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Me:I know I liked you being my first. It was awesome.
Ian:I really like you, Frankie.
Me:I really like you, too.
Ian:So how long does the no PDA rule extend after school?
Me:Let’s play it by ear?
Ian:Got it. Kiss your ears first.
He added a laughing emoji,and I grinned.
Me:Go away, funny guy. I need to use my brain now.
Ian:Be kind to that brain, it’s one of the sexiest things about you.
Okay,that sent a wave of heat crashing through me and set my face on fire. Groaning, I put the phone in do not disturb and got my crap out of my backpack. It was just after ten when I finished my final draft. I’d knocked out some homework and took care of the lit reading assignment Coop sent over. He’d added his notes, but it was all basic stuff.
I emailed Mr. G to let him know why I was absent from AP Euro, but I was already ahead on my reading for there, and it wasn’t like it was a grade. Calculus took ten minutes. But the rest of the time, I spent on the essay. I read it four times, corrected some minor typos, and then sent it over to Ian.
There was an essay from him in the inbox, too. He’d chosen theany topicand written about falling in love with music. It was deep and it was passionate.
Suddenly, mine seemed like so much garbage. I’d written about my job and trying to balance school with working twenty-five hours a week. Discussed how hard it could be to make sure I had enough money for gas or unexpected repairs, while still saving to offset the cost of college when I got there.
When you findthe perfect minor chord between two majors, you can live there for a moment. It’s the perfect note. The perfect beat. That’s where songs are born. But it’s also where the emotion we experience when we exist in that place betweenis my homework doneandI wish my friends were here. It’s a place of inexplicable joy. Every song has that one note, finding where it resonates with you is the key.
Mine was so—ordinary.Here Ian was writing about the passion in a note of music, and how coaxing genuine songs from an instrument was almost a seduction of his senses, because that was how he felt it.
It was… gorgeous.
I made a couple of minor corrections as I went through, shifted a comma and broke up a run-on sentence, but the last paragraph captivated me.
Music isanother world for me, a place I can journey whenever the mood strikes. It doesn’t matter how I played on the field, what my grades are, or if my parents are so busy helping others, they don’t have time for me. With my music, I’m never alone. I’ve only ever felt this way with one other person, and she’s nearly as magical as the notes. It’s a good thing she likes to listen to my music, because she’s as much my muse as music is my passion.
“Wow,”I breathed, and then looked up. “Minereallysucks.”
I glanced at the clock. I sent back Ian’s with the notes and told him how beautiful it was. I read it again because I could almost hear the music in the words, and that—that was impressive. He really did need to let himself invest in his music. He wassogood at it. Opening up a fresh document, I turned the prompts over in my head. The random one had seemed like a good place to start, but Ian found magic in his music.
He finds magic in me!
That feeling ballooned in my chest, but I shook my head and focused. I needed to figure this out. Staring at the blank screen where the cursor blinked away like a countdown to doom, I asked myself the same question over and over again.
What was magical in my life?
Chapter Thirteen
I wonder…
Tuesday dawned almost normal. I fed the cats, showered, got dressed, found the requisite texts from the guys on my phone, and savored it all while I ate cereal over the sink. I’d just rinsed out my dish when Coop showed up and let himself in. The smirk on his face made me laugh.
“Sorry, I’m early,” he murmured before he pinned me to the fridge. We had five minutes of solid making out that left my body humming and my heart racing. Lifting his head, he traced his thumb against my lower lip and I sighed.
“You know, I’ve never endorsed skipping school.”
“I know,” he said, the wistful note not lost on me.
“You’re making it damn tempting though.”
