“Practice makes perfect, baby,” Renee would tell me when I’d toss my sheet music in frustration from our just-for-show piano. “You can do anything if you set your mind to it.” She better be right about that.

“Teach me,” I said softly as I gazed at his perfect concentration and reached to smooth the crease between his eyebrows. A smile turned his lips at the corners, but he did not look away from the keys. I was going out on a limb here, I really was.

He finished off the last few measures of the Chopin piece and turned his intense gaze to me. My breath caught in my throat momentarily and my train of thought sputtered to a halt.

“Really?” he said in a quiet voice, the corners of his lips still curled up in that delicious smile that kept my imaginary heart rate dangerously high.

What were we talking about again?

I felt the bench shift and uttered a quiet, disdainful hum of protest when I saw that Edward had gotten up and walked over to his bookshelf. He clicked his tongue against his teeth a few times while he ran his fingers along a shelf of librettos and composition books.

With my back to Edward, I glowered at the keys as they beckoned me tauntingly to play. I had always felt drawn to music, but piano wasn’t really my forte. I tested out a C apprehensively. It couldn’t hurt to try.

I flinched as I stumbled through the opening measures of Moonlight Sonata, my fingers repeatedly catching on the wrong notes. Of course it could hurt to try, my playing hurt my own ears.

Edward chuckled softly from behind me and affectionately – affectionately? Boy, was I losing it – tugged on a strand of my dark hair before taking his seat beside me again.

“Here we are,” he breathed as he brushed the dust from the cover of a beginner’s piano songbook. It could have been a hundred years old, that ratty old thing. Actually, it probably was.

I scoffed at it and glared at Edward indignantly. “You teach me. No books. Just you.” I paired the last word with a sharp jab with a low E on the piano.

He crossed his arms with a frown. “The book is good. If you want me to teach you, we use the book.” He stabbed at few high notes to harmonize with his last few words.