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no idea. So that’s why you two are close.”
    “Yeah. That and the fact that he’s my uncle.”
    “No way.”
    “He and my father are twins.” I link my hands behind my head. Talking about my father usually makes me want to play less, which is why it took me close to seven years to play again professionally after I left his house.
    “Twins? Grady’s a twin?” She shakes her head. “He’s never talked much about his family.”
    “Yeah, well, we aren’t exactly the Brady Bunch, and they aren’t close anymore. Thanks to me.”
    “To you?”
    “You’ve heard that I emancipated from my parents, right?”
    She looks like she doesn’t want to admit it, but she nods.
    “Yeah.”
    “Well, the judge may have ruled that I was basically ready to live on my own, but Grady knew better. I came to live with him and went to the L.A. School of Performing Arts for my last two years of high school.”
    Without realizing it, I’ve started playing Tchaikovsky’s Romance in F Minor . Even my subconscious wants to seduce her.
    “It’s like breathing for you, isn’t it?” She runs her eyes over the ebony and ivory keys.
    “Sorry?” I sit back and drop my hands to my lap for a few seconds before returning to the keys. “What?”
    “Playing. It’s like breathing. You’re playing something so beautiful, and it’s like you’re not even conscious of it. Like it takes nothing for you to do.”
    How do I admit she’s right without sounding like an arrogant prick? I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t play. I don’t even remember a time when I wasn’t good at it.
    “I guess it is like breathing. It’s just an extension of who I am.”
    “Oh, give me a break.” Grady strolls back into the room, pocketing his cell phone. “ It’s just an extension of who I am.”
    He actually does a frighteningly good imitation of me.
    “What a load of crap. Don’t listen to him, Kai,” Grady says. “It’s one of his lines to pick up girls.”
    She grins. I don’t. I want to strangle Grady when she picks up the invoice and heads for the door. Does she believe it was just a line?
    “I don’t think that even occurred to him, Grady.”
    She’s wrong. It definitely occurred to me. I’d have to be dead not to want to sleep with this girl, but it doesn’t have to be now. I think I can wait. I think I want to know her first.
    Damn. What’s wrong with me? I want to know her first? Who is this guy?
    “I’m almost done.” She waves the invoice in the air and moves toward the door, giving us only her back. “San’s on his way to pick me up. I’ll let myself out.”
    As soon as she’s a few seconds down the hall, Grady turns to me with his eyebrows bunched together.
    “I thought we had an agreement.”
    “I don’t remember actually agreeing to anything.”
    “We said you’d leave Kai alone.”
    “No, you said I’d leave Kai alone.” I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees. “Besides, we were just talking.”
    “I’ve seen where ‘talking’ can lead. She’s been through enough without dealing with you.”
    “What’s she been through?”
    “Her mother, who she was very close to, passed away only about six months ago, right before she moved here. It was a long illness, and Kai was her main caregiver. It took a lot out of her. In a lot of ways, she’s still not over it.”
    I haven’t spoken to my mom in . . . damn, years . . . but if anything happened to her, I’d take it hard. I imagine Kai had a less dysfunctional relationship with her mother. Shit, the Addams Family is less dysfunctional than mine.
    “What’s up with her and the guy?”
    “Santos?” Grady slips his glasses back on and takes the composition pad away from me. “Oh, they’re very close.”
    My shoulders tense as I wait for more, but he’s not giving me more. He wants to lure every question out of me.
    “Yeah, they’re close. I picked up on that. Are they just friends though?”
    Grady shrugs, tapping his chin with a