Page 33

Barrett had been riding a high since the moment Nell danced with him then hugged him. It lasted through the entire weekend, and they performed until their throats were raw and they passed out on their motel beds.

Every night, the crowds grew bigger and bigger. Barrett’s adrenaline tripled; he’d never felt so alive.

After a weekend like that, he expected reality to come crashing back on top of him come Monday when they returned to Gemsburg and crushing him under its dead-end weight.

Except, that didn’t happen.

That blue-eyed work of art sitting on his front porch carried his fantasy on her shoulders when he arrived back at the house. Her bike was leaning against the siding of the house. He was already grinning ear to ear when he pulled up and parked, jumping out as soon as the van was off.

Nell waved and stood up, a soft smile twisting her lips as she walked over. His arms itched to reach out, relive that touch that’d been burned into his body since she’d held him.

Instead, he slipped his hands into his pockets to keep them under control. She seemed to be doing something similar, her denim jacket pulled close even though the forecast was set to be in the low nineties in the afternoon.

“Did you miss me?”

Oh, it was addictive , the way she turned her head to the side, biting her smile and hiding her pink cheeks behind her discolored hair. It made it easier to ignore the tinted bags under her eyes.

He chuckled, his heart inflating the way it did when he wanted to pet a puppy.

“I said I would,” she mumbled.

Oh. Oh. Oh .

Oh, it was maddening . She had to know. She had to be playing with him. She had to know what she was doing to him.

It was one thing for her to say that high in the middle of the night, but it was another when sober in daylight.

It was real.

His face ached from smiling. His chest was going to explode.

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

Nell turned back to him cautiously like she hadn’t expected him to ask that. But neither had he. It was the only thing he could come up with that wasn’t spine-chillingly embarrassing or outright degenerate to think, much less say aloud. And there was a lot of that in mind.

“Not yet.”

He nodded toward the house. “How do you like your eggs?”

* * *

“You never said you could cook.” Nell poked her fork into the center of her egg, the golden yolk bursting and flooding her blue plate.

Barrett watched her carefully dip her toast into it and take a bite before he dug into his own scrambled eggs.

He was going to make sure she left this place full.

Up close, sitting next to her on his countertop stools, she looked thinner than he remembered.

He wouldn’t consider himself an expert on a woman’s weight, but her cheeks were sharper than last week.

He planned on making sure they were filled in by the time he left again on Friday.

“If it were up to me, you’d be eating some fancy Benedict right now. You’re lucky I didn’t burn that toast.”

Nell snorted and downed another bite. “Well, you make an exceptional fried egg.”

“You asked for sunny side up.”

“They’re close enough in my book.” She smiled up at him through her light lashes.

Barrett chuckled and bit into his toast, leaning his chin into his palm to look at her. “You’re too sweet for your own good.”

Her chewing slowed, and she tilted her head up. Her eyes stayed on him, studying.

Barrett’s confidence waned under her gaze, icy blue holding him in place for long seconds. He cleared his throat. “What?”

“You really mean that.”

“Obviously.” Barrett’s smile strained with his confusion. “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.”

A crease grew between her brows. If his fingers weren’t covered in breadcrumbs, he would reach out and smooth it out for her.

“Why do you look so surprised?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just . . . I thought I wasn’t.”

“You’ve always been sweet.”

“How would you know?”

“I watched you.”

The surprise softened into a barely there smile. “Right, your crush .”

Barrett chuckled nervously and hoped he appeared unfazed.

“Are you going to tell me about Bellevue?” Nell, thankfully, switched topics before he had to lie his way out of that one.

“Outrageous, as always,” he said. “I tried a new riff on Still of the Night , and the crowd ate it up.”

She dropped her toast onto her plate and stood up abruptly, making Barrett lean back in surprise. “Show me.”

He blinked. “Right now?”

“You never play for me.”

“I play for you all the time.”

She reached out and grabbed his arm, tugging on it. “No, I mean you never play for only me. I want a private show before you’re too expensive to book anymore.”

“Oh yeah?” He smirked. “What will I get in return then?”

She paused and looked to the side, thinking hard, then looked back at him. “I’ll bring a dozen of my mom’s gingersnaps.”

Barrett smacked his hands on his knees and rose up. “Deal.”

Ten minutes later, he flicked the final chords of an approximation of his impromptu Sunday night riff as he dragged it out before stopping. The room was suddenly deadly silent, leaving behind only the ringing rush of blood in his head to contrast what had been his music.

He looked up, panting softly, to find Nell staring at him.

She leaned forward, lost in her mind, her eyes glazed and far away. She did that sometimes, he’d noticed. He’d play and look up to find that dreamy gaze, and he’d wonder where she’d gone or if she was still there.

But right when he wanted to ask, she blinked and she was back. “You’re incredible.”

Breath was agonizingly difficult to swallow. He understood now why his saying she was sweet had taken her aback. No one had ever called him incredible. Sure, the band had its fans. People loved their music. But that was theirs.

This was him.

Just him, and just her.

He shrugged. “It was nothing.”

“You came up with that yourself?”

“Sorta.”

“Barrett, why don’t you write your own music? You have to know you’d kill at it.”

He didn’t know. Covers were easy. If he loved a song already, everything else just came to him. With covers, he never worried about being judged based on the lyrics or the song. All he had to do was play and sing well.

Creating was harder. It was pulling thoughts from your head and throwing them into the world.

So he never tried. He’d never felt capable of being incredible.

“Not inspired, I guess.”

“Why don’t you try now?”

“What?” He winced. “Now?”

“I want to be the first to hear it.”

She grinned, and his fingers slipped slightly on his strings, making them sing.

He knew she was sweet because he saw her. He’d watched her for years.

He watched her now.

But she thought he was incredible. She watched him. She wanted to keep watching him.

She encouraged him with a nod.

He fell.

No fighting it, no lying anymore.

He couldn’t explain it.

He considered himself a musician first, human second, and artist never.

But something about her made him want to pick up a paintbrush for the first time in his life and create a watercolor of the way the world around her felt: a rush of blue air stringing together every color of a sunset.

Falling felt like flying.

At the center of this masterpiece was her.

The urge pulsed in his fingers, and since he knew nothing about painting, he turned the image into notes on his guitar strings, and music that hadn’t existed in the world before came alive.