Brandy Colbert - Pointe

“Where’s all your stuff?” I ask, looking for any sign that this room belongs to him.

That’s when I see it. A picture on top of the bureau. It’s not in a frame. It’s just a loose photograph, leaning against a dark wooden box. It’s slanted at an angle so there’s a bit of a glare, but I can still make out him and Ellie. They’re at a party, outside in the summer. Or maybe a festival. His arm is around her and she’s standing close to him, her body pressed to his side. Ellie’s mouth is open in a wide smile. She looks pretty. Hosea is smiling, too, the glowing orange tip of a clove barely visible between his fingers. They look comfortable together. Happy.

“When I moved in, I wouldn’t put up anything because I was convinced I wouldn’t be here that long.” His voice surprises me. When I look at him, he moves to the right, blocking my view of the picture. “Guess you can see how that worked out.”

“It kind of looks like a guest room,” I say, trying to shake the image of that picture.

I gaze at every wall and corner, want to burn this into my memory in case I’m never back here again. I make a special point to not look at the picture but Hosea is still there, still standing in front of it. My eyes slide to a different side of the room. I wonder where he keeps his pills, but it doesn’t seem right to ask. It’s not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of him now.

He flips the light off once I’m finished looking around. “Grams says it looks like a serial killer’s room.”

“That’s nice,” I say, laughing as we walk back into the hallway.

“Yeah.” He cracks a smile. “She’s . . . Like I said, I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive her for making me come live with her, but she’s not so bad. She gives me my space.”

“Where is she now?”

“Her sister’s, down in Lincoln.” He stops at the doorway to the kitchen. “You want something to drink? Or eat? I can’t cook but she left some lasagna.”

“I’m fine,” I say. “Already ate.”

And it’s true, even if dinner was only three bites of pasta that I swallowed, four that I spit into my napkin, and the rest pushed around my plate until my parents had cleaned theirs.

“Or toast.” He nods at the little silver toaster plugged in on the counter. “I make perfect toast.”

“As impressive as that is, I’ll pass this time.” Again, I examine every crevice of the room because I still find it hard to believe I’m standing in Hosea Roth’s yellow-and-blue kitchen, holding his hand. My eyes stop on him. “But I would like to hear you play.”

“You’ve heard me play lots of times,” he says in a strange voice with a strange look. One I’ve never seen on him. Flustered.

“Yeah, the stuff we’ve danced to for a million years.” I shake my head as I move back to the living room. “I want to hear your music.”

He stands in place so long, I wonder if he heard my response. Then he follows me, eyes the piano for a bit before he slides onto the bench, as if it’s an impostor or he’s sitting down for his first lesson. I perch on the edge of the couch as he turns and says, “Whatever I play sounds like shit on this thing. It’s really cheap and out of tune, just so you know.”

He could probably play “Chopsticks” for an hour straight and I’d be thrilled.

“Stop stalling,” I tease. I’m a little nervous, too, though, and I don’t know why. I guess because I don’t know what to expect. All he’s ever played in front of me is Tchaikovsky and Minkus and Gershwin—the music we know by heart, can play with our feet. Maybe I won’t like his music as much.

He twists his wrists, stretches his fingers, and without warning he launches into a piece so startlingly gorgeous that I slide from the arm of the couch into the cushion. I watch his fingers move deftly over the keys, stare at the back muscles straining under his shirt as he pours every last bit of himself into his music. It is a cross between contemporary and classical, interwoven with surprising patches of dark chords that resonate down to my core.

I wonder what he thinks about as his fingers dance across the keys. If, like he said back in the gazebo at Klein’s house, he’s thinking about how his song makes me feel, if I’ll be that one person in three hundred who is unduly affected by his talent.

I look at his jaw from the side, set in its hard lines as his creativity flows through him. I pretend that he will never play this song for anyone but me. I could sit in this tiny living room and listen to him make music forever. But then he’s finished and the room is silent and when he turns around I don’t know what to say.

“What do you think?” he finally says. And I can’t believe how anxious he sounds, how nervous he looks when his eyes meet mine.

“That was your song?” I stand up, smooth my hand down over the front of my top.

“Yeah. I mean, I composed it. Yeah,” he says again. Then, as he stands, too: “Did you like it?”

“Not liked. Love.” I take a couple of steps toward him, which in this little room means two more will bring us close enough to touch.

“You could be famous,” I say softly. “If other people heard you play—”

“I’m not that good. I’m not anywhere close to being that good.” He actually blushes, his cheeks flushed by my words.

I decide that particular shade of pink is outstanding.

He looks away and then down at the floor. “I still have so much to learn and I need to save up for a better piano and—”

“You’ll find a way. You’re special,” I say. “I can’t believe nobody knows this about you.”

“It’s enough that you know.” He sticks his hands into his pockets and he’s still not quite looking at me. “It wouldn’t be fair if you didn’t. I get to watch you dance all the time and you’re pretty much perfect out there.”

“I’m not as good as Josh. He’s the best. Ruthie’s really good, too. And I still have so much to work on before my auditions—”

“You look perfect to me.” His eyes lock onto mine again with such intensity it almost frightens me. “ Everything about you is graceful.”

This time I turn my head because I don’t know how to look at him after he’s said something like that. He closes the space between us and still I don’t look at him, don’t move even an inch. My breath quickens the closer he gets and then he’s in front of me. Blocking the light, reaching out to me, tracing his fingertips along my cheekbone. My eyes roam over the loose strands of hair that frame his face. He swallows and I watch his Adam’s apple bob, wonder if he’d like it if I kissed him there.

Somewhere along the way we slipped from want to need and it’s in every part of our kiss. In the way he bites down lightly on my bottom lip, gently coaxing my mouth open. It’s in the way my hands press into his back, always pulling him toward me, always wanting him closer. I savor it all—the quick catches of breath, the warmth of his lips, the sugar-sweet taste of cloves on his tongue.

The need is why I take his hand without question, why I follow him down the hallway, why I find myself undressing him moments later. We take turns. His black T-shirt. My cardigan and tank. I feel a tiny bit of relief as my fingers brush against the top of his jeans and find buttons in place of a zipper. He lets me unclasp my bra and he stares as I do it and I hope he’s not disappointed, that he doesn’t care I have little use for one. But I relax as he swallows, as he meets my eyes and tells me I’m beautiful.

We lie down on his bed and he pulls me close, slides my body across the cool, soft comforter. His hair hangs in front of him, tickles my collarbone and teases my skin like the silky strokes of a paintbrush. And I can’t believe how much room we have without the confines of a car. How much softer his bed is than a backseat, how his piano hands sloping along my spine are such a nice change from a door handle digging into my back.