Chapter 5
FIVE
ETHAN
I waited for a laugh.
I mean, I would have laughed at me if I were her.
But a moment passed and there was no laughter. She just tilted her head to the side and studied me. “So, you’re like…a musician?”
There was no mockery in her voice. No disbelief. Just curiosity. Almost like the idea wasn’t totally insane. I shrugged. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t say I was a musician, I just…I like playing guitar.”
Her lips twitched a little like she was on the verge of smiling. “I think that’s called being a musician.”
I let out a huff of laugher. I supposed she had a point, but I still felt weird admitting it. Ryan and the guys in his band were the only people who even knew I played, and yet here I was, spilling my guts to a girl I barely knew.
“So…” She drew the word out as her eyes narrowed on me. “What does that have to do with me?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I know I look like a rock god, but trust me when I say I have no hidden talents with the guitar.”
I laughed and was rewarded with a little smile in return. She arched her brows when I didn’t immediately answer.
I opened my mouth and shut it, trying to figure out how to explain.
That was just for me, she’d said. For fun.
The words hadn’t exactly been mind-blowing, and yet the moment she’d said it, I’d felt…
jealous. That was the only word for it. Playing guitar was the only thing in my life that was just for me.
I wanted to do it more, whenever I wanted.
I wanted to play even if Ryan wasn’t home.
I wanted a place where I could stash my guitar and not feel like I was hiding some deep dark secret.
She was watching me expectantly, waiting for an answer.
“I need a place to practice,” I said. I looked around at the empty studio. “It seems like you have an in here—”
She gave a little snort of amusement at the understatement. Her mom ran the place, after all. Surely she knew when the studio was free, and how to get in if it was locked.
“So maybe you could hook me up with the space, and I could help you when you need a partner,” I said.
She pursed her lips. “Why can’t you just play guitar at home?”
“Uh…” I shoved my hands in my pockets. “My dad would freak.”
That was putting it mildly.
She stared at me blankly for so long, I started to fidget. “What?”
She gave her head a little shake like she was coming back to reality. “Sorry, I was just picturing your dad as the mean minister from Footloose. So, like…does your dad hate all music or just your music in particular?”
For what felt like the millionth time since I’d met her, Collette’s statement left me blinking in confusion. This girl never said what I expected her to say.
Maybe that was why I liked being around her so much. She was this odd, utterly unique little spitfire.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about with Footloose, but the answer is neither. He doesn’t even know that I play.”
She pursed her lips, her hands on her hips. Finally, she said, “Explain.”
If she were anyone else—or even if she’d phrased it any other way—I might have deflected. Come up with a half-truth to explain my situation. But with this girl, I just knew that half-truths wouldn’t cut it. She spoke honestly and openly, and she expected the same in return.
“My dad’s the mayor.”
She didn’t so much as blink, and her expression looked utterly unimpressed.
“He’s also kind of a control freak,” I said.
“He has…plans for me.” The man had my life mapped out until I was forty.
Undergrad at Yale, law degree from Harvard, move back to this town and take over the law firm where he’d been a partner until he’d left to pursue politics.
Join him in the Senate—because by then, he would have already been elected—where we would be the first father/son duo to take over the legislature.
I assumed at some point he’d find me the perfect wife—one who would provide me with the requisite two-point-five children who’d live in our home with its white picket fence.
“I assume his plans for you don’t involve learning the guitar,” she said.
“You assume right.”
She did that head tilt thing again, like she was sizing me up, looking at me from a new angle. “So…what are your plans for you?”
The question felt like a sucker punch. It literally left me winded. It took me a second to realize why.
No one had ever asked me that before. Not just the way she’d phrased it, but the general gist of her question. I couldn’t think of one person in my life who’d ever stopped to ask me what I wanted for my future. Not my mom, not my teachers, not my coach…and definitely not my dad.
She didn’t wait for an answer, which was great since I didn’t have one. I was still reeling from the weight of the question. What did I want?
“Do you want to be a musician?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I don’t think so. I mean…I don’t think I’m good enough.”
She arched her brows as she considered that. “You’re probably not. I mean, it does take ten thousand hours to master something. Even if you played every single second of every single day, you haven’t even scraped the surface.”
“You’re probably right,” I said.
“You need to practice more.”
It was a valid point, but the more I thought about what she was saying, the more certain I was that I didn’t want to make a profession out of music.
It was the one thing in my life that gave me pleasure right now—even if it wouldn’t make my dad go ballistic—to add that sort of pressure to it would defeat the purpose.
“My buddy Ryan,” I said. “He’s really talented. Like, natural talent. And he’s obsessed with creating music…” I shook my head. “I enjoy playing, but music is more his thing.”
She nodded, her expression thoughtful. Her arms were still wrapped around her middle, clutching that hoodie around herself like a robe. “So what’s your thing?”
I stared at her in confusion. “What do you mean?”
She finally let go of her hoodie so she could flap her hands in impatience. “I mean, which house are you in? What makes you tick? What are you passionate about? What’s your thing?”
“I—I don’t know.” Man, I felt so lame admitting that. But honestly, the only other response I could think of was ‘being a good son’ or ‘playing football.’ The first was pathetic and the second didn’t ring true. I liked football. I was good at it. But it wasn’t my thing.
She sighed and I had this feeling that I’d disappointed her with that answer.
“You don’t know?” She sighed. “Are you always this obtuse or is that just a jock thing?”
