It’s a favorite of mine, carrying that same thread of longing I was caught expressing only a minute ago. But rather than shut it down the way I always do with an audience, I let myself feel it all.
This is the first—and maybe the only—time I’ll let myself admit that I’m not just playing for what was lost. Not just for my family. Not just for their hopes and dreams. Not even just formine.
Lou makes me want to stop living in the past. She makes me wantmore.
More of what, I’m not sure I’m ready to admit.
Not even to myself.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LOU
Patty plays for me, at my insistence, and when his tendons must be screaming with exhaustion, he finally stops. The room is still thick with music, the echoes of his fingers on the keys vibrating through me.
I hide my face in my hands. “I can’t believe you have to hear me play night after night. You must be so embarrassed for me.”
He chuckles and shakes out his hands, rolling his wrists like he’s worked them to the bone. “Embarrassed? You’re a great pianist.”
“No. You’re like a modern Mozart, and I’m here plunking outTwinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. And not the versions he composed,” I add quickly.
Patty leans back, his light brown eyes warm with amusement. “You make a good point. Anyone who isn’t a Michelin-trained chef should stop cooking altogether.”
I laugh despite myself. “You know what I mean.”
“Of course I do,” he says. “That’s what I’m saying. If you can’t throw a football like Duke Ogden, you shouldn’t even look at the thing. Every other quarterback in the NFL should be ashamed of themselves.”
“The difference is that they’re all at least playing in the same league. You and I are not.”
“So?”
“So, I’m embarrassed!”
“Why?”
“Because my sound guy is a better musician than I am.”
He stills for just a second, something shifting in his expression. “Is that how you think of me? Your sound guy?” he asks, and I’m relieved that he sounds teasing instead of, well, hurt.
“Of course I do,” I say solemnly. “You are now and will only ever be my sound guy. Except for when you’re my bodyguard. Or co-writing songs with me, thank you very much. Now get in your box, please, and stop showing any other facets of your personality.”
Patty nudges me with his elbow, a playfulness in his actions that I haven’t seen from him before. A playfulness I like. A lot.
“I’ll get right on that after I check out your parents’ guitars.”
He gets up from the piano bench, stretching his forearms, and walks along the wall of guitars, his face etched with a naked appreciation I find way too appealing.
I could never be with a guy who doesn’t feel this way about music. Not that I have plans to be with anyone. But if I do ever fall in love, it’ll be with someone who looks at my dad’s guitars with this exact reverence.
In TikTok speech: Find yourself a guy who looks at you the way Patty looks at a 1957 Gibson Les Paul Special.
I raise an eyebrow. “Want to jam?”
“Desperately.”
I take the guitar down and hand it to him, and he drops onto a stool and starts casually picking a song. I recognize the intro toOrange Blossom Specialimmediately. It’s an old bluegrass song that’s fast, fiery, andfun. Patty’s just messing around, but his fingers move so effortlessly, so instinctually.
Without a conscious thought, I grab a custom five-string fiddle from the case on the wall. The moment my bow touches the string, the song ignites. Patty looks at me with excitement on his face, and I start sawing away, my playing precise but playful.
