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I rolled my eyes at him and his cheesy lines, making sure not to let on how much I liked it.
“So, how about you?” he asked, shifting on his bed, as if physically edging away from that conversation. “What’s your short list look like?”
I pulled my legs up so I could cross them on his bed, leaning my elbows onto my knees. “One guy. We went on two dates. He’d bring me gifts.”
“I’m slacking on the gifts front,” Harry observed regretfully.
“His were manipulation presents.” I leaned my cheek into my hand. “He tried to buy my feelings. For a while, it was nice, until he told me that after all those gifts, shouldn’t I give him something in return?”
Harry’s eyebrows rose. “He meant—”
“Yeah.” I smiled, even now. “I laughed in his face, and we never saw each other after that. That’s the extent of my very short list.”
Harry’s lips turned down ever so slightly at their corners. “Why so short?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re beautiful,” he said in an obvious tone, letting his guitar sing a high note. “You’re funny. When you sing, your voice gives me goosebumps. Why hasn’t there been anyone else? Anyone…serious?”
“I never really had the time to date.” With Mom running me ragged nearly all the time with little things she needed me to do, I’d never wanted to squeeze a dating life in the mix. Another reason rose, tickling my brain, demanding me to voice it. “That, and…well, I guess I was always a little afraid of what my parents might think.”
He made a soft humming sound. “You were afraid they’d disapprove?”
“I didn’t want to give them another thing to control.” The words drifted into the air before I really thought about them or the weight behind them, the truth in their depths heavy. Quickly, I shook my head, as if I could shake away the tension. “Play me something.”
Instead of stopping immediately in the mindless strumming, Harry took the chords and wove them together, the seamless beginning of a song I recognized. It was one of their popular acoustic songs, one he’d sung at his most recent gig.
Immediately, I closed my eyes and basked in the tune, unable to keep from faintly smiling. Quietly, so much so that his voice had a near-raspy quality, Harry began to sing.
Every cell in my body fell quiet. A hush settled over me, and I wanted to absorb every note, each pitch, bask in the resonance. He sounded so different like this, on his own, with no Natasha to back him up. The acoustics of his bedroom were softer from those in Crushed Beanz, more intimate.
I moved my mouth to the lyrics, knowing them by heart. “Sing with me,” he said softly, cutting into the chorus. When I opened my eyes, I found him looking at me. “Please?”
My first instinct was to say no, to laugh at the idea, but he’d started singing again, and I couldn’t bring myself to talk over him. He nudged my calf with his foot, urging me to join in. And when he reached the bridge of the song, I did.
In the places where Natasha would usually harmonize with him, I filled in softly, pinching my fingers tightly in my lap. I wasn’t nearly as nervous as I’d been the time we’d done karaoke together. This was different—there was no joking now, not a trace of purposefully bad singing, only a beautiful sort of peacefulness.
Harry’s fingers moved expertly along the guitar strings, but his eyes traced my face as if he was the one memorizing me now. Something brewed in his expression, something that looked on the edge of happy and unhappy, of panicked and calm, and I couldn’t figure out why. He held my gaze with an intensity that had me locked in.
I didn’t sound nearly as good as Natasha, but as I sat on his bed, it felt right to hear my voice mingle with his, like this song had been written for this moment between us.
He strummed the final note, fingers gliding effortlessly to a halt. I held still, waiting for him to speak first. And it took him a while to do so, long enough for my lungs to burn. “I love listening to you sing,” he murmured, but that look hadn’t faded from his eyes. “Your voice is beautiful.”
My hands trembled in my lap, and it was nearly impossible to force them still. “That was my line.”
The shadow in his expression split apart, a radiant light peeking through.
“You need to record that somehow so you can sing me to sleep each night.” I nearly snorted, effectively breaking the moment between us. “That sounded really weird, didn’t it?”
“That’s the dream, you know,” he said, and gingerly placed the guitar back in the case. “Recording songs, albums, have magazine interviews, songs on the radio…”
“How do you get all that stuff?” It couldn’t be impossible. So many bands advanced their careers.
“Maybe get a manager.” He raised a shoulder as he stood, moving to place the guitar case back against the dresser. “Maybe find a studio willing to let us record a single or an EP. Maybe get lucky.”
“It’ll happen,” I said with conviction, no other alternative possible.
Instead of sitting back beside me, Harry crouched down, placing his palms on my knees and hovering between them. “The idea of it makes me a little nervous. Like branching out is this scary thing. Part of me doesn’t want to advance further than Crushed Beanz. Is that weird?”
