“No,” Ella said slowly. “I think I’ll try it warm.”
“Awesome. Hang tight.” He crouched a few inches as he poured, staring carefully at the bourbon as it streamed into each glass. The pendant cast a pair of sharp, thick shadows under his cheekbones, which were maybe a little too high and wide, now that she thought about it, throwing his face out of the fine proportion required for textbook beauty. But Ella admired them anyway. In a completely nonsexual way, of course. Hector straightened, set down the bottle, and lifted a glass in each hand. “Ready?”
Ella moved closer to the counter and reached over to take her glass from Hector’s fingers. “Ready as I’ll ever be. Cheers.”
“Cheers. Now, hold on, there, Silver. Sip slow. Just a taste to start. You won’t like it at first. You have to give it time. Kind of like getting acquainted with someone complicated.”
Ella set her lips on the edge of the glass and brought the bourbon forward, until it touched the tip of her tongue.
“That’s right,” Hector said, watching her closely. “What do you think?”
“It’s—it’s great.”
“Liar.”
She laughed and tried again. “Okay. It’s like being hit by a club.”
“That’s more like it.” Hector took a drink and turned around to lean back against the counter, palming the glass and swishing the liquid gently along the sides.
“Nice kitchen, by the way.”
“You like it? I actually put it in myself.”
“No. Way.”
“Way.”
“You’re a carpenter?”
“I’m a musician, Ella. Actually a composer, which is even worse. So I had to find another trade to keep me solvent, right? Didn’t want to sponge off my parents all my life.”
“You know what? I don’t think I’ve ever met a carpenter in New York. Not one who lives in Manhattan, anyway.”
“I made a deal with the landlord when I took the place. I do all the carpentry-type fix-it stuff around here, and I get a deal on the rent. So what do you think? Feeling better now?”
“Much.”
“You were pretty freaked out, there, for a minute.”
“Yes, Hector. I was pretty freaked out by the screaming woman in the basement next door.”
“Fair enough. But it’s all good now, right? We went back down, didn’t hear anything. If someone was really in trouble, you’d be hearing something, trust me. Plus, Nellie would go nuts, right? Dogs are sensitive to all that stuff. Smarter than we are.”
“I guess so.”
“That’s why the other tenants don’t mind me playing at night,” he said. “Drowns out anything from downstairs.”
“Like screaming?”
He shrugged. “Some weird shit goes down sometimes.”
“I don’t understand. Why don’t the police get involved?”
“Who knows? Maybe the owner has an arrangement. Look, it’s New York, right? We cater to every taste in this town. As long as it’s consensual, you can have your letch as long as I have mine.”
“I don’t know. That screaming didn’t sound consensual to me.”
Hector shrugged. “Look, my bedroom window overlooks the back. If I see anyone bleeding or hiding a body, I’ll call the police. Is it getting any better? The bourbon?”
Ella looked down at her glass, which was less full than she thought it would be. “Actually, it kind of is. Like drinking fire, but in a good way.” She pushed off from the counter and wandered back to the piano. Nellie, who had settled into an alert, silken pile at Hector’s feet, leapt up to follow. Her claws scrabbled like jacks on the wooden floor.
“You like music, then?” Hector called after her.
“Love music. My grandmother’s a cellist. She taught me how to play the piano first, then she let me play her instrument.”
“No kidding? You can play the cello?”
“Played it all the way through college. But I was never going to be as good as her. I mean, I loved it. I was a passionate player, you know? I just couldn’t get my fingers to move like hers.”
“You want to jam a little?”
“Jam? Right now?”
“Sure.” Hector moved past her and set his glass on the piano lid. “No cello, but I’ve got a string bass you can try.”
“You mean, like, jazz?”
“If you like. Jazz, whatever. I can do pretty much anything.” He flipped open the keyboard cover and stood there, washed by the yellow street lamp outside, bare arms lean and poised, head turned a little to one side. His fingers started to run along the keys, awakening a ripple of delicate sound that went straight to Ella’s belly. He nodded to the corner. “Bass is over there.”
Ella took a deep breath and swallowed down the rest of the bourbon. Her throat burned, her brain gasped for air.
“How about some Beethoven?” she said.
AN HOUR AND ANOTHER COUPLE of glasses of bourbon later, they were sitting side by side on the piano bench, thigh by thigh, playing Gershwin. Laughing. Ella had discarded her bathrobe, and her bare arm moved next to his bare arm. Muscles plucking in rhythm. Nellie lay curled under the bench, snoring softly in the rests between measures.
“See, the thing about Gershwin, which I love,” Hector said, “is that he isn’t one or the other. He’s deep, so deep. I mean, the notes are, like, revolutionary. But he’s talking about you and me. He isn’t afraid to connect at an emotional level.”
“He’s not trying to show off to the academy,” Ella agreed. “He writes for his audience. He wants to move you.”
“He gets you right here.” Hector makes a quick fist and presses it to his chest, almost without missing a note. “Lyrical. But complicated and unexpected, right? And it’s so effortless, you don’t realize how genius it is until you take it apart.”
Ella made a last arpeggio and lifted her hands away. “I once acted in a school production of Porgy and Bess, believe it or not.”
“No kidding. Who did you play?”
“Bess. We only had one African-American girl in my class, and she hated singing. It was kind of weird, but it worked.”
“Awesome.” He closed his eyes and flowed into “Summertime.” “You must have lived in some serious white-bread suburb.”
“Yeah. Grew up in Arlington. My dad’s a lawyer.”
“And your mom?”
“Law professor. And she models, believe it or not. Just for fun, and I guess to keep her ego stroked. Not that it needs stroking. She’s like this glamorous fiftysomething who looks good in everything.”
“Ha. I love your mom. My girlfriend’s a model.”
Ella, in the act of swallowing the very last drop of bourbon, started to cough. “Wow. Nice.”
Hector laughed. “It’s not like that. What do I look like, some kind of smarmy modelizer? Hanging out in clubs?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Naw,