Listening.
To her.
To her stories, her words, the way she saw the world.
But she was in Nashville. At the 5 Spot or the iconic Bluebird Cafe. She tried to force her performance into New York, but it just wouldn’t fit, like a puzzle piece being shoved into the wrong place. She’d been doing this more and more lately—daydreaming about shows, about stages. New York. Nashville. Chicago. She couldn’t seem to stop them, the images behind her eyes, all that she still wanted for herself swirling in her mind with Lola, withafter, with her nearly crippling fear about trying it all again.
But daydreams were safe, watercolor pictures, fading as soon as she—
“Brighton.”
Her eyes flipped open, the daydream vanishing once again, to find Lola standing over her, bent slightly to shake her shoulder. Adele was staring at Brighton too, that old guitar of hers sitting between her legs. Brighton frowned at Adele, but then Elle, Manish, and Sloane came up from the basement, their instruments in their hands. Manish carried Rosalind in her case, set her gently on the coffee table.
“Sorry,” Brighton said, “I was lost in thought. What’s going on?”
“Nina wants us to play some Christmas music,” Lola said.
“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Brighton said, taking out her earbuds and slipping them into a pocket of her jeans along with her phone.
Lola nodded, squeezed her shoulder. “I want you to play with us.”
Brighton froze, her eyes going to Adele’s guitar. Adele held it out, and Brighton felt herself shrinking into the couch.
“What? Lo—” She stopped, swallowing as she remembered that Lola didn’t want anyone to know about their past. “Charlotte, I…I can’t. You all know how to play together. I’ll just mess it up.”
“You won’t,” Lola said, her voice gentle.
Brighton knew that Lola wouldn’t make her play. They’d been extra soft with each other since last night, since Brighton had found Lola outside Elements practically hyperventilating. Sloane had wordlessly given up her bedroom, moving in with Adele so that Lola and Brighton could share a room during the time they had left, and Brighton had never been so grateful. Just falling asleep with Lola. Waking up with her. The slow, quiet sex they’d had last night…then again this morning. It all felt like medicinein Brighton’s veins. But a medicine that woke her up too. She’d felt restless all day, her fingers drumming on countertops, her thumbs running over the calluses that were very nearly gone.
She figured it was all because ofafter, because she and Lola still hadn’t talked about it, hadn’t talked about what had upset Lola at Elements, and every time Brighton thought about New York, she felt just like she had five years ago—trapped, giving away some part of herself…but that part of herself was gone anyway.
Wasn’t it?
The Katies had destroyed her hopes of playing music. And yeah, she’d let them, but all those daydreams, they were just that. Dreams. As much as might want to, she wasn’t sure she could make it alone.
She closed her eyes, saw herself again on a dimly lit stage. Just her…but then there was Lola, the two of them, just like they’d been at Java Blues and that tiny bar in Boston when they’d been at Berklee.
She shook her head, opened her eyes.
Impossible dreams. That was all those images were.
Still, when Adele stood up and handed the guitar to her, her heart rate picked up, her stomach fluttering, as though she’d just caught sight of an old lover after years and years apart.
Brighton stared at the instrument for a second—the shiny lacquered surface, the worn strings in need of changing.
“Take your time,” Lola said, then kissed her on the forehead and turned away from her, opening Rosalind’s case and lifting the violin out with a reverence Brighton remembered. Her chest tightened, then loosened, a dizzying dance that she couldn’t seem to stop.
“Baby girl,” Adele said, still holding out the guitar.
Brighton took it, her fingers tingling as she touched the wood.Adele sat next to her while she watched the quartet tune and warm up, laughter on their lips, a camaraderie that Brighton missed so much she could cry. Nina sat on the other side of the sectional, her mug in her hands and Snickerdoodle’s head lying in her lap, her eyes a little glossy as she watched Sloane at her craft.
The guitar felt hot in Brighton’s lap, her hands barely holding on to it, like it might actually burn her. It was facing the wrong way. She flipped it, carefully, her left hand settling on the neck, her right draping over the body. Still, she let her hands hang there, barely pressing on anything.
“ ‘The Holly and the Ivy’?” Elle asked, their fingers ready on their cello. They’d pulled in dining chairs, now situated in a semicircle in front of the Christmas tree.
“Must we start with the Jesus stuff?” Manish asked, scooting to the edge of his chair, holding up his viola with his chin alone.
“It’s festive and notthatJesus-y,” Elle said. “And it’s instrumental. Make up some words in your head about Dorian’s long-ass eyelashes.”
