Chapter 13 Carissa #2
“We don’t have anyone to play drums or bass. Even if we both played a guitar and then you recorded the piano after, that’s still all there would be. You don’t do acoustic.”
“Correction. I would love to do acoustic, so I think that statement should be, ‘I haven’t done acoustic yet.’”
I know Matt’s famous line was that the band wasn’t a country group, and they weren’t some pop duo, so acoustic songs, sob stories, and romantic bullshit could piss right off.
I heard him say it over and over throughout the years.
Most of the time, I thought he was joking.
I didn’t realize this was an argument between him and Wilder.
What the guys were saying by the end, about Wilder being in the spotlight and the band being all about him, I think maybe it went deeper.
They didn’t want him up there, alone on the stage, just his voice and a guitar.
I’m not sure anyone could have stood up to keeping their heart intact if he’d done something so intimate.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean for that to come across as bitter. I’d like it to be a hopeful statement. I’d love to try recording some of these acoustic, but if that’s not how you see them going, then I can play bass and drums.”
“I’m sorry, you can what?”
“Bass for sure, and why not give the drums a go? How hard can it be?”
“Extremely hard.”
“I have a pretty good sense of rhythm, and we’re just having fun.”
It’s not like I can say that seeing Wilder pick up any instrument and just play it like it’s easy for him in a freaking talent overload will probably put my ovaries straight into an overload of their own.
I do want to see him play. I want to see him absorbed in here and lost in his element so the world and all the bullshit of the past two weeks doesn’t exist. He booked this for me, but I want this to be his time. Our time. Something we create together.
I swallow thickly. “I know you’re amazing at anything and everything you try.”
“That’s not true. I’m terrible at making gourmet desserts.”
“Who isn’t?” My heart thumps ridiculously hard at his teasing smile. He probably makes the best dang desserts.
He motions to the room of pure freaking magical awesomeness right in front of us. “Shall we?”
Oh, we shall.
And we do.
My journal of songs is waiting for us on a stand right next to the guitars. “What?” I gape at him. “How?”
“I couriered it a few days ago. I couldn’t think about how to incorporate it into my old man disguise, and I wanted it to be perfectly safe. Don’t worry. I had a tracking number the whole time. I always knew where it was.”
“I’m not worried. Just surprised at the lengths you went to in order to get it here.”
“You’re not worried I would have lost it without making copies?”
“Did you make copies?” I ask.
“Making copies felt wrong. I did jot down some notes in the back about certain songs and chords, but most of it is up here.” He taps his brain. “Where all my other songs dwell.”
If I were one of those wise, sage people, I’d probably do the corny thing and tell him that the music should reside here, and thump my chest. But I’m a nurse and too practical for that.
He’s right. They’re in his brain. When people talk about the heart, they’re talking about the brain.
All feeling comes from the brain. The heart just pumps blood.
The whole body might feel something, but yup, that’s the brain too.
That might not be romantic, but it’s true. I’m sorry.
The brain can do fabulous things, like translate a total love of good cheese, so don’t hate me.
I’m not bursting any bubbles, and I’m not the one who invented science.
Don’t talk to me about the mystical or metaphysical either, as I haven’t quite decided what I think about that.
There are lines that can be transcended.
Sometimes, miraculous and unexplained things happen. I get it.
But songs are in the brain, and Wilder has a great big, incredible, beyond amazing one.
I gasp. “Have you memorized them all?”
He flashes me a sheepish tilt of his lips. He’s trying not to smile yet failing so adorably. This man is even better than cheese. My brain knows it, and it’s not going to change its mind.
“I might have, but it’s a habit. I couldn’t help it.”
He can’t. To the best of my knowledge, he has never forgotten a lyric, and not because he has one of those fancy teleprompter screens on stage at his feet either.
“I can’t think of a single word or statement that would do my excitement justice to hear you bring them to life as you experience them.”
He picks up a guitar that looks like it probably cost thousands and thousands of dollars.
It’s immaculate, with fancy inlaid flowers trailing all over the body and little pearl flowers inlaid into every other fret.
A gorgeous starburst of wildflowers stands out against the name on the headstock, blooming between the tuning pegs.
