Page 2 of Sweet Music (Sugarville Grove #7)

BELLA

B ella couldn’t help smiling as she headed up the stairs to the apartment that night, with Cody trailing behind her.

His guitar lesson had apparently been a really good one. He had talked to her about it in the car all the way home, his hands dancing in the air, reminding Bella so much of his mom, back when she would share stories about some amazing new band she’d discovered.

The days that ended with guitar lessons were long for both of them, but moments like this one made it worth it. It was clear that playing wasn’t just something that brought Cody joy. Bella suspected that it was therapeutic for the grieving boy.

Less isn’t more, his mother used to say .

More is more. And Bella figured she might just as well have been talking about busy days like this one, where they flew from school and work through a quick snack, then into the car to Burlington for a lesson, finally ending their day feeling happier than before, in spite of all the rushing around.

She opened the door to the apartment and stepped inside, taking a deep breath of the delicious scent of their dinner in the slow cooker.

“So, what do you think?” Cody asked, picking back up on the conversation about social media he’d started in the car. “Should I do it?”

“Do you want to?” she asked him.

“I’ve never posted anything before,” he said.

“You haven’t?” she asked, stunned. It seemed to Bella that Cody was endlessly scrolling through little videos and photos on his phone, or tapping out his own thoughts.

“Nah,” he said. “I’m just on there to see what everyone else posts.”

“Wow,” she said. “So, you can go on there and not even say anything?”

Bella wasn’t a big fan of social media, at least not since she was much younger. But it was an interesting idea.

“It’s called lurking ,” Cody told her with a grin. “I can’t believe you don’t know this. It’s like you’re a hundred years old sometimes.”

“Well, I don’t feel a day over ninety-five,” she teased back, winking at him before she pulled off her coat and headed to the kitchenette to check on supper.

Ever since Cody had come to live with her six months ago, she’d gotten a lot better about putting something wholesome in the crock before leaving in the mornings.

It was so much better than the cold cereal or peanut butter sandwiches she used to eat over the sink at the end of a long day.

She even got a kick out of trying new recipes she found online or got from people at work.

This one was personally guaranteed by the Grandmas Without Borders to be a crowd-pleaser, and Bella figured a hungry teenager was pretty close to a crowd.

She lifted the lid now and found that sure enough, the pork shoulder she’d put in this morning along with a bottle of Dr. Pepper was soft and ready to be made into pulled pork sandwiches.

“Oh wow,” Cody said appreciatively.

“I can’t believe this worked,” Bella said. “Why don’t you go get cleaned up, and I’ll have dinner ready when you get back.”

He nodded and headed back to his room, and Bella was thankful all over again that she’d taken this apartment with the extra room instead of the studio she had also looked at years ago.

The second bedroom here was really more of a nook, but it was plenty for her.

When she found out that Cody would be living with her, she had moved her stuff into the extra room and bought a paper screen to serve as a door.

He seemed satisfied with her old bedroom, which had its own closet and a real door.

Bella was on the lookout for a slightly bigger place, but that was a challenge on her budget, so she mostly just focused on feeling grateful that what they had could work for as long as it had to.

It was a sweet, cozy little place—just right for two people—and it was close to everything in the little town.

Once Cody had an established friend group, he was going to love being able to walk to the diner, the park, and the pizza shop.

She washed up, and then got out the rolls and barbecue sauce before making a quick salad. By the time Cody came back in, she had their food plated and on the table.

“Mmm,” Cody said.

She smiled. It was high praise coming from a distracted teen.

“Let’s hope it tastes as good as it smells,” she said.

They ate in friendly silence for a while. When Cody finished his sandwich, Bella offered him another.

“Sure,” he said. “That would be great.”

She got up and took his plate, grabbing a roll and getting started with his second sandwich.

“I think I’m going to do it,” he told her the moment her back was turned.

This was typical. She had learned not to turn back around and try to make eye contact the way she would have liked for someone to do for her when she was speaking.

Cody preferred to talk to her when her eyes and hands were on something else—driving, cooking, knitting—what it was didn’t matter, only that she was occupied.

It reminded her of when she used to volunteer at an animal shelter back in college.

They told her to bring a book, sit in the corner of the cage, and not look at the dog or pay it any mind at all.

And even though it sounded silly, it was always the fastest way to have a scared puppy curled up on her lap.

Never thought I’d be using that skill on my nephew .

She nodded in response to what Cody had said, but didn’t reply, giving him room to work it all out. She wanted to ask him why he wanted to do it, if he was just doing it to please his teacher, if he felt scared of putting himself out there, and about a million more things.

But the best way to draw Cody out was to let him decide what to tell her.

“Bill says my playing is ready,” Cody said thoughtfully after a moment. “And mostly I just think it would be kind of fun.”

Victory.

“That sounds really good,” she told him lightly. “What do you think you’ll play?”

She put his plate back in front of him and then grabbed her own, deciding to serve herself a bit more salad to see if he would talk a little more. Once he got going, it wouldn’t really matter if she wasn’t as occupied.

“I can’t decide,” he said. “I was thinking a cover of one of my dad’s songs, but I’ve been working on something of my own.”

Her knee-jerk reaction was to tell him he should obviously play his own song, but she bit her tongue hard.

“What are you working on?” she asked him instead as she sat back down at the table.

“Want to hear it?” he asked, his eyes flashing to hers and lit up with excitement.

