Music in the Key of Love

Chapter 7: The First Step

They got off the bus and turned toward home.

Neither of them had said a word since Graham had shut down on the bus. Cressida was beginning to understand his moods a little bit; his silence didn't necessarily mean he was upset, it just meant he literally had nothing to say at that moment.

She snuck a look at him when he wouldn't notice. Today he was wearing a yellow polo shirt that really set off his tan. She could see a few hairs on his chest where the buttons were undone, but not too many.

Cressida was not a huge fan of men who were too hirsute.

With the shirt he was wearing khakis and loafers, instead of the usual jeans and sneakers, perhaps a nod to the fact that he went to visit his esteemed professor today.

They climbed the steps of their building, and Cressida was getting ready to just wave goodbye when suddenly Graham turned to her and asked, "You want to come in and listen to me practice?"

She briefly considered saying, no, that she was busy, but Cressida wasn't put together that way.

"Sure," she responded, nodding.

He opened his door and stood back so she could enter first.

Cressida looked around with interest. She'd lived here nearly two months and she'd never been in his apartment.

It was a little larger than hers, being on the ground floor, but it was a studio as well, with a bed tucked tidily in the corner and a dresser next to it. There were stacks of sheet music everywhere, and a scarred old upright piano took up prime wall space. A small table with two chairs sat under the window, and the walls were covered with posters and colorful prints.

"Very nice," she said as he gestured to a ratty sofa.

"You want something to drink? Water, soda?"

She accepted a bottle of water, murmuring her thanks when he handed it to her.

"Feel free to work on your laptop or whatever," he said. "I'm not much to look at when I'm practicing, all you really see is my back."

While silently disagreeing with his assessment, Cressida merely nodded and obediently opened her laptop as he sat at the bench, opening the sheet music that he pulled from the folder he had with him.

He began with his scales and exercises, as usual, and Cressida stared, transfixed, at his back. The play of muscles under his shirt as he moved his arms was mesmerizing. At the top end of every scale, she could see his fingers flying on the keyboard like magic. He set the metronome function on his phone and began exercising with it, tying his playing to the rhythm, and every time Cressida didn't think he could go any faster, he did.

Amazing.

Then he moved on to the piece itself, and Cressida couldn't look away. He turned on his laptop to the symphonic accompaniment. Sometimes she could see his face in oblique profile, and the intensity of his expression was indescribable. After a few minutes Cressida put her laptop aside and rose, going to sit in the chair, rather than the sofa, so she could see his hands better.

This piece, this Rachmaninov, was urgent and passionate, with the tricky minor key melodies and heavy treble clef of many Russian composers, by turns pounding and delicate, and, watching Graham play it, Cressida was carried along for every wave and swell.

Graham moved his head in time with the music, eyes flicking down to his fingers from time to time as they moved over the keyboard.

So sexy.

He played it straight through, ending in a blistering whirl of keystrokes, heaving for breath when he finished.

Cressida, too, was out of breath, moved beyond words by what she'd seen.