“I don’t know,” I said, torn between irritation and amusement. “Do you always feel the need to reference Harry Potter or is that just a geek thing?”
Her lips hitched to the side and her eyes lit with amusement. “You caught that, huh?”
I moved forward a bit until I was so close I could reach out and touch her. This time she didn’t backpedal away from me, which I took to be a win. “Cloak of invisibility? Which house are you in? Yeah, I caught that.”
Her lips did that twitching thing again. “You’ve read Harry Potter?”
“Please,” I scoffed. “I’m an athlete, not a heathen.”
Her eyes widened and then she let out a laugh. An honest-to-goodness laugh.
That laugh was everything. My heart freakin’ swelled in my chest and I had to fight the urge to pull her into my arms. Instead, I shoved my hands into my pockets again.
“To answer your question,” I said when her laughter faded. “I honestly don’t know my thing. I guess that’s why I want some space to call my own.” I looked around the studio pointedly. “Some place where I can maybe…start to figure it out.”
She was quiet for a long moment. “To answer your question, no.”
I arched my brows, trying not to feel too disappointed. “No?”
She shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t always reference Harry Potter.” A mischievous little smile tugged at her lips. “Sometimes I reference cheesy eighties movies, too.”
My laugh was filled with relief. She wasn’t saying no to me sharing her studio space. That was something.
She still wore that small smile, and for a second our eyes met and held. She was so pretty, especially when she smiled. And right now, it felt like there was something here between us. Some sort of connection that I couldn’t name.
I didn’t want this to end…I didn’t want to stop talking to her, and I just knew that any second now she’d walk away. “What’s your thing?” I asked.
She blinked like I’d startled her. “What?”
I gave her a teasing grin. “Your thing,” I said. “What is it? I mean, if it isn’t dance—”
Her smile faded fast and while I had the distinct feeling I was putting my foot in my mouth, I was also curious as to what was going on with this girl. “You’re so talented,” I said, glancing toward the dance floor again. “And you clearly love to dance, so…”
I trailed off, waiting for her to explain.
Her stare slowly turned into a glare as the silence between us grew tense. “You’re really going to make me spell it out for you,” she said.
I blinked in surprise at the sudden bitterness in her voice. “I guess I am.”
She sighed loudly as she looked down at herself. Looking back up at me, she gave me a humorless smirk. “I’m not built for the part.”
She was basically inviting me to look at her body, and my mouth went dry as I took her in. So beautiful, so curvy, so…sexy. I tore my eyes away and saw her scowling at me, waiting for some sort of response.
“I, uh…I don’t get it.”
She huffed but the pink in her cheeks made it clear her annoyance was more out of embarrassment than anything and that made me feel like a jerk. I wasn’t trying to humiliate the girl, I just wanted to understand.
“Can you imagine me, flitting around like some delicate butterfly?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “I’d look ridiculous.”
“You looked perfect.” I cleared my throat. I just didn’t know what to say when girls talked about themselves and their bodies. Was I supposed to compliment her or agree? Why did women have to be so complicated?
If I was going off of instinct, then my inner guy wanted to tell her she was crazy.
I’d watched her earlier. She was mesmerizing.
Way more interesting to watch than a butterfly.
And in the sex appeal department, she won the pot.
But I knew for certain, a girl I’d just met wouldn’t be too happy if I said that.
So I stuck with my initial response and waited for her to speak.
She opened her mouth and then clamped it shut again and I was horrified to see pain in her eyes.
“I saw you, remember?” I gestured toward the dance floor. “You looked perfect.”
“Well, I don’t look like Bianca.” She muttered it under her breath, but I still heard it and the mention of that prissy blonde beanpole made me irrationally angry.
“Why are you so obsessed with her?”
Her eyes widened for a second at the anger in my voice. Then she shrugged as if the answer were obvious. “She’s everything a ballerina is supposed to be—pretty, elegant, thin.”
Her voice was filled with disdain and…something else. Something rueful and disparaging, but not toward Bianca. She was hating on herself.
I took a step closer, needing her to see my sincerity. She kept her gaze focused straight ahead so she was staring at my chest. I reached out and tipped her chin up with one finger so she was forced to look at me. “And you are graceful, unique, and….beautiful.”
Her eyes widened, and I…I was an idiot. I’d said too much. I’d been too earnest.
But I’d meant it.
My heart was thudding painfully in my chest, my blood roaring in my ears as I waited for her to respond. When she didn’t speak right away, my entire body went cold.
Seriously, what was I doing? I barely knew this girl. She was basically a stranger. A stranger who now knew that I played guitar, who knew about my dad’s control freak ways, and a stranger who was staring at me like I’d just lost my freakin’ mind.
Maybe I had.
I didn’t even recognize this guy who’d spilled his guts to a girl he didn’t know. And I definitely couldn’t explain why I’d felt the need to touch her, to comfort her, to…freak her out, apparently.
In those big blue eyes all I saw was shock and confusion before she shut down on me, and then I couldn’t read any emotions at all.
I dropped my hand from her chin, breaking the tense moment. She took a step back, looking away from me. “I don’t know why I’m talking to you about this,” she said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
And then she was walking away from me, hurrying toward the door like I was going to chase after her…again.
I wanted to—we definitely weren’t finished here. But this time I let her go.
When she reached the door to the studio, I called after her. “So? Do we have a deal?”
She didn’t look back but she paused with one hand on the handle. “I’ll think about it.”