Chapter 39
A static crackle overhead makes me jump and I grip my guitar tighter.
“You ready to begin?” a voice speaks to me from behind the glass window through the speakers that connect the control room to the live room.
Instead of smiling back, I feel like I want to throw up, and not because of morning sickness.
The guy, who looks more like a surfer with his mop of messy, blond curls, gives me an encouraging thumbs up and a smile.
He introduced himself but for the life of me, I can’t recall his name.
I’ve been a little starstruck since we entered the building.
We were given a tour by a very pretty receptionist who kept trying to flirt with Fallon the entire time.
Once she handed us off to the guy who just spoke, my brain went bananas.
The control room was insane. My fingers desperately wanted to turn each and every single one of the knobs on all of the various panels that manipulate and control the sound.
I never was into the recording aspect of music and all that it entailed.
I compose music using pen and paper or sometimes a handy app on my laptop.
I sing. I play the guitar, the piano, and the drums. But not once have I ever walked into a recording studio until today, not even with my dad and his band.
“You’re going to do just fine,” the guy says. “You can stop at any time, and we can re-do takes as often as you want. You have the studio booked for the entire day.” Again, he’s trying to be reassuring.
“Okay,” I reply, my voice a bit shaky. I take a deep breath and the lemongrass-scented air freshener plugged into an outlet in the room invades my lungs. I itch my nose then fidget with my guitar strap.
“Kitten, relax. You’ve got this.”
And just like that, my nerves settle at his voice.
Fallon is sitting on the leather sofa behind me in the small rectangular room, one of his legs bent at the knee and propped over the other leg.
I’m seated on a stool, a microphone with a large, round pop shield in front of me.
The lights in the room are turned down low to create a calming atmosphere and the walls are painted a dusky beige color.
There are several guitars, electric and acoustic, in stands in the corner, and an electronic keyboard and an electric drum set along the side wall.
I swallow thickly, my mouth suddenly dry. I bend down and pick up the bottle of water I was offered when we first arrived and take a few sips. Readjusting the guitar strap for the thousandth time, I fumble my pink guitar pick in my fingers and drop it.
“Sorry,” I say, not knowing who I’m apologizing to but feel the need to say it anyway.
Fallon is immediately up off the couch and kneeling down on the rug to get my pick for me. When he stands back up, I don’t take the pick from his proffered hand, I grab his wrist instead.
“Please stay. Right there.”
He cocks his head in the way I love, his clear blue eyes smiling at me.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” I admonish and his lips twitch.
“I’ve seen you sing in front of a crowd of people in Times Square. You got up on stage with an Irish band and jammed with them for over an hour. You played for Tatiana and Eduardo even though you just met them.”
I huff. “I know.”
“Then why are you so nervous?”
That’s a great question. Perhaps I want to make my dad proud of me. Perhaps it’s because I’ll be recording the song I wrote for Ryder and want it to be perfect.
Fallon’s smile is too infectious and it’s making me feel rather foolish.
“I don’t know!” I can’t stop the laughter that bubbles out.
“Sing to me then,” he suggests.
Fallon moves a step over so that he’s standing cattycorner to me and only a foot away.
He rakes a hand through his dark blond hair, which has gotten longer at the top and has a tiny amount of wave to it.
He quickly sweeps away the errant strands that have fallen into his eyes.
He’s wearing low-cut jeans today, one’s with a rip in the left knee, and an untucked black Henley with the sleeves bunched up to his elbows. Can a guy look delicious?
If Fallon was a dessert, he would be a decadent chocolate lava cake with raspberry drizzle where the center would ooze warmed fudge when you sliced into it.
Jayson would be one of those hot fudge sundaes where there’s a brownie at the bottom underneath a mountain of cookies and cream ice cream, whipped cream, hot fudge sauce, and a cherry on top.
Ryder would be a homemade apple crumb pie made with the sweetest Honeycrisp apples and topped with cinnamon sugar crumbles next to two scoops of vanilla bean ice cream, slightly melted so that the pie and cream mix.