“Of course,” she said. “Definitely.”

He moved to get up, but then his gaze dragged across the table.

“Oh, I’ll wait until you’re done,” he said.

“I’m not really hungry for this,” she said, not wanting to miss her window with him. “I’ll clean up while you grab your guitar.”

“Really?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said, happy at the excitement written all over his face.

“Okay,” he said, already out of his seat and darting off to the living room.

Normally, Cody helped out with dinner cleanup. He had done it without being asked, not exactly cheerfully, but with an air of definite determination, ever since the day she moved him in.

She wasn’t sure if he had been on clean-up duty at home, or if it was something he had promised his mother he would help out with.

I guess we both made her some deathbed promises we might be wanting to rethink by now…

The sound of strumming in the living room stopped those negative thoughts and had her hurrying out to see what he had to show her.

Bella’s only real experience with children was the crew at the library, which tended to be on the younger side compared to her nephew. It was such a blessing that Cody loved music. Their shared obsession had been a much-needed bridge between them when he first came to her.

Bella had visited Harper and Cody in Burlington as he was growing up, of course.

But as he got older, it was usually just on special occasions, with a clear beginning and end point to the visit.

None of them had ever thought she would one day be fulfilling her godmother duties.

Of course she’d loved him since the day he was born, but the relationship they’d had before he came to live here had been very different from the one they were carefully building now.

When she stepped into the living room, he was sitting on the wooden chair opposite the sofa, so she curled up on the sofa to watch.

Moments like this, he looked so much like his father. It was in his posture, the tilt of his head, the way his hand curved around the neck of the guitar, with a gentle possessiveness. She wondered how no one else saw what she could see so clearly.

Though today in the library someone did see something in him…

She put it out of her mind, and instead listened as the scales and chords of tuning melted right into the rhythmic strumming of an upbeat rockabilly tune she didn’t recognize.

Cody’s foot was tapping and his head was nodding as his fingers danced on the strings with all the expression he hid from his face. Bella couldn’t help smiling and nodding along.

When he started singing, her mouth dropped open.

“Down a Vermont road, past the maple trees, lived a boy who was surprised by the early freeze,” Cody sang.

He might be a dead ringer for his dad when he played, but Cody had a voice that was all his own. Bella listened, amazed.

“I got the city boy blues, I got the city boy blues,” he sang on. “No lights, no trains, nothing to do. I got the city boy, city boy, city boy blues.”

By the time he got to the chorus again, she sang along with him, taking a risk and hoping that it wouldn’t make him uncomfortable.

But his eyes lit up and he nodded to her, finishing the song with a sweet little guitar riff and a final strum.

Bella jumped to her feet and applauded him.

Cody laughed and pretended to wave to the crowd.

It occurred to her that maybe the song wasn’t his after all. It was just so simple and so catchy that it didn’t really feel like a fifteen-year-old had written it.

“I don’t know that one,” she said lightly, sitting down again. “Was it a cover?”

“No,” he said. “No, that’s mine. That’s the one I’ve been working on.”

“Cody, it’s… it’s…” She shook her head, trying to think of what she could possibly say that wouldn’t embarrass him. “It’s amazing. It sounds like it could be a standard.”

Embarrassment or not, she wasn’t going to lie.

“Really?” he asked.

“Really,” she said, nodding.

“So, I should post it?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said emphatically. “Definitely. Do you want me to record you?”

“Nah,” he said. “I’ll just lean my phone on something.”

She watched as he set up his phone on the coffee table that she had claimed at the church thrift store last spring. It was a little scuffed, but the wood was pretty.

Cody got the phone propped up on her hardback of Indie/Seen , tapped the screen, and leaned back to perform the song once more.

He didn’t say his name, or modify his performance in any way from the first time. To Bella, he seemed like a normal teen, fooling around for fun on his guitar, but with an intensity that was slightly at odds with the upbeat, catchy nature of the song.

When it was finished, he leaned down and tapped the screen again.

She was blown away all over again at his talent. Cody played that guitar pretty much every minute he wasn’t at school. His hard work was definitely paying off, because if she hadn’t heard all that practicing, she would have thought his performance was effortless.

Maybe I just feel this way because I care about him , she reminded herself.

“Okay,” he said, looking up at her. “So, I guess I just post it, huh?”

“Bill said to use those hashtags,” she said, reminding him of what he’d told her in the car.

“Yeah,” Cody said. “Or no one will see it. I don’t really have any followers.”

“Right,” she said, nodding.

He curled his body around the phone, thumbs moving at that speed it seemed only teens could manage.

“Okay, done,” he said, shoving the phone back in his pocket without really looking at it.

“Nice,” she told him.

“Probably no one will see it anyway,” he said right away.

“Does that matter to you?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“It’s good just to put your stuff out there,” she agreed. “The song will be there waiting one day when someone needs to hear it.”

He nodded without replying, but she could see a little spark in his eyes at that idea, like it pleased him.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” he said, leaning forward.

“Anything,” she told him.

Here it comes. Be here for him.

“Can we have ice cream for dessert?” he asked simply.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” she said. “Definitely. Want to come choose a flavor?”

He got up and trailed her into the kitchen.

Maybe tonight wasn’t going to be the night they had their first deep conversation or cried their first tears together over Harper. But they were bonding. That was the important thing.

It’ll happen eventually, she tried to tell herself. And when it does, I’ll be right here.