Chapter 15 #3
‘It does. And the music is mine. My own place isn’t big enough to house all this stuff.’
I watch him navigate the music player as if he’s used it every day of his life, despite it being far from intuitive. It was one of the things I liked about it when I bought it ten years ago. It’s needlessly complex but the sound is beautiful.
He slips the two albums from under his arm and holds one up. ‘The Cab? Tell me about them.’
‘American pop-rock band. My friend Cami bought me that one. I found a song called “Bad” when we were in our first year of uni and I played it on repeat, incessantly. Then Cami came over here one day and when she realised I had an unhealthy obsession with vinyl, she bought me that one.’
He reads the track list, then sets ‘Bad’ playing. My body instantly sinks into the sofa, my head hanging back against the cushions as the music takes me back a decade. I remember how much I wanted what the band was singing about – a crazy love, the kind that kept a bad girl up all night.
I can feel Guy watching me as I smile up at the ceiling and explain.
‘It was the start of me wanting to pull away, I think.’ I shift my body to look at him.
‘Do you ever hear a song and think, that’s exactly the song I needed to hear?
As if it validates something you’re thinking or feeling? ’ I scoff. ‘Does that even make sense?’
He doesn’t speak, he just watches me, listening to the music, or me, or both; I’m not sure. He leans back against the tall table holding the LP player.
‘I was so fed up of being the good girl. Being everything that everyone had told me I was supposed to be and should want to be. I don’t know how I managed another two years of studying medicine, to be honest.’
I wait for Guy to say something but he’s silently listening. At end of the track, he holds up the other LP he slipped from my shelf. ‘This one?’
‘Ah. American rock band, Lifehouse. I bought that album. The lead singer-songwriter, Jason Wade, has a gorgeous voice. Not as distinctive as—’ I stop myself short of saying yours.
I don’t even know why; maybe he’d be flattered to know there’s not a voice on the planet I prefer listening to more than his.
There’s also a high likelihood he’d find it a bit creepy.
‘Some singers,’ I say instead. ‘But he’s a good lyricist, too. His songs are pretty.’
‘Which one should I listen to?’
‘Hmm. Since you have that particular album in your hand, I’d say “Falling In”.’
Guy sets the song playing and I feel my body stiffen at the lyrics. As Jason Wade sings about falling in love, I’m hoping Guy doesn’t think I’ve picked it to make some kind of play. That would be mortifying.
He watches the floor as he absorbs the lyrics and I see his cheekbones rise. ‘Cheesy rock?’
I fight my grin, biting down on my lip, so pleased he doesn’t think I’m trying to be mushy, or worse, that I’m trying to send him a message that I’m in love with him.
‘Who did you have a crush on?’ he asks, smirking.
Now I can’t help my laughter because he’s caught me out. ‘I had a very brief crush on the bartender in the student union. Until I realised he had a girlfriend back home in Hampshire and was pretty receptive to any undergrad crushing on him.’
‘He was fit, though?’ Guy teases.
‘In a teen-crush kind of way, yeah.’
‘Pecs and spice-boy hair?’
‘The spikier, the better. There was also something that felt almost exotic about him being from southern England.’
Guy laughs and it’s a sound I’d love to record and play on repeat.
It’s a close second to the sound of his singing voice.
‘When I was a lad, anything outside a twenty-mile radius was exotic.’ His words seem to sober him and I’d love to know the reason why but in the style I’m becoming accustomed to, he’s partially opened a door – not even a door, a window – into his life, and rather than expand, or let himself go wherever his words are taking him, he turns his back, moving to the second shelf of LPs.
I cringe as he works his way along the shelf to a bundle of LPs he’ll most certainly recognise. Seven in a row. Each of them an album from The Hand Me Downs.
I’m up off the sofa, hot chocolate abandoned on the floor, rushing to stop him. Until I’m right behind him and I think, Why? Why stop him from knowing that I loved, I love, his music? His lyrics, the compositions, the way he played, the way he sounded.
The room is much warmer now, most of which I think is coming from the heater, rather than my blushes.
Guy traces the edges of the records with his fingers, then chooses one – the band’s final album. I think he’s going to take it off the shelf. Instead, he presses the corner, rocking it out slightly, then pushing it back in.
When he turns, he isn’t surprised that there’s just inches separating our bodies. Or, if he is, he doesn’t show it.
A wave of urgent want comes over me. I’m close enough to see every character line in his face, the teasing half-moons either side of his kissable lips, the crease above his cupid’s bow.
I’ve made the plunge before; I won’t do it again. Just because he turned up on my doorstep, just because he wanted to end his good night with me, doesn’t mean he wants to kiss me.
I inch forwards, my arm reaching around him, feeling as if I’m moving in slow motion.
The opportunity is here, if he wants it.
But he’s only watching me, as if he’s memorising every cell in my face.
By the time I take hold of my favourite album of his band, he hasn’t kissed me, so I pull away, LP in hand.
‘This is my favourite,’ I tell him.
He considers the cover. I think he’s going to stop me from putting it on but I shift to switch out the record on the player.
‘My favourite track that Scott used to sing is this one,’ I say.
The song ‘Addicted’ starts to play – Guy’s riff, the drums, then Scott’s voice.
Guy stiffens and I watch his Adam’s apple move up and down in his taut throat. ‘I haven’t listened to this for a long time,’ he eventually croaks.
We listen to his brother, facing each other, staring at each other, everything still, despite the upbeat track.