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She was surprised at how well-rested she felt, although the caffeine was kicking in now, and she somehow felt even better.
When she got there, the tiny parking lot only had one other car in it. The air had an earthy aroma to it, and the trail was soft and muddy asshe started off to the right. Birds chirped and somewhere in the distance a woodpecker tapped its beak against a tree, the rhythmic sound echoing through the air.
As Natalie walked her mind drifted back to last night.She had so many emotions, so many thoughts. She’d only just met Sienna, but there was this strange familiarity between them that could only be explained by the fact that Natalie hadn’t realized how desperate she was for that kind of a connection, that common love for music, and maybe Sienna was just that kind of person.
Sienna did have that almost indescribable quality that would at some point make her a superstar. She was beautiful but not in a Hollywood actress way.Sienna was more real. She was raw. She was passionate about music, but not in a way that was intense or standoffish. It was like she radiated that passion, and Natalie had been pulled right in.
She never spent too much time thinking about her old music. It still hurt too much, but a part of her wondered now what she’d be like if she’d pushed through that uneasy feeling years ago. Because that had to be the reason she felt so good today. It was like an invisible weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
She’d confronted her past. She’d sang those old songs, and maybe now they wouldn’t haunt her anymore.
Natalie couldn’t believe how freeing it was and also how that urge to sing those songs had come out of nowhere. She’d never had that feeling before. Those songs had so much negativity attached to them after everything that had happened, even if they’d been born out of so much love.
And the difference had been Sienna.
Hearing Sienna on stage, singing her song… Maybe it was hearing it sung so differently or maybe it was just hearing it for the first time in so many years. Whatever the reason, it had sparked something in Natalie.
By the time she got back to her car an hour and a half later, she had to spend a few minutes typing her thoughts into the notes app on her phone. Even though she’d been writing songs all along, she hadn’t felt this inspired in years. There was just a lightness surrounding all things music for her right now, and Natalie had to take advantage of it.
8
The dim light in the bar cast a warm, amber hue across the stage. The faint murmur of conversations mixed with the clinking of glasses as Sienna made a slight adjustment to one of the strings, getting as comfortable as she could on the hard wooden stool. Sienna had been playing Thursday nights at Vinnie’s since she was twenty-two, and it was still the highlight of her week.
Vinnie knew she was talented. Just about everyone in town had heard her sing at some point whether it was at the county fair at the end of summer or at the Christmas tree lighting most years, but he’d offered Sienna a spot on Thursday nights four years ago, and it had worked out nicely for both of them. Sienna loved having a regular paying gig, and Vinnie acknowledged that Thursdays were his busiest nights by far.
Sienna had worked there since she’d turned twenty-one, bartending three or four nights a week, so this place was like a second home to her, and she couldn’t remember the last time she was nervous coming out for her set.
Tonight was a little different though.
Just as she was coming to the end of her second song, her eyes landed on Natalie as she came through the door. Her hair was down, falling across her shoulders in waves, the copper tones catching under the warm lighting.
Sienna had closed her eyes as she’d finished the song, not trusting herself. She could easily get distracted if she kept her eyes on Natalie and the way those dark wash jeans hugged her curves or how that black leather jacket suited her perfectly.
Sienna had only seen Natalie a handful of times in the last month, when they’d both been coming or going from the bakery, and they’d chatted for a few minutes, but neither of them suggested getting together to play music. Sienna still wasn’t sure what to make of that, but she tried not to let it get to her, and she didn’t want to be texting Natalie and maybe bothering her.
Natalie knew that Sienna was interested, and that was how they’d left it. Sienna had been sure that Natalie would want to spend an evening like that together again, but it just hadn’t happened.
When Sienna’s eyes fluttered open, she was met with applause and a whistle from somewhere at the far side of the bar. She thanked the crowd, noting that once again the bar was filling up nicely for a weeknight.
She never took that for granted. She knew she could walk in here one night and be playing to a handful of people. It still made her heart swell with pride knowing that most of these people were familiar faces who rarely missed a Thursday night at Vinnie’s.
As she tuned her guitar, she couldn’t stop herself from scanning the bar, and she spotted Natalie making her way over to the corner booth at the back of the room, a bottle of beer in hand.
Sienna introduced the next song, moving through her set with minimal amounts of talking. She’d never been particularly witty, and she didn’t want to bore the audience with the background to a song or the reason why she’d chosen to sing it, but when she came to her last song, she spontaneously decided to swap out her usual, easily recognizable cover for her newest song.
“I’ll leave you tonight with one of my own songs,” Sienna said, a slight tremor in her fingers as she adjusted the capo. “I think I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of serendipity and things happening by chance, but it’s not until you experience something like that, that you realize how magical it actually is, and how it could potentially change the direction of your life.”
Sienna had glanced in Natalie’s direction several times during her set. She couldn’t not. She was doing it before she even realized what was happening.
But this time, Sienna deliberately cast her eyes towards Natalie, holding her gaze as she introduced the song, a tingle chasing up her spine when Natalie didn’t look away.
Sienna’s interpretation of that night they’d spent hours playing music together might not really change the direction of her life. That was most certainly a reach, but something had happened that night. For both of them, she believed, and she’d just woken up with a line in her head about chance meetings.
The idea that Natalie had been within earshot of Sienna singing one of her songs, and that Natalie had stuck around to talk to her… If Sienna had sung that song earlier in the set, Natalie wouldn’t have heard it. If Natalie had been walking by ten minutes later, Sienna’s gig would have been over.
There was just something that felt quite a lot like magic at play when people and events lined up like that.
And that wasn’t the only song that had come to her without her even trying. It had been like that all month. This was the sixth song she’d written since she’d met Natalie, and in the year prior to that day, she’d written only ten songs.
