Love Felt Like This

Chapter Forty-One Love Felt Like This

Chapter Forty-One

Love Felt Like This

Beverly

I sit on the floor of the guest room with my head leaning against the mattress, staring at the CD on the floor.

I’ve been going back and forth on whether I want to listen.

For twenty-four hours.

The concert is tonight.

I shouldn’t go.

Because if I do, I’m afraid I’ll tell him every thought that’s consumed my brain for months. I’ll tell him that I miss him, that…that what?

Our situation was inevitable. I barely have time to sleep nowadays, let alone be a girlfriend.

He’s been out of the country in different time zones.

What were we supposed to do? If I said anything other than This was a good decision, then I would be opening a can of worms that would only hurt both of us further.

And he wanted to tap the brakes. He wanted this. It’s unfair of me to ask for more.

But Griffin’s face is like a constant mirage in the background of all my thoughts.

His grin under the Birds stage lights. His genuine laughter ringing off the brick buildings and fake concrete sidewalks on the Block.

I hadn’t heard that laugh in so long. No interviews can capture the Griffin I know—only Bernie can.

If I listen to this album and it only makes me miss him more, what then? I’ve already made a freaking puppet about him because I missed him so much. I have no clue how Elton Emu will be received when the new season launches, and honestly, I don’t care. That was how I coped.

What if he’s doing fine? What if he’s happy as a clam without me?

What if he’s just being nice—being a friend—by inviting me backstage?

Heck, it’s probably more for Rob’s benefit anyway.

I’m there to tag along, just like we said I would months ago.

On my mattress. With his palms sliding over my ankle.

I’m yours.

The words reverberate in my soul, pushing up my throat to choke me.

Yours.

There’s shuffling outside my room and then a sudden knock. The door creaks open, and Nana pokes in her head with a cloud of freshly dyed red hair. She eyes the album on the floor, then me again.

“Have you listened to it?” she asks.

“No.”

“Why?”

“I’m afraid it bites,” I joke, though it’s not really a joke at all.

“Bevvy.”

Seeing him yesterday felt like a section of my soul I’d lost came wandering back. Like I’ve been trying to solve a puzzle and the last piece reappeared months later. Ready to complete. To frame. To admire.

“I can’t,” I whisper.

Nana walks in and shuts the door behind her.

“The concert is tonight,” she says. “Aren’t you going?”

I twist my lips to the side and roll my head across the corner of the mattress.

“I don’t know.”

“Rob will be upset if you don’t,” she says.

“He can still go without me.”

“But he won’t.”

I laugh. “Have you told him that?”

“I won’t let him. We all stick together.”

“Then I guess we aren’t going.”

Nana huffs out an irritated breath and crosses the room. She bends down to reach for the CD but halts inches above. “I can’t bend that far. Help me out, Bevvy.”

“Nana…”

“You’re really gonna let your grandmother break her back?”

“No, but I just…I don’t know if I can listen.”

“I’m getting this thing with or without you.”

I groan, crawl to the CD, and hand it to her.

“Thank you,” she says, “Laptop?”

I glare. “You’re a menace.”

Fumbling over my comforter to reach the folded laptop on my bed, I then drag the computer to the edge, and like she’s moving in slow motion, Nana slides in the disc.

We both wait for it to load. I hold in a breath.

I’m afraid if I let it go, it’ll be a pathetic whine, and Nana doesn’t need to know that mentally I’d rather be watching Jeopardy!

with Finch than enduring this torture. But when the first note on the piano rings through the room, I sink into the floor.

Griffin’s voice follows, and every fiber of my being, every nerve in my soul, sparks to life on the spot.

I take it back. Jeopardy! has nothing on this.

For the next ten minutes, Nana and I soak in the first two songs on Griffin Harvey’s latest album.

The first song, “Your Right Hand,” is the radio single that’s been haunting me, and now that I listen to it, I wish I’d done so earlier.

There are delicate key changes and crooning harmonies that bewitch me so much I have to close my eyes to experience them fully.

I picture him at that wooden piano in Nana’s old apartment.

The squeaking of the pleather piano stool. The way his thigh touched mine.

The second song, “Bird of Paradise,” is on guitar. It’s similar to what I heard from his recorded performances: the classic sound he’s known for with additions from the other band members. Poe’s harmonies. Dom’s hissing hi-hat. Royce’s bass.

“I liked that one,” Nana says as it fades.

I don’t reply, because I can’t choose which I liked better.

I should have listened to Griffin’s music before this year.

Rob was spot-on: His style is right up my alley.

Maybe if I had been a fan, we wouldn’t have ended up in the mess we did.

He definitely wouldn’t have followed me to my hometown.

