“Oh,um.” Heat rushed to my face. “I can play it for you. It’s not finished, though.”
“And?” He shrugged and sat cross-legged on the floor beside the bed. “I don’t mind.”
I dropped down at the piano and placed my fingers on the keys, but paused before hitting the first note.
“Is this okay?” My hands circled in the air, gesturing to the floor beneath Sebastian. “You could sit on the bed, if you want to be more comfortable.”
“I’m very comfortable. Now, at least.”
“Huh?”
“I actually came up here because I was worried I might’ve done something earlier that made you feel like you couldn’t join the party with me there. Knowing you simply got carried away playing puts my mind at ease.”
“Why did you—?” I stopped, realizing I didn’t need an answer. I was so used to slipping away that it hadn’t occurred to me it might worry anyone. “Thanks for checking on me. I really did just get carried away.”
“So carried away that you didn’t even set up an extra bed.” He rested his left arm on the mattress behind him and grinned, glancing at the empty stretch of floor behind me—the only place where a second mattress would fit.
“Yeah, that,uh…I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
His eyes lingered on me for a few seconds before drifting down to my hands.
“Right. The song,” I said, placing my fingers back on the keyboard. I played a few chords with my left hand and layered the melody in with my right—as I couldn’t sing the lyrics myself in front of him—filling the room with the verse and the pre-chorus I had already worked out. Just before the chorus was supposed to come in, I stopped. “That’s all I’ve got so far.”
“Do you have any lyrics yet?”
“A few scribbles.” I reached for the notebook beside my laptop, where I always jot down words when they come to me. They’re usually fragments I arrange later into something that at least sounds meaningful. This time, though, I already had a handful of lines.
“Can I see?”
I handed him the notebook and pointed to the scribbles in the lower left corner. His eyes moved over the paper again and again.
“Can you play it one more time?”
“Sure.”
I played the opening chords. Just as my right hand was about to pick up the melody, Sebastian drew in a breath and sang the words I had written:
“I see him at the bus stop, laughing in the rain / I want to give him a ride, ease his lonely pain.”
His voice melded with the sound of my piano. Goosebumps spread across my arms, hands, and neck. As if he had heard the song a hundred times already, he sang exactly what I had envisioned. He even paused at the right moment during the pre-chorus. When we reached the nonexistent chorus, he kept going. His voice jumped an octave and held the note I had been cutting short for the past hour, letting it ring above the chords.Suddenly, the melody moved on, and the chorus unfolded as if it had been there all along.
“Oh, I wish I had a way to take you there / through the valleys, through the mountains, through the midnight air.”
My fingers moved instinctively, playing the right chords to accompany him. It all came together—my piano, his voice—as if this was bound to happen, as if the universe itself had been waiting for this song.The song of the guy who swore he’d never sing again.
When we reached the end of the chorus, and my fingers automatically moved to play the verse again, Sebastian chuckled.
“See? It wasn’t that hard, was it?”
I stopped playing. His voice still echoed in my head. I knew I had to record this right away so I’d remember it—just in case I was dreaming, and none of this was real.
“Would you…” My hands were shaking. “Damn, would you mind if I recorded this real quick? That was… I’m not sure I can recreate it if I don’t capture it.”
Sebastian glanced at the door, then at me. “I promised earlier, didn’t I?”
“Really?”
“Yeah, let’s do this. Just hurry so we’re done before the party ends.”
