Red Hair, Black Soul (Red & Black #1)

36 | Demons of the past

Complement #56

Said to: Jed

Your bed is so comfortable I could marry it.

***

We spend the Saturday morning occupying the bed in Jed's room. All we do is lay on it, with Jed on his back, staring up at the ceiling and me curled next to him on my side. My head rests on his chest and one of his hands is around my shoulders, his hand buried in my hair, fingers toying with the strands. It is surprising how content I can be just laying there with him. I haven't been this relaxed in a long time, and I relish in this blissful feeling, trying to save it in my mind forever. 

At least until Jed's question hits me like a speeding freight train. 

"Is someone in your family a musician?" 

I momentarily stiffen. My mind starts spinning twenty miles per hour, trying to figure out where that thought came from. Jed must have sensed the tension creep into my body because his fingers stop the slow action fo waving through my hair.

"What?" I ask, trying to keep the suspicion out of my voice.

Jed's hand begins to move again. "There's a piano in your living room. I was wondering if someone ever plays it."

Telling him the truth is not possible. Doing this I would share with him too much. I'm not ready for it, not yet. Therefore, I can't be completely honest with him. Or can I?

"I used to play it." I admit carefully. This much I can tell him. It won't tell him anything. "I don't anymore."

"Why?" As every other thing he says, the question comes out careless. Just an attempt to keep up the conversation, maybe with some load of curiosity behind it. I keep reminding myself he simply wants to get to know me better. Jed can't know how hard talking about it is to me. 

"I haven't touched it since I came here. Never planned to. I don't even know why my parents dragged the thing all the way here from Scotland. All it does now is stand there and collect dust."

"Maybe they hoped you were going to start playing again." Jed suggests. "Musical talent is precious." He pauses. "I'd kill for one."

You can take mine, I want to say, but bite my tongue. That would sound bitter. I don't want to sound bitter. 

"I never said anything about talent." I observe. "You don't have to be talented to play."

"Oh, but these fingers." Jed picks up the hand laying on his stomach and lifts it to his eyes. Turning it in his, he plays with my fingers for a while, watching his every move. "They radiate talent. I knew from the first moment I saw them they had to do something like making music."

"Did." I correct him. "They don't anymore."

Jed doesn't respond at once. Still not taking his eyes from our joined hands, he shifts my palm so that its underside is now resting against his. My fingers are small in comparison to his, their tips only coming up to his second knuckle. Staring at my hands intensely, I try to see what Jed claims to see - the talent. But no matter how hard I try, I don't. They're just regular fingers. There is nothing special about them.

"You know, this might sound creepy, but I have a thing for your hands." Jed says, smiling slightly. "Always did. I don't even know why."

My brows shoot up. "I thought you had a thing for my hair?"

"That, too." The hand still tangled in my unruly locks moves, tugging at the strands gently. I can feel him doing what seems to be like his favorite thing nowadays - wrapping my hair around his finger and unwrapping it back. "But your hands are also something to look at."