listen to some of your favorites and you can do the same with mine. It’ll be fun.”
“Fun? I’m pretty sure classical music will put me to sleep while I’m driving.”
She slapped at his arm playfully. “It will not. It will stir your soul.”
“And classic rock will stir . . .” He grinned. “Something else.”
“I’m game for all sorts of stirring.”
He laughed and pulled into a gas station that had a convenience store. “Snacks first. Get all your favorites and we’ll share.”
This was fun, she decided as she hunted for pizza-flavored Combos, a corn dog that had been rolling on a heating plate for at least seven or eight days, and her favorite Starbursts. Few knew of her addiction to any of those things. She also got a bottle of cranberry juice and a second of orange juice, and then picked out a travel mug in which to mix the two.
Kellen had already checked out, his food treasures hidden in a concealing bag. She tried blocking her own purchases from his sight so she could surprise him with her finds as well.
When they reached the car, she mixed her orange and cranberry juices and offered him a sip.
“That’s actually really good,” he said.
“And healthier than whatever soda you pulled off the shelf. Wait, let me guess . . .” She closed one eye and assessed him as if reading his mind. “Mountain Dew?”
He pulled out a bottle of peach-flavored sparkling water. “Do not tell the guys I drink this stuff,” he said. “They’ll take my man card.”
She laughed and took a taste. “Not bad,” she said. Not good either, but if she were stranded in a desert, she’d drink it. After she ran out of her own urine maybe.
They laughed when they discovered they’d both bought Starbursts, though he’d gotten original flavors and she favored the tropical ones. He was aghast to find she actually liked the lemon chews.
“Gross. I usually throw the yellows away.”
“Save those for me, then.”
She was nibbling on her corn dog after chomping down half of his taquito as she began to compile her playlist on her phone. She really needed to put some lesser-known compositions on the device. Her digital collection couldn’t compare to her at-home collection in either size or diversity. And as a purist, she preferred vinyl, but she had yet to ride in a car that boasted a turntable.
“So the trip will take, what, six hours?” she asked, offering him a bite of her dried-out corn dog—just the way she liked them.
“About that long,” he said, making a face of disgust and spitting the corn dog into his hand. He dropped it out the window for crows or seagulls or whatever kind of birds scavenged convenience store parking lots in these parts.
She flicked through her list of songs, the title of each composition making her fingers long for a keyboard as each played through her thoughts. “Some of these symphonies are over an hour long.”
“An hour? For one song?”
When she glanced at Kellen, his mouth was turned down and his nose was crinkled up. Okay, so maybe she should stick to shorter pieces for now. She didn’t want to turn him off her genre by overplaying one composer. When he stuck his tongue out and shuddered, she said, “An hour isn’t that bad.”
“Give me another drink of your juice.”
She handed over her travel mug grudgingly. She didn’t usually have to share. Especially not with someone who drank in enormous gulps. When he handed the mug back, her drink was nearly gone. She scowled at the too-light mug.
“Had to wash the taste of ass out of my mouth,” he said.
“Corn dogs do not taste like ass.”
“You sure about that? I’ll run in and get you another drink,” he said.
“It’s okay.”
He grinned. “But I want more. I’m officially changing my favorite beverage to yours.”
“Glad I have a good influence on you. That sparkling water is nasty.”
“Not as nasty as that dried-out dick on a stick,” he said, opening the door again.
So far, their road trip hadn’t put many miles behind them. Not any.
“Get your playlist ready while I’m inside. I already have a list on my phone that has all of my musical influences.”
“Get me another taquito while you’re in there,” she called after him as he shut the door. He gave her a thumbs-up and hurried inside.
She put a lot of thought into assembling her playlist, selecting pieces that weren’t too long or too slow. Ones she hoped he’d like. It would be nice if more people appreciated classical music. Sometimes she felt that she’d been born about three hundred years too late. But women hadn’t really been big in the music business back then. She’d probably have been burned as a witch or something equally horrific for having fast fingers.
“Did you get it figured out?” Kellen asked when he returned to the car.
“I think so,” she said.
Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven—the usual stuff. She loved them all, but there were lesser-known compositions that really made her soul sing, ones that couldn’t be readily downloaded. She’d just have to share those treasures with him when—if—he visited her in Los Angeles, where her massive classical music collection was housed. She did have a few of her favorites on CD at the beach house, but they wouldn’t do her any good on their road trip.
