“Can I hear one?”
Hayley laughed. “Absolutely not. They’re all about animals, anyway. I wrote one about how much I hate mosquitos. It had lots of buzzing and slaps as the chorus.”
“Sounds like a number one hit to me.”
“My mom thought so too. She’s a bit biased.” Hayley stretched her leg out, touching Bryce’s foot with her own. “It was easier to write songs when I was little,” she said. “The pressure is higher now that people expect them to be good.”
“That must be difficult,” Bryce acknowledged. “Do you get feedback on songs you draft?”
Hayley nodded. “Michael, my mom, Mia. Sometimes Valerie. I haven’t had much time to write since coming off my last tour. It’s just… constant motion. No time to think. And yet, my label wants a new record sometime this year.”
“Have you got any songs in progress?”
Hayley stared at her hands, chewing her lip. “One.”
“Let me hear it?”
“Oh no. It’s too rough.”
“But I’m your biggest fan,” Bryce made puppy dog eyes and clasped his hands. “Pretty please?”
“I just wrote it a couple days ago,” Hayley hedged. “I worked on the melody today. It needs a lot of work.”
“If you let me hear the world premiere of Hayley Wild’s newest single, I will…” Bryce cocked his head, thinking. “Sing you my award-winning original composition from my second-grade talent show.”
“You write songs too?” Hayley smiled, bemused.
“Just the one.” Bryce said. “I was teased about it for the rest of elementary school, until the kids found something new to tease me about. Which wasn’t hard. But I did win a fifth-place ribbon for the competition, so I hold my stance it’s an award-winning original.”
Hayley rested her chin on her hands. “Ok - fine. I’ll sing it for you if andonly if, you sing me this award-winning ballad. And possibly let me cover it on my next album.”
“It’s all yours.” Bryce grinned. “Full copyright. If you want it, I’ll gift it to you completely.”
“Deal,” Hayley held her hand tout o shake. “Let me get my guitar. She hopped off the stool and went into the living room. “What else is there to know about you?” she called.
Bryce took a drink. “Where do I even start? Let’s see, I was a chubby nerd who got beat up a lot and didn’t have many friends. I played a lot of video games and liked to take apart computers and rebuild them. By the time I was in high school I was using my self-taught skills to steal other people’s money.”
Bryce stared at the counter, worried about what she’d think of his confession. He didn’t normally tell girls anything about his past, but Hayley was different. “Still think I’m alright?”
“That depends,” Hayley said, coming back with an acoustic guitar. “Do you continue to steal? Is this job just a fun charity case for you?”
Bryce shook his head. “I stopped stealing after I got arrested. The military recruited me for cyber security, so I avoided jail. Mostly. Did a few years in the army, got out and worked in the corporate sector. And now here I am, doing private security.”
“That’s quite a trajectory,” Hayley said, tuning the guitar. “You didn’t feel bad, stealing money?”
“Honestly, not really.” Bryce said. “I was a kid who hadn’t grown up with much, in a town run down by big, rich CEOs sending their business to China. I only stole from people so rich they wouldn’t notice a few dollars off the top. I feel a little bad about it now, but that’s also why I don’t do it anymore. If I didn’t feel bad – I’d go right back to it. The money was a lot better than honest work.” He grinned. “But the clientele wasn’t so nice.”
“So, how many other clients have you taught self-defense?” Hayley’s eyes narrowed and she stood the guitar on her thigh.
“One,” Bryce answered honestly. “A stockbroker who thought he could be Bruce Lee after thirty minutes in the gym. He wasn’t a client, though. Just a coworker with a beer belly.” He rubbed his toe along the bottom of her foot.
Hayley set the guitar back on her lap and strummed. “Ready?”
Bryce folded his hands in his lap. “So ready. If someone told me last week I’d get to hear a new Hayley Wild song before anyone else in the world, I’d have smacked them for messing with me.”
Hayley’s cheeks reddened again. “Here it goes, then.” She began to play “Perfect Strangers”, her voice filling the room’s vaulted ceilings, even as she sang softly to match the acoustic guitar.
Bryce clapped hard when she finished. “Wow,” he said. “That’s… beautiful. But of course it’s beautiful. You could sing anything, and it would be beautiful. You just wrote that?”