“Would you like to play as well?” he asks.
“I’d rather watch you first. And listen.” Maybe that’s not fair, but it’s the truth. Who wouldn’t rather soak in this man’s gifts? His rich, gravelly voice can transport a person straight to other places. And not just fantasy ones, but ones beyond the physical.
I know, I know. Music is in the brain, and the brain gives the signals, but I did say don’t start talking to me about the mystical or metaphysical. There are times when Wilder’s voice has been another dimension all on its own. A portal to other lands and things that shouldn’t be possible.
“I want to hear them as you hear them, and then I’ll join you. Maybe. If I can,” I add.
“You can. You can play, and you can sing.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” This room is perfectly cooled, but I blame the overhead lighting for the way I’m certain my face flames ten thousand degrees of overheated. “Not like you can, at any rate.”
“That’s bollocks.”
He puts a British accent on that, then treats me to the sexy timbre of his rolling laughter. Without waiting, he launches straight into a song. It’s not something I’ve ever heard before, but one I know intimately because I’m the one who wrote it.
All I can do is gape. Stare. Fangirl in a starstruck manner.
This isn’t how I would have ever imagined the tempo, let alone the sound of the song.
It’s unmistakably Wilder’s style, but also something brand new.
It’s his voice, but this song isn’t anything like any of his others.
It’s mine. It’s also his. It’s a darned freaking star shooting across a purple black velvet night sky, a once-in-a-lifetime astounding event that leaves you breathless and speechless and awed, even if you can explain it scientifically.
After he’s done, all I can do is blink back the hot tears stinging the corners of my eyes. I’m not sad or happy. I’m beyond either of those emotions. The tears are inexplicable. I’m just… moved.
I’m in love with everything about this man.
I guess that’s probably a natural reaction when someone turns the deepest secrets of your heart, splayed out in a starburst on paper, into something that transcends thought or genre or anything rational.
“Here.” He slips the guitar strap off his shoulder and holds the instrument out to me. “You play this, and I’ll play the piano. Sing it with me?”
I take the guitar with wooden hands, slinging the strap over my shoulder for safety because I don’t trust my hands. I also don’t trust my legs. They have one job, which is to hold me up, but I’m not sure they can properly do that at the moment.
Wilder is a hard act to follow, especially for someone like me, who learned how to play guitar late in life, from an app.
I’m never going to have the innate, instinctual ability that he does.
When I play, it’s basically shit, but even on my best day, it’s technical.
I can’t make the guitar come alive like Wilder does, and my voice?
For the love of the most feral honey badger, I’ll just leave that there.
But when Wilder slides in behind that glorious, sleek, grand piano and plays an intro, nodding at me as a cue to join him, he makes it seem easy.
My voice blends with his on the chorus and stands alone when he stops singing, but doesn’t stop playing.
It’s another miracle.
That Wilder can make me sound and feel like I know what I’m doing.
Like I’m gifted. He can take something ordinary and turn it into something transcendent.
We’re not recording anything yet, but even if we were, and he played it back and I sounded like a total trainwreck, the experience would still be etched into me as some of the most beautiful moments of my life.
When he asks me if I want to capture it, just for fun, I don’t turn him down.
We play together again, and the second time is even better because I know what to expect.
It still doesn’t sound scripted. Wilder sings every song of his like it’s the first time.
You can listen to his music on a recording, and it’s the same thing, but seeing and hearing it live changes it.
It brings the song to life. You can know it by heart and even play it perfectly yourself, but seeing Wilder up on stage, it’s a different experience.
That’s the every time is the first time deal.
After we play, I get to stand there and watch as Wilder picks up the bass and plays it.
He moves to the drums after. I know nothing about drumming other than the fact that it’s way harder than it looks.
But he makes it look easy and sound perfect.
Well, not perfect to any real drummer, I’m sure, but a different kind of perfection for being flawed and his.
He stands up after, like he didn’t just accomplish the craziest feat in the world, and strips off his long-sleeved shirt and the sweater vest, but sets the suspenders back in place.
Then he walks over to the middle of the room, picks up a mic, and belts out the rawest vocals.