Great. Now I’m hungry. Stop it, baby gummy.
“You’re too tall,” I tell Fallon, having to crick my neck just to look up at him from where I’m sitting.
Fallon walks over and grabs the other stool, placing it down in the same spot he was just standing in. He sits down, then gets back up, and moves the stool closer to me before sitting down again.
“Better?” he asks me.
He’s really close now; the only thing separating us is my guitar resting on my bent legs. He presses the inside of his thigh to the outside of mine, that one physical touch centering me and causing a thousand butterflies to erupt in my stomach at the same time.
“Better,” I say. “Okay, I’m ready,” I tell the guy in the booth.
I strum a few chords to loosen my fingers since they had started to cramp from the death grip I had on the neck of the guitar.
“I’m going to warm up with ‘Someone Like You’ by Adele.”
I do a count and gently strum the beginning notes of the song, slowing the rhythm down by half so it sounds haunting.
As I find my voice and the first words come out, I lock eyes with Fallon.
I sing as my heart breaks all over again, feeling every bit of the emotion the song evokes of a woman struggling years later after the breakup with her boyfriend.
How it still hurts her. I don’t realize I’m crying until Fallon’s hand reaches over, his thumb caressing my cheek as I continue to belt out the lyrics.
And when the final note reverberates on the guitar strings, I tilt my head in his hand and close my eyes, absorbing the comfort he’s giving.
“That was absolutely beautiful,” Fallon says, his voice choked up.
That damnable crackle of the speakers makes me jump again. “You have such an incredible voice, Elizabeth. Want to do another take?” the guy asks.
I don’t think I can handle singing it again.
Being here reminds me of when Ryder took me to the music shop on Main Street.
We snuck into one of the back lesson rooms and he played my song for me, the one I wrote for him and gave to him the night of our junior prom.
I remember the deep sound of his voice crooning to me, calling to me when my memories had forgotten everything.
But not him. Somehow, my connection with him was still strong.
It drew me in. And when he finished singing, I begged him to kiss me.
It was the first kiss of our new beginning.
That ‘what if’ we had talked about one night at his dad’s garage.
The night when Pete Masters destroyed my old life and took my parents from me and Hailey.
Ironically, it was also the night Pete Masters gave me a new life.
If the accident didn’t happen, would Ryder and I have been brave enough to take that final leap together?
Would I have ever become friends with Fallon? Would I have still gotten pregnant?
Shaking those memories away, I sit up straighter, and Fallon drops his hand.
I don’t know what he sees on my face, but he gets up and walks over to one of the acoustic guitars and takes a pick out of a jar on the side table.
I’m struck stupid when he starts playing Taylor Swift’s “Love Song,” and then I burst out laughing at his teen-girl song choice.
Never in a million years would I have pictured Fallon as a closet Taylor fan.
How did I not know he could play? When we were in Spain, it was adorably cute when he tried to pound out “Chopsticks” on the piano keys of the Steinway at Tatiana’s home.
He never once mentioned that he knew how to play any other instrument or was musically inclined in any way.
Fallon sends me a wobbly grin and my mouth gapes open, literally hitting the floor, when he starts singing to me. Oh. My. God. How did I not know he could sing? And, Jesus, his voice. It’s like Adam Levine’s where he can hit both the low and high notes.
I immediately stand up with my guitar and walk over to him, joining in. No way am I missing this opportunity. We laugh more than we perform, but the joy I feel duetting with him is like sunshine exploding through cracks in the clouds after a thunderstorm. This man will never cease to amaze me.
We’re facing one another when we finish the song.
He looks so boyish and carefree. I soak it up like a desert flower after a long-awaited rain.
Fallon used to be such a mysterious enigma to me.
The boogie man who lurked in the shadows.
The bad boy with the loose temper. The rich, party boy who cared about nothing more than having a good time.
Then New Elizabeth was able to push past the false facade he had erected to keep everyone out from seeing the real Fallon Montgomery. And that person is absolutely amazing.
A smile blooms across my face until my cheeks hurt. “I love the hell out of you, Fallon.”