“Tell me,” I say, my voice no longer just thick—it’s nearly breaking.
“I want more when I’m with you. But I think that starts with you filling in some blanks.”
I take a breath, letting her words sink in, letting the possibility of her—ofus—take up residence in my chest.
“Let me ask you something: if you have a piece of sheet music and some measures are missing, does that mean you don’t know the song?”
“Not perfectly, I don’t,” she says.
“Does anyone know another person perfectly?”
She exhales, a quiet note of frustration in the sound. “Maybe I’ll never master the tune, but I can’t even play it if I’m missing measures. And I’m not just missing measures—I worry I’m missing entire pages and that when I start trying to play, I’ll look like an idiot.”
Her words hit like a sharp chord struck too hard—a little off-key, a little painful, because I know exactly what she means.
I pause, searching for the right words, for something true and fair. I twist a strand of hair between my fingers, slow and deliberate, like I’m committing the texture of it to memory. Then I cup her cheeks and look at her, willing her to understand what I can and can’t give her.
“What if those missing measures aren’t missing on purpose? What if they’re being revised? What if the melody’s changing into something better?”
A gentle smile spreads across her face. “Sounds like you need a co-writer.”
Something tightens around my lungs—hope, fear, the terrifying realization that I want this so much more than I should.
But the thing about revisions is that some drafts are too messy to even show another person. Some pages are smudged, torn, nearly illegible. Part of me aches to let her see them, but what if she doesn’t like the melody anymore? As much as she may want to see that ugly first draft, some of those missing measures are too discordant, too raw, too risky to share before I’ve had a chance to smooth them out.
But I don’t tell her that.
All I say is, “Okay.”
Her expression doesn’t change right away, like she’s waiting for me to add something. To say more.
Maybe I should. Maybe “okay” isn’t enough.
I drop my hands from her face and take a half-step back, dragging a hand through my hair as I try to find the right words. “I don’t want you thinking I’m keeping things from you because I don’t trust you. Or because you don’t deserve to know.” I drop my head. “It’s just—I’m not ready for you to see my messy first draft. I know that means asking you to trust me, me keeping something back, but I need time to figure out what I’m looking at before I hand it over. Can you work with that?”
Her eyes soften. “I can work with that,” she says. “As long as you don’t expect me to stop asking.”
I snort. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
PATTY
We don’t bother taking a cab or an Uber. There’s enough going on along the main tourist strip that we’re able to walk into the first attraction we see.
Well, the first attraction Lou sees.
“You want to go to a go-kart track?” I ask as we stand in line to buy tickets.
“No,” she says, smiling. “I want to ride the Ferris wheel.” She leans against me and points to the big red-and-white wheel moving slowly inside the park.
“A Ferris wheel?” I ask. “You can ride a Ferris wheel anywhere.”
“But I don’t want to ride a Ferris wheel anywhere,” she says, grinning. “I want to ride one in Branson, Missouri. With a hot dog, Coke, and cotton candy.”
“Is that all?” I mutter as we pay at the ticket booth and walk in.
“No. I also want you to win me that oversized pink teddy bear.”
