Jagged Edges

Chapter 25

C h a p t e r  2 5

The day had come to an end. Since Jessie was not there yet, Nicole found herself playing the grand piano. She played an old nostalgic tune her mom usually played when she would sing her to sleep. As she sang, her soulful voice boomed in the entire room filling it with melancholy and reminiscence. 

As the song came to an end, Jessie gasped, "Wow! That was brilliant!"

Nicole was startled not knowing that she had an audience. She turned her head only to see him leaning against the door with his arms crossed. He looked awestruck. He moved towards her and took a seat beside her on the black piano stool. 

"How do you play the piano so well?" He asked.

"My mom would play all sorts of instruments. I learned a few from her." Nicole answered proudly. 

Jessie smiled as he said, "Even I took a few piano lessons after coming here. Though I haven't practiced in a while." 

His fingers gracefully moved on the keys playing a familiar tune. Nicole recognized it in an instant. She was like, "Oh! That's Für Elise by Beethoven! This one has a really simple chord structure."

He nodded. "I know. But that's still my favorite. There's an elegance in its simplicity."

Nicole didn't say anything to it but agreed silently. He started playing another symphony and the moment she recognized it as a piano four hands she started playing as well along with him. The last time she had done a piano duet was with her mom. It thrilled her to play the instrument with someone. 

When the tune came to an end, the two smiled at each other realizing spending time with each other wasn't half as bad as they had thought initially. 

Nicole said, "You told me that you only took a few piano lessons. But seems like you can play pretty well." 

"Oh, if you think this was good, look at Aaron playing the piano. He is excellent. And he learned it so quickly. Though we started together, he has a better grasp of it. He is too good with music." Jessie answered sighing. If there was one thing he knew pretty well, it was that he could never beat Aaron in anything music related. 

Nicole shrugged it off. "It doesn't matter. You play pretty well too. Let's play something else." 

With that, they played a few songs singing along with them as well going up and down the scales. Jessie hadn't ever done music with anyone like this before. He had to admit it was pretty refreshing. 

When almost an hour and a half passed by, they realized it was getting late. The two decided to wrap things up and leave. When they got in Jessie's car even Mark was a bit surprised to see them getting along well. He was quite glad though to see the new change. 

After Jessie reached his dorm, the first thing he did was take a shower. Once he was done relaxing in the warmth of the hot water shower, he went to the kitchen to grab something to eat. He was truly starving. 

It was only after he was done with his dinner, the thought of Stella's absence occurred to him. He was somewhat aware of the fact that she was mad at him. But what was he supposed to do? Her interfering did get on his nerves at times. She was his best friend and he cared a lot about her. But she needed to understand that she went a bit overboard at times. 

Though it was true that because of her, the misunderstandings between him and Nicole had gotten resolved to a large degree, and with that, the constant fear of Nicole's presence turning into a threat had reduced to quite some extent, still it didn't mean he couldn't have done that on his own. 

He went through his texts and call logs just to check if Stella had left any messages or voice mail. But there was nothing of that sort. It made him rather restless as he kept on repeating their last conversation over and over again. 

One thing was obvious. He hated it when he had disputes with Stella. Even after being in this industry, if he had someone like Stella by his side, he knew he was one lucky person. Though she acted a bit irrationally at times, was really moody, never listened to anyone, and managed to be the most annoying person on this planet she was still his best friend who would go to any extent to help him. 

And as soon as the thought came to his head, he picked up his phone and called her wanting to apologize to her. He was more than surprised to find her phone switched off. She was usually never like that. 

He called her a few more times but to no avail. He then left a few text messages for her and finally dozed to sleep after deciding to look into the matter the next day.