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“No, the right words.” He smiled so sweetly his dimples popped. “You did good. I couldn’t get it right because I was on the wrong track. I was stuck in a groove, and once you kicked me out of it, I could see it from a new perspective.”
“Are you going to show me what you wrote? Or do I have to be like every other googly-eyed fan in the world and hear it when Van sings it tonight?”
“Why, are you going to the show?”
“It’s Vegas. Of course, I’m going to the show. Come with me. You can wear one of your disguises.”
“They only work from a distance. When you’re sitting next to someone on the subway or standing in a crowd backstage, they start to wonder, and then it doesn’t take them long to figure it out.”
“Poor baby, stuck on a luxury bus on a world tour with the most famous rock band in the world. Sleeping all alone on his mattress stuffed with hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“Oh, okay.” He nodded like I got your number. “You’re one of those people who thinks money can buy happiness.”
“Um, pretty sure that’s why you got into this business to begin with.”
“You got me there.” Closing his eyes, he set his bare feet on the edge of the coffee table. “I think I need a nap now.”
“Okay, old man.”
“I do feel old sometimes.” He said it quietly.
“Well, before you nod off, can you play me the new song?”
He opened one eye. “What, give you a free acoustic performance?”
“I mean, I could pay you something.”
“You can’t afford me.”
“Not to hurt your feelings or anything, but you’re just the brother of a famous musician, and it’s kind of sad that you want to ride on his coattails. Tell you what, one day, after Van retires, I’ll help you book some piano bars, and you can bill yourself as a Van Claybourne tribute band.”
He laughed. “You’re a cold, cold woman.” Setting his feet on the floor, he reached for his guitar and started strumming. “How quickly they forget who writes his material.”
“Is it really about the song, though?” She loved teasing him. “Or the hottie who’s singing it?”
He shook his head, strumming, fighting a grin.
“You’re giving me credit on the liner notes, right? ‘Cause I want royalties.”
“I’ll pay you a consultant fee in the form of a lobster tail.” The melody changed, and she tried to place this acoustic version with one of the songs she knew so well, but this was one she’d never heard.
In fact, it wasn’t Van Claybourne’s style at all. She went quiet, listening. It was beautiful and so evocative a knot formed in her throat.
When he finished, every emotion his melody had conjured lingered in the air, like the hint of her mom’s perfume in her closet back home. “What was that?” Her voice came out a whisper.
“Did you like it?”
“I loved it. It was…It doesn’t even have words, and I felt more from it than any song I’ve ever heard. Did you write it just now?”
Instead of answering, he played another one. He sang of longing and loneliness, the dream of finding a home and the right person to share it with. The isolation of being surrounded by people but not having that one person who sees you for who you are.
When he finished, he drank right out of the bottle of lemonade, not once looking at her.
He still felt alone. For all his money and travels and the closeness of a twin brother, he still feels the same loneliness that every other human being on the planet feels.
“I got my boobs when I was eleven. And I went from being a kid to a sexpot over the course of one summer. Instead of people wanting to hang out with me because I was fun, they wanted to date me so they could touch my tits.”
She could tell that every fiber of his body was attuned to her, listening.
