepared sometimes, say goodbye, I changed my mind, all my fears, let them be gone, all inside of you. It's overgrown."
Joshua stopped playing and glanced at Ayoluwa to measure her reaction.
"Rusty? You sound like you've been playing all of your life. Did you just come up with that on the fly? It's amazing." Ayoluwa smiled.
"I am pretty good," Joshua admitted with a dust off of his shoulders.
Ayoluwa rolled her eyes, "Okay, big head. Watch yourself. Can you play it again so I can record it?" She gestured to the iPhone sitting on the piano next to her tea.
Joshua snickered at her words then grew silent as he played the melody once more and Ayoluwa began to sing from the first verse.
NOTE FROM KY The song she's singing is above vote & comment, porfa!
