Chapter 28
Quietly, I peer through the glass window of the door. Penny is seated at the baby grand, her fingers moving delicately across the piano keys, long red hair hanging down her back.
The opening chords of “Hallelujah” fill the room, each note flawless. But when she begins to sing the first verse, something inside me stills. My breath hitches, and my jaw falls open.
Oh, my beautiful Penny, what have you done? You truly did give up so much for your dad and this studio .
All of her talent just sits unused, when the whole world could be hearing this right now. I slide down the door listening as she sings each verse, her voice, achingly beautiful, ringing out above the piano. Each verse builds into a perfect crescendo, and pulls back flawlessly.
And as I sit there listening, the realization slams into me with the force of a freight train.
I love this woman.
I am so gone for this woman who sees past all my mess to who I really am underneath it all, and still chooses me. Every day since we met, I’ve looked at her and thought, I can’t believe I got so lucky to be here right now with her . It’s like my soul recognized hers and said, this right here is home .
I don’t know how to tell her or when. But I know one thing for damn sure—before I leave, I have to.
When the song ends, there’s a heavy silence with something Penny keeps to herself. The sharp screech of the piano bench dragging across the floor breaks the stillness, and I scramble to my feet as her footsteps approach the door I’m currently leaning against.
“How much did you hear?” she asks, her eyes narrowing at the guilty look on my face.
“Penny, that was unlike anything I’ve ever heard,” I say, bypassing her question.
A shadow of something moves across her face and she gives a one-shouldered shrug. Turning, she heads back to the piano and I follow.
“Recording ended early today, so I’ve been working on something. I was giving my mind a break, hoping it would help to get my creative juices flowing. Wanna see?” Penny points to a piece of paper sitting on the piano bench. Words are scribbled across every line of the page, and I study them.
“Oh my god,” I say when it hits me. My eyes snap up to hers. “You’ve been writing my song.”
Penny arches a sardonic eyebrow at me, so I explain. “Not my song, obviously. I’ve been up there all day trying to piece together snatches of lyrics, but nothings working. This is why. It’s supposed to be a duet. That’s why it’s not working.”
She takes the paper, studying it. “Well, I’m no songwriter. This is a bunch of scribble scrabble that probably makes no sense. I know the mechanics of writing a song, but I’m not good with words so it feels like it’s all over the place. And putting it to a melody is driving me insane.”
“No, this is perfect. Look—” I sit down at the piano bench and she sits beside me, putting the paper up on the music easel so we can both see it. “These parts right here don’t really flow well with the regular verses, but see how easily they’d fit as a bridge?” I draw an arrow toward the bottom of the page. “They’re kinda the devil’s advocate of the song, ya know? The opposite of the rest.”
She nods, awareness lighting her face up. “Yep, you’re right. That makes perfect sense.”
“Can we work on this tonight? I have dinner from Jackson’s.” I jump up and grab the two paper bags from the diner, holding them out to her. “I’ll go grab my guitar. I really think we could knock this out tonight. You’ve already done the hard part by writing the lyrics.”
Penny looks back and forth between the paper and me, and with a small smile, she says, “Let’s do it.”
That fire I’ve seen over and over while I’ve been here is back in her eyes, and all I can think is there she is . Every time that fire reaches her dark amber eyes, it’s like I’m turned inside out, not knowing up from down.
Once I’ve grabbed my guitar, I settle on the floor, spreading our food around us and she joins me. We eat quickly so we can get back to work on the music.
It takes a while to match the melody I’ve had in my head to her lyrics, and we rearrange a couple of parts so it makes sense for a duet, but after a couple of hours and multiple notebook pages later, we’ve got a rough draft scribbled out.
She’s reading over what we’ve written, when I reach out to lower the paper down.
“Sing it with me.” I raise my eyebrows in question as our eyes lock. “I’m not singing this with anyone but you.”
Penny worries her bottom lip, looking around the room and back at the song in her hand. “I don’t know.”