After mixing them both a cranberry/orange juice blend in their matching travel mugs, he tossed a PayDay candy bar into her lap.
“Another favorite of mine,” he said.
She picked it up by one end as if it had been floating in a toilet.
“What’s the point of these things?” she asked. “There’s no chocolate on them.”
“I don’t really like chocolate.”
“Blasphemy!”
He jumped at her sudden outburst, and then laughed at his startle. “Just eat your PayDay and be happy I was thinking of you.”
“I will not.” She dropped it in his lap. “I’m not wasting calories on anything not dipped in chocolate.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, reaching into the brown paper sack and pulling out a greasy, meaty, spicy-smelling taquito. “They were fresh out of chocolate-dipped taquitos.”
“Give me that.” She snatched it from his hand and scrunched the paper covering down so she could take a bite.
Grinning, he connected his phone to the car’s Bluetooth system, while she munched on her chocolate-free taquito.
“I’m not sure getting to know each other is a good idea,” she teased as she popped the last bite into her mouth. “Now that I know you don’t like chocolate, I’m not sure we can be friends.”
“And now that I know you actually eat yellow Starbursts, I’m sure you’re a space alien.”
She stuck out her tongue at him, and he flicked her nose with one finger.
“I guess I can overlook the small stuff,” she said with a shrug. “No one is perfect.”
“I like our differences,” he said. “All of them. If I didn’t, I’d date a mirror.”
“I tried that once,” she said. “I’m not a very good kisser. My lips are all hard and cold. It was like kissing a pane of glass.”
Kellen laughed. “I don’t recall kissing you being like that at all.” He leaned in to prove himself correct.
When he drew away, she was craving something a bit more satisfying than junk food.
“Are we ready?” he asked.
“I think so. We can stop halfway and get some more of those taquitos, right?” Because she’d already finished the one he’d just given her.
“Right.” He grinned. “They’re so much better than dried-out corn dogs.”
They were, but she wasn’t prepared to admit that to him.
When they entered the highway a few minutes later, she flicked through the playlist Kellen indicated on his phone. Black Sabbath, Queen, Deep Purple, Aerosmith. At least she’d heard of those bands. She still wasn’t sure what a Foo Fighter was. Or what exactly they were fighting. �
�Who goes first?” she asked. “Me or you?”
“Flip a coin.”
She won the coin toss and selected Chopin. “I’m playing this song at a recital next week. I think it’s next week.” She scowled as she tried to remember what day it was. She’d lost track while she’d been holed up in the beach rental with nothing but writer’s block to keep her company. Until Kellen showed up.
“It’s lovely. A bit slower than the jazz you played for me.”
“If you weren’t driving, I’d tell you to close your eyes and listen closely. Chopin is best enjoyed without any outside distractions.”
“So I’d have to close my eyes and also toss you out on the side of the road to truly appreciate this piece? Because you are my greatest distraction.”
She shook her head, her face aching from all the smiling. Apparently those smile muscles of hers didn’t typically get enough of a workout. Kellen was definitely putting them through their paces.
They fell silent for a long moment, listening to the build of the song. In her head, she was hearing different notes, though. Her own twist on the music—the way she would have changed the composition to her personal taste. She felt guilty when her thoughts warped the perfections of the classics, but it wasn’t anything she could help. She supposed it was the composer in her that made that happen. Listening to music without rewriting it into her own creation was hard for her.
“Do you like performing?” Kellen asked, drawing her from her mental composing.
“I do,” she said. “It makes me feel connected to people. Composing is a lonely venture.”
“Unless I’m there.” He leaned over and squeezed her knee.
She couldn’t argue since he happened to be right.
“One reason I think I’ll keep you despite your dislike of chocolate.”
“And do you like composing? Actually like it?”
“That’s a tough question,” she said. “It’s more a compulsion, I guess. I can’t not do it. In fact, I’m doing it in my head right now.”
“In what way?”
“When I hear a piece of music, sometimes I reinvent it in my own style. I’d really like to compose symphonies, music that will still be played hundreds of years in the future.”
She’d only ever mentioned that overreaching dream to one person—the piano teacher she’d once idolized—and he’d laughed at her. So she’d molded her dream into something more attainable—composing for Hollywood movies. She was relieved when Kellen didn’t laugh at her.
