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He repeated the gentle, comforting melody. He played it a few more times, allowing the notes to hang in the air like a balm. It seemed to soothe the punk rocker. The young man’s shoulders had almost touched his ears when he’d hurled the questions. Now, with every strum of the guitar and each soul-satisfying rise and fall of sound, the tightened coil within the kid loosened. He uncrossed his arms and relaxed into his chair, waiting for Landon’s reply.
“That’s a fair question,” Landon replied.
She had to admit, even though he hadn’t gone as far as sharing about his neurodiversity, he was good at connecting with these teens and young adults, who clearly came from challenging backgrounds. Then again, maybe it wasn’t such a stretch. He’d done a hell of a job as the online music substitute teacher, Landy Candy.
“At the time,” Landon continued, “we were just kids who were excited to have gotten picked up by a record company. We didn’t dwell on what they wanted us to promote and what they wanted us to leave out. We were grateful to be making music and gaining fans. But we weren’t completely naïve. We understood that they wanted to project an image. We knew our parts. Trey was the cool bass player. Leighton brought the edge, and I was the—”
“—heartthrob,” Maria Magdalena supplied, lightening the mood.
Landon nodded. “Yes, the heartthrob. We took on these personas and went from zero to sixty in what felt like a matter of seconds. There are still days when I can hardly believe it happened the way it did.”
“But it’s just you now. You and your niece, right? I read something on the internet that said you’d taken custody of her,” the spiky-haired guy posited.
The kid didn’t appear to have an agenda. The stillness of the room and not one person’s face illuminated by a cell phone spoke to the fact that these people were genuinely interested in how Landon was doing.
Her husband must have gotten the same vibe. He didn’t tense, and the telltale muscle that ticked in his jaw when he was about to lose his cool hadn’t twitched. “Losing my sister and Trey was hard. And yes, I’m raising my niece, but I’m not alone,” he added and tossed her one heck of a panty-melting grin.
And hello, Swoon City.
Again, she gave thanks for the piano bench.
But was he telling the whole truth, or was he playing to the audience? It wasn’t like he could tell them their marriage was one of convenience.
“Mr. Paige, what do you want this next chapter of your music career to look like?” called a person from the back of the hall.
Landon didn’t turn toward the source of the question. Instead, he kept his attention fixed on her.
Despite promising herself she’d never fall for a musician again, she had.
“I want to make the kind of music that inspires people to believe in themselves and believe in the people they care about,” he said, pegging her with his gaze, and cue the swoon. Her battered heart collected his words like audible treasures. He turned to the crowd, and the spotlight warmed his beautiful face. “I want to pen songs that don’t just play on the radio or blast into your earphones to be forgotten seconds later when the next track plays. I want to make the kind of music that frames moments and captures memories.”
Sweet lyrical gods, this man had a way with words.
“We’ve got time for one more question,” Donna said, guiding the conversation.
“What do you do when you’re blocked and the music won’t come?” came a voice from somewhere in the middle of the hall.
“That’s a good question,” Landon answered. “Back when my sister, Trey, and I were starting out, sometimes the lyrics and melodies wouldn’t flow. My sister and Trey liked to play Scrabble. And we’d do this thing where we’d pick a word from the board, then start riffing on it.”
“Can you and Harper demonstrate?” came the rich, rolling Eastern European accent belonging to Madelyn Malone.
Landon raised his hand to shield his eyes and peered out into the audience. He turned to her. “Is that who I think it is?” he said under his breath.
“Uh-huh,” she answered with a smile pasted to her face while her eyes said, that’s crazy, right? What’s the red-scarved wonder doing here?
He eye-replied back with, yeah, it’s bonkers-ville, but we’re being livestreamed worldwide, so keep grinning.
Just keep grinning.
“Do you want to give it a go to see if we’re any good on the fly?” he asked her loud enough for the audience to hear.
“Right here? Right now?” she tossed back, giving the crowd a little banter to gobble up. She held his gaze and saw nothing but gratitude in his eyes—gratitude for her.
There was no going back.
“Throw out some suggestions,” Landon said, speaking to the crowd.
“Romance,” Michel Laurent suggested and got a few cat calls from the crowd.
