Hurts So Good (14 page)

She answered him by reaching into the pile of discarded crawdad heads that she'd repeatedly refused.

Putting one to her mouth, she kept her eyes on Neil as she sipped with an intimate smile.

* * *

"Jake, you have that licorice stick on ready?"

"Ready." Jake tapped his clarinet like a cigar.

The drummer twirled his sticks, while the players on slide trombone, harmonica, and violin warmed up. Lou wiggled his fingers, and Neil loosened the ligature on an alto sax, put in a reed—a thin piece of wood that the vibration of his breath controlled—and tightened the mouthpiece.

From her position on the sofa beside Liza, Andrea watched, enthralled with his adroit handling of the instrument. He worked efficiently, and yet with an affection that she hadn't seen him treat the one he used onstage.

"That's not the sax he usually plays," she said to Liza.

"Lawd, no." Liza kept her voice down to a whisper despite the cacophony of warm-up scales and the raised voices of twenty-plus guests crowded into the den.

"This here's the one Lou found him playing at Jackson Square for whatever change landed in his horn case. It's cheap and must have a million finger miles on it, but he can make it sound like a legion of singin' angels. I think he prefers it over the fancy brass that took its place. Maybe since his mama gave it to him when he wasn't much bigger than the sax."

"Did you know her?" Andrea leaned closer.

"Only what he told us. She'd already been dead a couple of years, but her memory goes deep for that boy. I don't think he ever forgave her for dying, like the poor woman had some choice in going someplace better than what she was living in. He's had a rough life, honey, and it shows. Much as he loves me, he'd tear my head off if he heard me spouting this out."

"I appreciate you confiding in me, Liza. Neil's not very open about his past, and more than anything I wish I understood what makes him the way he is. My feelings for Neil are—they're special. More than special. Like him."

As she glanced to where he stood, their gazes met, warmly, then reluctantly parted when Lou called Neil to the piano.

"He obviously returns yo' feelings, honey. The air darn near hums when you two look at each other. That's why I told you what I did. There's a lot more to know, but better for that to come from him. He's like an old coon hound, protective and loyal to the end with those he trusts. But he can turn vicious on any hand that turns on him."

Liza's warning drove home to Andrea the potential wrath she courted with each strike of a typewriter key, no matter that what she was writing wasn't for public consumption. She'd have to work it out somehow, but for now, what she felt in this room was too good to taint with worry. This was Neil's family, and she was a part of it. No outsider looking in and longing to be wanted, she'd been welcomed, accepted, and embraced by their soulful laughter and warmhearted spirits.

The crowd grew quiet, and so did the other musicians as Lou played a ragtime. To Andrea's amazement, Neil put down his sax and joined him for a duet.

"You mean he plays piano too?" she asked Liza.

"That and I don't know how many other instruments, but he don't spread it around. He blew us away when Lou said 'Try this' on the piano one day and that boy picked it up like you wouldn't believe. Same with everything else that makes any kind of sound. Course, everybody knows what he does best. I imagine him knowing how to play most instruments makes it easier to put it on a score sheet. Ever see him do it?"

"Only work through one composition when he was stuck." Remembering the magic of matching steps in the dark, she sighed dreamily. "But he didn't get around to writing it down."

"Well, if that ain't something, I don't know what is. No one gets a sneak preview, not even Lou. Next time get Neil to let you watch while he writes it down. It is some sight to behold. Kind a weird, even. His hand moving faster than an artist going crazy with a brush, and his eyes all glassy like they don't even belong to him but some demon inside that's taken over." Liza shuddered. "Almost gives me the willies."

The sound of shouts and applause broke into their confidential murmurs. And then Neil's "One. Two. Hit it" had the band sliding into a swing number.

Liza grabbed Andrea's hand and pulled her up. They bumped behinds, shimmied, and rocked and bebopped till they dropped. By then, most everyone else had do-wopped to the floor. Despite the air conditioner going full blast, the band members were wiping their brows and taking swigs from beer bottles. Except for Neil. He lifted a soda and toasted Andrea in silence.

Then his lips moved without speaking:
Body shots.
The promise of dangerous passion seemed to ring clearly over the crowd.

"If that don't beat all. Slick drinking a soda. My oh my, what have you done to that man? He usually has half a case of Dixie beer and most of a flask of brandy downed by this time of a party. Whatever spell it is you put on him, keep it up. And while you're at it, see if you cain't get his smoking down to a tolerable level. It's a miracle he can squeeze enough air from them lungs to blow a note."

"Last song," Neil yelled over the hubbub. A loud groan of protest went up, and he added, "Hang on to your pants. It's just me that's callin' it quits." At that, everyone groaned even louder. Neil grinned at Andrea and yelled for quiet.

"It's so nice to be appreciated that I'm leaving you with something special. A new tune I wrote with a special lady in mind. Not all the instruments are here, but there's enough to get by." Pulling a sheet of paper from his pocket, he unfolded it and conferred briefly with the other musicians.

An excited murmur of anticipation swept the room, while Andrea strained to hear what he was saying. All she caught was "B flat... bring it in slow and easy..." and then snickers from the huddle at something that sounded like "harp."

"Cram it," Neil growled over the laughter. They got quiet fast, then Neil started chuckling. Startled looks passed between the musicians before they joined in.

