Except today, I open my eyes at the end of the Chopin piece, prepared to blindly glance over the crowd in Grady’s studio, when I see a face. A particular face in a sea of faces. Everyone around her claps, but she doesn’t. Her hands hang at her sides, and her expression hovers somewhere between devastation and delight. When music truly affects me, I don’t clap either. I don’t stand to my feet. I absorb. I let the music change me, touch me, and possess me. That’s what she’s doing. I recognize it. Everyone around her appreciated my music, but I can see that she, this girl, communed with it.
She is looking at me. I am looking at her. Her face . . . I wish I had the right words. I write songs and create music for a living. I practically bleed my thoughts and feelings into everything I compose, into every lyric. But I can’t find the words to adequately describe this girl. Maybe I’ve seen girls prettier than she is, but it’s hard to tell, because even with the width of Grady’s small music room separating us, it’s like I’ve been hurled into an electrical storm. My brain is charged and my thoughts are icy water suspended and trapped inside my head. It’s a face I can only inadequately describe as . . . extravagant. Like God spared no expense when He made this girl.
If I take her in parts, maybe I will do a better job of this. She has this wide mouth the color of fire-blasted rose petals. Her chin is slightly pointed, narrow, but her face widens and flares at her high cheekbones. Her eyes, the darkest, richest sable—glintless, fleckless, bottomless brown—carry a dramatic tilt, and I am sure a glance from her could seduce me. This, combined with her honeyed skin, make me wonder if she has Asian ancestry somewhere down the line. Her eyebrows are thick and smooth over an abundance of eyelashes. So thick and so long they look fake, but I know they are not. There is nothing fake about this girl. No artifice. Not even makeup. Her beauty is raw and unfiltered. Long, dark hair runs down her back. Of all things, she wears a Madonna T-shirt from the The Virgin Tour. Her skinny jeans mold her slim legs. Small feet in Toms. Simple silver musical notes in her pierced ears. She is this heady mixture of exotic and mundane, and just being in the same room is giving me a buzz. Imagine if I touched her. Imagine if I kissed her. Imagine if I fucked her. I’d be done for.
But I suspect she’d be worth it.
Grady’s hand on my shoulder, his words of praise, and the students crowding around me pry my attention from the petite girl by the door. And when my eyes again seek out that particular face in the sea of faces, she’s gone.
“YOU DON’T WANT HIS AUTOGRAPH?” SANTOS chomps on a celery stick and glances over my shoulder to the other side of Grady’s dining room. It’s where I’m sure the whole vocal class, definitely the girls, cluster around Rhyson Gray.
“You know I’m not an autograph kinda girl.” I bypass the crackers and the bite-sized pastries that will be anything but bite-sized on my hips.
“But it’s freaking Rhyson Gray. You can’t tell me you weren’t impressed by that piece he played.”
My fingers hover over a bruschetta. Nah. I’ll eat a salad at The Note when I go in for my shift tonight.
“Yeah, it was impressive, of course.”
And disruptive. And fantastic. And the best thing I’ve ever heard. As soon as he had looked away, releasing me from whatever musically induced trance I found myself in, I high-tailed it out of the music room and headed for the food set up in here.
“Then why is everyone else over there schmoozing the best musician we’re ever likely to meet?” San waves his celery under my nose. “And we’re the only putzes at the hors d’oeuvre table?”
“You know I don’t do schmooze.”
“You meet a guy who was playing on stages all over the world before his balls dropped, you break the no-schmooze rule.”
This isn’t actually about my no-schmooze rule. It’s a different one. Life has taught me that you survive by your rules. When you don’t follow the rules, you get hurt. Even worse, sometimes you hurt everyone else. My daddy taught me that when he ran off with the church secretary. So, yeah, I have rules. And this one I abide by religiously.
No rock stars.
I know it sounds weird from someone who wants to be a singer, but like all rules, this one has a reason. My last run-in with a big rock star in this town . . . let’s just say what I remember of that night would not make Mama proud. I was lucky to get out of that situation relatively unscathed, but I’m not tempting fate again. I put my dreams on hold for years when Mama got sick, and I’d do it again and again. To have those last few years with her, even as debilitated as she became, was everything to me. But now it’s my time. It’s why I packed up my few belongings and followed San out here to Los Angeles I can’t afford to be distracted now.
And when Rhyson Gray finished playing that piece and opened his eyes, he looked right at me, electrocuting every molecule in my body without even trying. He just opened his eyes, and something in me sizzled. Something started stirring in dark, quiet corners. I can’t be sure he felt it too, but somehow, I think he did. I know it sounds ridiculous because he’s one of the greatest musicians in the world and I’m, well, just me . . . but I think he did.
And that would be distracting.
So while everyone else fawns over him, asks him for the secrets to his success, and probably offers to screw him in Grady’s bathroom, I’m considering bruschetta. Because in the rock star category, he would be Grade-A rock star. He’s not just some piano prodigy all grown up. Think Coldplay. Think Mumford and Sons. Think Tom Odell.
Think Rhyson Gray.
Santos is looking at me strangely because I have been quiet for . . . how long? Lost in thought over Rhyson Gray. Oh, this won’t do. Already distracted.
“You’re welcome to go over there,” I say. “I’m gonna eat.”
“Only you aren’t actually eating anything. You’ll just consider food for the next few minutes and then give up. You haven’t fully regained your appetite since . . .”
Santos leaves the last words unspoken, and his eyes grow more concerned.
Not this again. But he’s right. I never understood being so sad you didn’t want to eat until Mama died. Having to force yourself to do the basic things that keep you in this world when the person you love most has left it. San has been after me to join a grief support group for months. I headed out here just weeks after Mama passed, needing to put as much distance between me and Glory Falls as possible. The awkward sympathy of every customer who came into the diner. The not-quite-right biscuits the new cook served up. Mama’s silent sewing machine and half-finished pillow shams. Reminders and memories tucked into corners and waiting around every bend. I didn’t need them. Every moment we had is stored in my heart, and there’s no running from this pain, but boy, did I try. Since three thousand miles and a few time zones didn’t do it, I’m not sure what ever will.
I finally give San a glance that begs him to leave well enough alone even though I’m not sure how well it is. I can’t go there. Not after the day I’ve had. His sigh is a concession and a reprieve.
“I’m just saying you need to eat more, Kai.”
“My ass begs to differ,” I say lightly, grateful that he’s letting me off that hook at least for now.
“Your ass looks fine to me.”
“Gross, San.”
Santos is gorgeous in a smoldering, Latin lover kind of way, but he’s also been my best friend since we were seven. Think your brother checking you out, and . . . gross.
“Just saying, objectively.” San laughs and snags the very bruschetta that almost got me seconds ago.
“If nothing’s happening on the vocal side, I’ll have to focus on the dance route for now.” My eyes track the bread and tomato temptation on its journey from his fingers to his mouth. “So I have to be disciplined with my eating.”
He just nods even though he knows weight watching for dance is what I hide behind.