“That sounds like a fine aspiration to me.”
“It does?”
“I’d pay to hear them.”
She snorted. “You would not.”
“If you wrote a symphony, I’m sure it would give me a major boner.”
She gaped at him. He said the most guy-like things sometimes. She wasn’t sure why she found it so shocking. He was a rock star; he even looked like one. But his soul was so deep and his words often so poetic, that it was hard for her to think of him as a regular guy.
“I’ve only ever told one other person about that dream,” she said. “And he made fun of it too.”
“I wasn’t making fun,” he said, taking his eyes off the road just long enough to meet her eyes. “I really think you should go for it.”
“But the time I devote to composing has to pay my bills.”
“Like Hollywood.”
She nodded. “It’s worked so far.”
After a moment, he asked, “So who made fun of your dream? ’Cause I’d like to knock his teeth out.”
She wouldn’t want that. Pierre had just been keeping her head out of the clouds. As a teen, she’d been so idealistic, she’d never bothered to tread with her feet on the ground.
“Old boyfriend?” he pressed.
“I told you about Pierre.”
“The gay French piano teacher you were infatuated with?”
“He’s not gay.” She pressed cool fingertips into her suddenly flushed cheeks. “He was lovely. And talented. He pushed me to do better. Try harder. Reach farther.”
“But he laughed at your dream.”
“He redirected it,” she said. “To make it something attainable.” And then he’d up and left one day without any explanation or even a good-bye. She’d floundered without direction for years before she’d gone to Curtis and found a new mentor. One she didn’t let herself love quite as much as she’d loved Pierre. She doubted it was possible to connect to any other musician the way she’d connected with him.
Kellen’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. “So write full-blown classical compositions on the side. For fun.”
“For fun?”
He nodded. “Nothing takes the fun out of creativity faster than having to do it to make a living.”
There was some truth to that.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt.” She shrugged. “Unless it interfered with my deadlines.”
“Can we listen to some Queen now? This Chopin stuff really does put me to sleep. Not like your music. Your music . . .”
“Gives you a boner?”
He laughed. “Yeah, it does.”
“And you’d really pay for that experience?”
“Every day. Even Sunday.”
She supposed there was something inspiring about that knowledge. She could make it her life’s work to compose classical symphonies that gave Kellen Jamison wood.
Chapter Five
The sun shone off the Gulf’s water, giving it an illusion of deep blue clarity. A line of pelicans raced over the surface, the lead bird dipping under the water and emerging with a fish in its beak. Kellen stood on the front deck of Sara’s house and watched the birds swoop and glide for several minutes, trying to find the courage to go inside. He’d had a fantastic time with Dawn during their road trip—living in the now, considering the direction of his future—but the time had come for him to confront his past. Dawn had volunteered to join him, but he wanted to enter the house alone the first time since he’d broken his promise to Sara.
The pelicans flew out into the Gulf until they shrank into nothingness. He supposed he had nothing left to use as an excuse to procrastinate. Taking a deep breath and putting the Gulf to his back, he inserted his key into the lock and opened the hurricane door. As usual, it stuck, and he was swamped with a memory of him and Sara trying to figure out how to get the blasted thing open when they’d first vacationed there.
The living room was dusty, but nothing else was different or out of place. The sofa he’d brought from Sara’s apartment still looked small in the cavernous room. The shelf that contained all of her dolphin figurines took up one corner. Her books on animals and environmental science and fictional vampires crowded another shelf along the far wall, and then there were the pictures—pictures of her, of the two of them, of her with her family, and a few with Owen. There was even one with him, Sara, and both Mitchell brothers. Kellen smiled at the four of them holding up Solo cups, looking like they were drinking themselves into a stupor, but there’d been no alcohol in those cups. He fondly remembered the day they’d spent with Chad right before he headed off to boot camp. They’d gone fishing but ended up rescuing tadpoles from an evaporating puddle because Sara just couldn’t stand the thought of the slimy things dying. Frogs. She’d saved frogs in cups brought for partying.
There wasn’t a single reminder of her illness in the beach house. This was his shrine to her life, not to her pain or her death. He closed the door behind him and sat on the sofa. They’d spent a lot of time kissing on this sofa. They’d even made love on it a time a two. He wondered if she’d lived if she’d have grown more sexually bold with experience. Most likely he never would have discovered Shibari if she hadn’t died, but they would have had a
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