But maybe…well, maybe things would’ve ended up exactly the same.

I’m still on the floor of my bedroom listening to the album, just like every other fan.

I’m still thinking of the man on the other side of the music, just like every other fan.

I still have a massive crush on Griffin Harvey, just like every other fan.

Nana and I sit in silence, waiting for the next song. There’s a lull, and for a second I wonder if I need to turn up the volume. I hear a vague scratching sound. And then laughter. Giggles. It’s Ava.

I smile to myself, but the next thing I hear has my breath catching in my throat. I gasp, nearly choking on air.

A shy, barely there voice—my voice—murmurs, “You’re being ridiculous,” followed by a laugh.

My laugh.

A guitar strums a single chord, and then Griffin’s low voice replies, “If it keeps you smiling, I’ll do it again.”

I remember this day. I remember this session. I remember sinking deeper into the couch cushion. My body was on fire, and I couldn’t stop smiling.

When I look over at Nana, she stares at me.

He included our recorded sessions.

The snippets continue throughout the album. After every couple of songs, there is a ten- to twenty-second break highlighting our little life in Elk Grove. Our brainstorming moments for Birds on the Block. My laughter. His chuckles. Ava’s giggles.

“What do you think, B?” Griffin asks. His voice is raspy in that tired tone he always had after a long day of recording.

I hear myself give a soft sigh, followed by a teasing “I think it needs more piano, GP.”

What follows is the last song on the album—a finale that, according to the back of the CD, is titled “Love Felt Like This.” It’s just Griffin and a piano. Gentle. Delicate. A low, strained, cooing singing voice, almost in a whisper.

“There were feathers cupped in her hands and captured in her hair, like the softest brush against my skin. The lightest touch to my heart. Love felt weightless. Love felt fuzzy. Stitched onto my soul by her needle and thread. Deeply. Desperately. Hopelessly. Love felt like this.”

It’s a love letter. It’s a love letter to me.

The song fades out, and Nana and I sit in the resonating silence.

I can’t think of anything to say. He always had the words, didn’t he? And now he’s stolen them from me. I pull in a shaky breath. My eyes sting, but I swallow back the emotions.

Griffin loves me.

“Beverly?” Nana asks.

“What?”

“Well, say something, honey.”

Griffin loves me.

Griffin has been miserable too.

I close my eyes and shake my head. “I mean…what do you say to that? I…” I clear my throat, and then my body feels so, so hot. I can’t tell if it’s nerves or the stinging behind my eyes, but I find myself choking out, “What was he thinking? He…he can’t just…make a song for me.”

“He can’t?”

“No! That’s unfair!” I stand fully, crossing my arms over my chest. “He wrote me a freaking love ballad! What am I supposed to do?”

I can’t parse through the feelings now rushing through me in waves of adoration, anger, confusion, joy, and love, love, love.

I feel crazy.

I feel happy.

I feel like I need to give Griffin Harvey a piece of my mind.

There’s a knock on the door. Rob peeks in, seeing me with my arms clutched tight across my chest and my foot tapping on the floor. My eyes sting with tears. Nana lounges on the armchair in the corner. We look like an in-progress therapy session gone wrong—or terribly right.

“Uh, what are y’all doing? Are we…” He looks at his phone. “Going to the concert or…” He gasps when he spots the open jewel case on the floor. “Whoa, is this the new album?”

Nana grins. “It’s all about Beverly.”

Rob’s nose scrunches. “What? Are you kidding me?”

“No,” I snap. Because How dare he write me a love ballad? I’m over here constructing Elton Emu, and he’s waxing poetic about my hair and my eyes and—

God, I love Griffin Harvey.

Rob groans. “I gotta hear songs about my sister?”

A ragged laugh leaves me in a cough.

Suddenly, it all feels so ridiculous.

He loves me.

Griffin loves me.

Or at least he loved me once.

Griffin Harvey wrote an album featuring songs about me.

Me and his daughter.

His girls.

Maybe he doesn’t love me anymore. Maybe this album was written in the past tense.

Maybe this was a fever dream in Elk Grove.

But I don’t care. I know that I love him.

I’ve loved Griffin for far too long, and not a single ounce of it has changed since March.

So if I’m lucky, maybe his feelings haven’t changed either.

“We’re going to the concert,” I blurt out. “I have to see him.” I fumble into my nightstand drawers and pull out the tickets.

Rob’s face lights up. “Oh my God, we’re going?”

“We’re going,” I repeat, slamming the drawer shut and shoving the tickets toward Rob.

Finch appears in the hall, stopping short of the open doorway, where my face is probably blotchy and red from tears. Rob grins ear to ear, and Nana shuffles toward the threshold.