“She died,” I said. “And . . . Charlie never knew her.”

I left it at that, confident that his powers of deduction would lead him to connect the dots.

“I see,” he said. “I’m . . . really sorry.”

God. We needed to change the subject. Because no matter how much time passed, the pain never eased. And I didn’t know Lucas well enough to cry in front of him.

“What the heck are we listening to?” I asked him suddenly, waving a hand over the car’s stereo as the song switched to another just like it.

“Oh, this?” he asked, graciously allowing the abrupt shift in topics. He offered a smirk and turned the volume up a few ticks. “Let’s see. This one is ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ by Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps.”

“It sure is,” I muttered.

“First recorded in 1956,” he went on. “And not to be confused with the 1945 hit ‘Be-Baba-Leba’ by Helen Humes, which is killer-diller. I’ve got it if you want to hear it.”

Killer . . . diller?

“Soooo,” I said while he dug for his phone. “I’m just going to ask outright. What is your deal with this stuff?”

“Stuff?”

“Yeah. You know. The . . .” I gestured to his radio. “And the . . .” I nodded to his pinstriped vest. Then tapped the side of my eye, indicating his glasses.

“The music?” he asked, a bemused smile making those dimples reappear.

“The music,” I said. Because, okay, we could start there.

“You don’t like it?”

“I never said that.”

“Exactly.” He held up a finger. “Because everyone likes music. And this music? Man, it just cooks.”

A grin I couldn’t help broke onto my face. “That so.”

Lucas nodded along, his knee bouncing, his eyes connected with mine, like he was waiting for me to hear the same thing he was hearing.

“It’s . . . nice,” I allowed. Because this was all making me like him way faster than what I felt prepared for.

“The swing-eighths just make it so danceable.”

I blinked at him, curious. “By swing-eighths, do you mean, like . . . a quarter and eighth note triplet?”

He paused in his jamming, brows lifting in happy surprise. “You read music?”

My smile faltered, but I quickly recovered. It was too late, though. He’d noticed.

“Used to,” I said. “You do, too?”

“Actually no,” he replied, again accepting the spotlight as I swiveled it back his way. “I study the rhythms and the instruments. Because if you don’t get the music, you don’t really get anything, you know?”

I didn’t know. And yet . . . I did.

“You’re a dancer?”

“Isn’t everybody?”

“No,” I said, again through a smile that snuck up on me. Something that happened often in his presence.

“You’d be surprised.”

“I never said I wasn’t.”

He grinned at me, and my world seemed to shift and grow a little warmer, like the sun had finally come peeking through the dark clouds.