text: I woke up to the faintest melody playing outside my bedroom. Peeling off the layers of my duvet, my feet tingled as they pressed against the cold, slick marble floor. The melody grew louder as I approached the door, fully intensifying as I opened it. A sense of melancholy filled the air as the keys of the piano played. I looked over the stairwell and saw him. His furrowed brows demonstrated a deep concentration and attentiveness to the sheet music splayed on the music rest. “Fuck.” A single note out of place disrupted the flow that had saturated the air of the entire house. “What piece is that?” I asked. His eyes flicked up and met mine. The furrowed brows were gone, and a smile cracked across his scruffy face. He hadn’t shaved this morning, which happens to be my favourite kind of mornings. “Just a little something I picked up from the music store,” he replied, “Morning, beautiful”. “Good morning indeed.” I chuckled as I walked down the stairs. “You know how much I love it when you the piano, I was a getting a little down because I haven’t heard you play in a while”. “I guess I needed a bit of inspiration.” He replied with a smirk as he leaned in to kiss me, in all my morning breath-ed glory. That’s what happens in you’re in love for real, right? The morning breath, the annoying little things that get you down - a sock out of place, an empty cup left on the coffee table, it all didn’t matter. Because when you look at that someone, everything else just melts away. “Scoot over.” I say as I take a seat on the bench. The notes on the sheet music just look like squiggly lines to me, and every so often I’m reminded of how they are so much more than that. “Ah yes, a G... and then an A... and then a...” “God, no. That’s completely wrong.” He laughed, as he gently took my hand and placed my fingers on the correct keys. His touch sent electricity through my body and I was reminded of the first time we touched. It was that same feeling all over again, but this time, there was depth, a security that told me that this was for more than a moment, and that this was something I was going to experience every single day for the rest of our lives. He played the melody while I simply held down the keys, changing chords ever so intermittently, and music once again permeated the air. As he played the final note, he leaned over and said “Couldn’t have done it without you.” “We make a pretty good team, huh?” I replied.