Beautiful Musician by Sheri Whitefeather Page B

along in states of dark-cloaked
depression.
    She ran a hand through her haphazardly
chopped hair. She cut it that way herself. She’d been hacking away
at her hair since we were kids.
    I checked the clock on her nightstand.
Then I said, “You need to get ready for the day. To bathe, brush
your teeth, go the dining hall for breakfast, take your
medicine.”
    “ I want to stay here with
you and Dingo.”
    “ They won’t let you stay
in your room all day.” I grinned at her. “Besides, this place is
pretty swanky for a loony bin. You might as well try to enjoy
it.”
    She laughed. She liked it when I poked
fun at The Manor. But in actuality, it was a damned fine facility,
a private treatment center designed to teach people how to manage
their disease and then, hopefully, transition into mainstream
society. Abby would probably never make it that far, but at least
she was here, learning what she could.
    The Manor didn’t come cheap. Her aunt
footed the bill, but it was Vanessa who’d convinced Abby to become
a Manor resident.
    I gestured to her bathroom. “Go get
ready.”
    “ Will you still be here
afterward?”
    “ Absolutely. I’m not going
anywhere.”
    “ Pinky
promise?”
    “ Always.” I came forward
and held out my hand so we could lock pinkies, a cozy habit from
our youth.
    Only now her touch sent a jolt of
hunger through me. I severed the connection quickly, shooing her
into the head. What I really wanted was to take a shower with her,
to lather every inch of her sweet body.
    She grabbed a change of clothes and
gave me a lingering look before she closed the bathroom door,
wanting me as badly as I wanted her. Even a guy who wasn’t psychic
would’ve recognized the yearning in her eyes.
    Dingo roused from his sleep and jumped
off the bed. While I waited for Abby, I rifled through her desk
drawer, where she kept the imaginary dog treats. Dingo barked and
twirled, and I tossed him a cheese-flavored bite.
    Abby had created him a few months
after she’d manufactured me, but he didn’t grow older the way I
did. He would be the same young, playful age for the rest of his
fake-canine life.
    After a short while, Abby emerged from
the bathroom looking like a ragamuffin. Her oversized oxford shirt
was wrinkled and misbuttoned, and her razor-edged hair had been
towel-dried but not combed. She also had a speck of toothpaste near
the corner of her mouth. If she were my lover, I would’ve pulled
her tight against me and licked it off. I did the next best thing.
I scooped it up with my thumb and tasted it that way.
    To cover my tracks, I named the brand,
as if identifying the product had been my agenda.
    She merely blinked. The heat between
us had gone minty fresh. I craved another taste. I pointed to her
blouse instead.
    “ You better fix that
before you go to breakfast,” I said.
    Visibly dazed, she glanced down. “It
doesn’t matter.”
    “ Yes, it does.”
    She debated what to do, the indecision
evident in her baby blues. She didn’t know whether to turn her back
or fix it in front of me.
    My pulse pounded with
anticipation.
    Waiting …
    Hoping …
    She remained where she was. A bold
step for her. Bold for me, too, because I shouldn’t have stood
there and watched, not with the way I was feeling.
    She undid the buttons, one by one, her
hands unsteady. I didn’t dare offer to help. She was the least
deliberately sexy girl I knew, yet I’d never been so aroused. A
barely-there glimpse of her plain beige bra was enough to give me a
hard-on.
    Her cheeks flushed. Not because she
noticed my skinny black jeans were getting tighter, but because she
was shy about what she was doing.
    She finally completed her task and
neither of us breathed for what seemed like a century.
    “ Did I…get it…right?” she
asked, her voice crumbling like a deliciously iced cake.
    “ Yes.” I expelled the air
from my pent-up lungs. The buttons were in their respective
holes.
    Truthfully, neither of us was getting
any of this