She pursed her lips. “Why can’t you just play guitar at home?”
“Uh…” I shoved my hands in my pockets. “My dad would freak.”
That was putting it mildly.
She stared at me blankly for so long, I started to fidget. “What?”
She gave her head a little shake like she was coming back to reality. “Sorry, I was just picturing your dad as the mean minister fromFootloose. So, like…does your dad hateallmusic or just your music in particular?”
For what felt like the millionth time since I’d met her, Collette’s statement left me blinking in confusion. This girl never said what I expected her to say.
Maybe that was why I liked being around her so much. She was this odd, utterly unique little spitfire.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about withFootloose, but the answer is neither. He doesn’t even know that I play.”
She pursed her lips, her hands on her hips. Finally, she said, “Explain.”
If she were anyone else—or even if she’d phrased it any other way—I might have deflected. Come up with a half-truth to explain my situation. But with this girl, I just knew that half-truths wouldn’t cut it. She spoke honestly and openly, and she expected the same in return.
“My dad’s the mayor.”
She didn’t so much as blink, and her expression looked utterly unimpressed.
“He’s also kind of a control freak,” I said. “He has…plansfor me.” The man had my life mapped out until I was forty. Undergrad at Yale, law degree from Harvard, move back to this town and take over the law firm where he’d been a partner until he’d left to pursue politics. Join him in the Senate—because by then, he would have already been elected—where we would be the first father/son duo to take over the legislature.
I assumed at some point he’d find me the perfect wife—one who would provide me with the requisite two-point-five children who’d live in our home with its white picket fence.
“I assume his plans for you don’t involve learning the guitar,” she said.
“You assume right.”
She did that head tilt thing again, like she was sizing me up, looking at me from a new angle. “So…what areyourplans for you?”
The question felt like a sucker punch. It literally left me winded. It took me a second to realize why.
No one had ever asked me that before. Not just the way she’d phrased it, but the general gist of her question. I couldn’t think of one person in my life who’d ever stopped to ask me what I wanted for my future. Not my mom, not my teachers, not mycoach…and definitely not my dad.
She didn’t wait for an answer, which was great since I didn’t have one. I was still reeling from the weight of the question. What did I want?
“Do you want to be a musician?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I don’t think so. I mean…I don’t think I’m good enough.”
She arched her brows as she considered that. “You’re probably not. I mean, it does take ten thousand hours to master something. Even if you played every single second of every single day, you haven’t even scraped the surface.”
“You’re probably right,” I said.
“You need to practice more.”
It was a valid point, but the more I thought about what she was saying, the more certain I was that I didn’t want to make a profession out of music. It was the one thing in my life that gave me pleasure right now—even if it wouldn’t make my dad go ballistic—to add that sort of pressure to it would defeat the purpose.
“My buddy Ryan,” I said. “He’s really talented. Like, natural talent. And he’s obsessed with creating music…” I shook my head. “I enjoy playing, but music is more his thing.”
She nodded, her expression thoughtful. Her arms were still wrapped around her middle, clutching that hoodie around herself like a robe. “So what’syourthing?”
I stared at her in confusion. “What do you mean?”
She finally let go of herhoodie so she could flap her hands in impatience. “I mean, which house are you in? What makes you tick? What are you passionate about? What’s yourthing?”
