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I raise my eyebrows. “Adrian hasn’t—hadn’t—performed in over two years.”
“Was it that long ago?” the man muses, still not volunteering his name. “I remember it like it was yesterday.”
I wish I could say the same. But that’s one of the good memories, so of course it’s all hazy and indistinct. Even the image in my mind’s eye of his fingers gliding over the piano keys looks like a thousand photographs laid on top of one another.
My eyes glide to the piano forte looming in the corner behind a framed picture of Adrian. Floral arrangements bloom on both sides. Understated, tasteful, elegant—Adrian would’ve fucking hated them.
Too damn fancy. These people probably think I’m trying to impress them.
His voice sounds off in my head like he’s standing right next to me. I actually look to my left, expecting to see that disarming smile of his, his eyes all crinkled-up at the edges. I called them laugh lines. He preferred crow’s feet.
“He was the best in the business,” the spindly creep says, reminding me that he’s still here. “I never knew anyone who could play like he did.”
I really need to get off my feet, but I’m afraid if I mention that to him, he’ll assume I’m extending an invitation to sit and chat. So I stand, awkwardly twisting in the wind, feeling as though I’m playing a part in a play.The Dutifully Grieving Girlfriend,we’d call it. It’s the tenth run of this performance, though, and I’m already over it.
Not because I don’t care about the play, but because I wasn’t ready forthisplay. I needed more time.
“Always thought Adrian was a lucky bastard, ya know. He was a good-looking son of a bitch. He had talent. People liked him. And he always got the prettiest girls. You’d be a prime example of that.”
For the first time, my eyes veer to him and stay on his face. I must’ve misheard him, but there’s no mistaking that leering smile. Is he seriously hitting on me at Adrian’s funeral?
“Remind me again, you’re Adrian’s…?”
“Cousin. Second cousin, technically, but who’s counting?” He takes a step towards me and his hand lands on my arm. He starts rubbing, sliding his fingers up and down, from my shoulder to my elbow and back up again. “You mustn’t mourn him too long, you know. Pretty thing like you is wasted on the dead.”
“He hasn’t been dead very long.” I wish my voice would come out stronger, but it lands flat. It sounds weak, tired, frail. Adrian would be annoyed.
It’s my damn funeral and you can’t muster up a little hysteria? You’re never gonna see or speak to me again, Junepenny. The least you can do is act the part.
I shudder under the pull of his imagined voice, but it works on both levels, considering Adrian’s second cousin is still touching me. The shudder takes me back out of the creep’s reach.
A smart man would take the hint and give me some space.
This one just doubles down on the smirk that’s giving me goosebumps in the first place.
“You know you got a bruise on your cheek, right?” he asks.
I spent a frantic twenty minutes trying to layer foundation and blush over the cut this morning, but I guess I didn’t do a good enough job. I can’t even blame tears for ruining my makeup, mostly because I can’t even bring myself to cry. I don’t know why. I’m too broken for tears, if such a thing is possible.
“I walked into a wall.”
“Do you do that often?” he asks. If he’s trying to be funny, he’s way off-target.
“Only when I need a good, hard reality check.”
He looks at me like he’s not sure if he should laugh or not. “How about I drive you home after this thing is done?”
This thing?That grates on me in a way I can’t explain.Oh yeah, this little shindig. This get-together. This tragic fucking funeral.
“Maybe we can stop for a bite to eat on the way. I’m sure you haven’t eaten anything, and I’m starved. Funerals always make me hungry.”
I wonder if I should mention that his breath smells of dead ashes, and if I’d had an appetite, it’d be gone already. “I’ll probably be here for a while.”
“I can wait.”
He touches me again. On my lower back this time. I freeze instantly. His proximity, the way he’s touching me—it’s all way too intimate. The only man who’d touched me like that in years is six feet in the ground just a few dozen yards away from us.
“Could you excuse me for a moment, please?”
