Chapter 18

“All you have to do is play it,” I said, resting it against the edge of the coffee table. The humming was gone. The only voice it had left was the one Leandro’s memories would give it.

He’d stopped eating while I’d worked. He stared not at the guitar, but at my hands, his nostrils flaring in alarm before I had the chance to tuck them away. “You’re hurt.”

I curled my fingers inward, too loose to be a fist, too tight for him to see. “It’s nothing.”

“It looked like it burned you.”

So he’d seen more than I’d hoped. “It’ll heal.”

“I don’t remember you getting burned before. You never even had a paper cut. After…well, I always thought you were indestructible.”

I had been. Until last night when his image pricked my thumb. The burns on my fingertips didn’t bleed, but the heat from the strings had still managed to singe my flesh. That had never happened before.

So many firsts. All because of Leandro.

He waited for some kind of response, but I had none to spare. “Are you ready?”