“I do. We can cut a demo tonight. It’ll probably take a few tries to get it right, so don’t get in your head about it. After we listen to it, if you hate it, we can erase it or whatever you want to do.”
The moment stretches out between us, but finally, she lifts her chin slightly and grins. “Okay. But keep your expectations low.”
“What the fuck ever.” I scoff. “Did you forget I was sitting right outside that door a few hours ago and heard everything?”
Penny doesn’t say anything, but as she rises to adjust the microphones, there’s a tiny smile on her face. I grab the music stand and set it between the two stools so we can both see the words and Penny goes to the sound booth to hit the record button.
“I’m not sure how good the quality will be without anyone working the controls, but here goes nothing,” she says when she lowers onto the stool.
I start strumming the intro, tapping my foot to the beat. It’s not a slow ballad, but it’s not exactly a fast song either. In my mind’s eye, I picture a couple on a dance floor somewhere doing a little two-step to it.
I see you there, that look in your eye.
You’re holding back dreams, afraid to fly.
We’ll get there together, with a little bit of trust
Yeah, I think someday looks good on us.
I turn so I’m facing her, the nerves written all over her face. The first line comes out shaky, her voice wobbling, so I reach over and give her hand a soft squeeze. Her eyes flick over to mine and I hear it in her voice when the nerves fade and the song takes over.
You talk about the road like it’s the only way,
But I hear something more in the words you say.
We’ll do this together, no need to rush
Someday sure does look good on us.
I come in with her on the next part, our voices blending to create something so special I know I’ll be pulling it out to relive for years.
Someday I’ll be yours and you’ll be mine
A little white house at the end of the line.
With laughter and love and a life we’ll trust
Yeah, someday looks real good on us.
When we reach the end, Penn sits for a beat, but then goes to the booth to stop the recording. I follow behind her and she hands me a set of headphones and slips her own set onto her head. She presses play and we listen. It’s good. I mean, it's damn good. And by the look on her face, she knows it. A smile stretches across her lips and she looks up at me.
“Okay, so it’s kinda great.”
I shake my head, laughing. “Kinda great, my ass.”
“There were some parts where I was pitchy. Can we do it again?”
“As many times as you want, Penn.”
We head back to the stools and as soon as I start the opening chords, I know this time will be perfect. When we get to Penny’s part, she shoots me a small grin and starts singing, and I’m right. This will be a two take demo. We get to the final note and sing it together, our voices creating perfect harmony.
When the song ends, she stares straight ahead for so long that I’m about to offer to delete the entire thing. But then she turns to me, her eyes glassing over.
“Austin, have you ever heard the term dès vu?”
My brows pinch together, trying to recall if that’s something I've ever heard, but I come up empty.
“Can’t say I have.”
“I learned it in my French classes in college. It's the opposite of déjà vu. It means the awareness that this will one day be a memory. I was just thinking about us, sitting here singing together. When you’re gone all I’ll have is the memory.”
I’m silent as the moment extends out, stretching. But then I suck in a lungful of air and just say it. “What if I don’t go? I still don’t know what my label will expect of me, but when I’ve done whatever they ask, what if I drop them and come back here for good?”
Penny’s eyes flick between mine, searching. “I can’t ask you to do that. I know what it feels like to give up on a dream for someone else.”
“If I said that's not what this is—that's not what I’m doing, would you believe me?”
“I-I’m not sure,” she stammers out, glancing down.
I reach over, gently tugging her chin up so that she’s looking at me.
“I’ve spent my entire adult life without a home. Yes, I have a physical home. But between traveling back and forth from Nashville to Texas and all the time spent touring, I’ve basically been a nomad for twelve years. Never in all those years has anything felt so right as this right here. With you I’m home.” I tap my index finger over my heart. “You’re my home.”
Penny’s lips part slightly, like she wants to say something, but no words come at first. Then, after a breath, she whispers, “You’re my home, too. I was so lonely, and then you walked into my life and filled up all the empty corners that you didn’t even realize needed filling. I’ve had so many days where I just wanted to know someone was my person and I was theirs. And every time I look at you, that’s exactly what my heart says.”