"If I didn't see it with my own two eyes, I wouldn't believe it. Actually laughing at hisself instead of jumping all over folks for nothing. And dedicating a song to a woman?" Liza pressed her smooth brown hands together in prayer. "Glory be and hallelujah! I done seen a miracle."

"It seems a miracle is what it will take for him to ever perform for more than a packed audience at his club. It's a waste, Liza. The world should hear him play again."

"That it should, gal. Lou and me, we've said so to him till we're blue in the face. Maybe you can make him listen in time. Just be real careful how you go about it. He's funny about certain things, has these dumb rules I couldn't live with myself. Unless maybe... I was single and thirty years younger and needed him the way he needs you."

"I need him too, Liza," Andrea confessed.

"You must, to have stuck it out this far. He's hell on women. No use for 'em whatsoever, except for you know where?"

"I wouldn't know where, if that's what you're asking."

"I was, and that's all I needed to hear to tell you what he probably don't want to admit to himself after all his 'yackety-yak I won't have none of that.' He's of a mind to marry you. Finally found a nice gal to settle down with and make some babies. He'll be wanting a passel, do his best to keep you barefoot and pregnant at home. If you've got plans for some kind of career... well, don't say I didn't warn you."

Andrea couldn't believe what she was hearing. She shook her head, trying to clear it.

"I think it's too early to see that far into the future, Liza. We have the start of something wonderful, and I hope it's strong enough to last. But what you're talking about takes time. And where Neil's concerned, it could be a
lot
of time."

"When it's right, it's right, and time don't have nothing to do with love, except to test it, stretch it thin or make it grow. Mark my words, by summer's end you'll have a ring on yo' finger and a man on yo' hands with some
very
uncool ideas."

Andrea focused hard on Neil as he reached for his sax. Even with his hair cut and his face cleanly shaven she couldn't imagine him as Liza had depicted him.

"I can't see him like that. Maybe he has cleaned up his act some, but Neil wanting hearth and home and all that jazz? Really, Liza, that's too much."

"You don't want it to be true?"

"It's not that. Of course I want a home, a family of my own. I've never had one, and—"

"And neither has he, not the sort he's wanted all his life. Would you believe that
Father Knows Best
is his favorite show? Won't even switch the channel for
Star Trek,
and he's crazy for that nonsense. Before his mama took off to the sky, she fed him full of music, church, and a woman's place being in the home no matter how no-good the man was. It was that Christine and success messin' with his head that screwed him up again after me and Lou straightened him out. Now he's back on track and hot on yours, honey. Deep down Slick wants a
Father
Knows Best
home. I just hope he don't get cold feet and end up sabotaging his chances like he did his career."

"You don't mean that he actually—"

The harmonica blew a mournful whistle, reminiscent of a train's lonely wail. The thrum of a bass guitar struck a minor chord. All conversation in the room ceased, including the two women's whispers.

The sound of a stormy wind, then the chug-a-lug of a train's steel wheels gathering speed rushed in from a vocalist, while a drum beat out the low roll of thunder that culminated in the crash of a cymbal.

And out of it emerged the sustained cry from a saxophone. His breath seemed endless, and his eyes fixed on hers.

Andrea was transfixed by the hold of his gaze, which dipped with his body as he swooped low and came up with a shower of raining notes, his fingers moving so fast she couldn't see more than a blur, couldn't hear more than a whisper of the trilling clarinet and scat vocals scaling octaves in a fanciful flight of pulsing emotion.

The drum beat on, matching the accelerating thud of her heart that was spinning out of control with each smooth step Neil took in her direction.

He didn't hold out a hand; both were on the brass he plied with stunning skill. But she felt his silent reaching out to her, felt drawn to rise from her seat and meet him with a sway of her hips, the placement of her hands on his waist amid the ripple of applause.

He arched back, never forsaking the mating of their gazes, and moved until his hard leg caressed her pale thigh and the brush of her lips to his bare arm caused his biceps to flex tighter. Kissing him there, softly, sweetly, while the swish-swish of flirting torsos elicited "ahhh's" from couples who drew closer until an orgy of saxophonic moans and hot whispers of promised kisses clinched the mood.

He wooed her with his gaze, his sinuous rub promising a more intimate touch once they were alone, and she ached for his fingers to play her body in private with the sensitivity he played the crowd.

This was love. This was sex. This was everything in between, and it was beyond her wildest dreams because this was Neil at his best, seducing a cheap saxophone rich in memory with an inflection she'd never heard before. This was longing so deep it was desolate. Passion beyond an orgasmic cry. Need so poignant, he seemed to weep,
I want to go home, take me there and don't let me leave even if I head for the door.

Her heart answered with a plea of,
come home... yes, come home with me. I don't know where it is, but we can find it together...

All instruments were silent for Neil's run, a soaring cascade that ended with his lips departing from the mouthpiece—and falling on hers. The roll of his kiss carried her over the threshold of an emotional climax.

Before she could recover from the mad moment of lost control, he stepped back and thrust his saxophone at Liza, who was beaming.

Amid a standing ovation Neil called out, "Glad you liked it, 'cause I love the title. 'Andrea.'" With that, he hustled her out with his hand cradling her butt.

As they made for the front door, Andrea heard Liza's jubilant laughter, along with her lilting prophecy: "Forget summer's end. Make it two months, honey, and I don't mean maybe."

Chapter 11