Page 9 of Verses

“You know music. You could figure it out.”

That was the dirty secret I’d never told a soul. Ididn’tknow how to read music, not one bit, but I’d always fooled everyone—the guys, our audience, even the choir teacher the one year I’d sung at school. It wasn’t that I hadn’t wanted to, but my mom could never afford to get me lessons, and I couldn’t figure it out on my own. But I’d always been good enough to fake it. I wasborn with a natural ability to sing on key—and when I looked at a staff, I could get a general sense of a song based on if the notes moved up or down on the scale. It helped having a general sense of middle C.

Beyond that?

All by ear. All by memory and faking the hell out of it. Deep down, I feared I’d get caught someday, but all my songs had been written in my head and heart, and all I had to jot down was the words.

The melody…that was in my head. What I wrote down wasn’t notes but words.

Verses. Chorus. Bridge.

But if I needed to pick up an instrument and read those lines, notes, and shit to translate it into music, I just couldn’t. I didn’t know how.

And it was a dirty secret I’d never told the guys…and I didn’t know if I ever would. I wasn’t lying at all when I repeated, “I don’t know how to playguitar.”

“Exactly. Well, Idoknow how to play guitar, but I also know I can’t playleadguitar, any more than you or Pedro or Adrian, okay? You guys are asking me to do the impossible.” Kyle stood, walking the few steps toward the kitchen area. “The ultimate conclusion is our band is just done, and you guys’ll be happier when you join me in that realization.”

“You’re wrong—and your negativity isn’t helpful. Fine if you don’t want to or can’t.Fine.But why can’t we find another guitarist?”

After grabbing a cup out of the cabinet, Kyle slammed its door shut. “That’s like shitting on Liam’s grave.”

“No!” Bolting up from the couch, I walked over to Kyle. “Shitting on Liam’s grave isnotplaying the amazing music he wrote, not sharing all the awesome songs he came up with. Letting them die with him—that’sshitting on his grave.” And Imeant that deep in my heart. Liam had been a gifted musician if I’d ever met one—and he’d even written some of the lyrics to our songs. “Will our band change without Liam? Yeah…but I believe that he would want his words and music heard by the world. And he would still want us to follow that dream and get his message out there.”

That was the first time I saw Kyle’s eyes actually soften since we’d begun the conversation. Maybe what I was saying was finally having an effect. The pain he’d been feeling was cutting him off from everything else. Finally, he gave me a quick nod before turning on the tap to fill his cup with water. But he didn’t look at me. “Well, I don’t know thatIcan go on without Liam.”

The silence was heavy but I didn’t want to push, so I just stood there, waiting for him to make the next move. He put the glass to his lips and drank half the water before setting it on the counter.

At last, he looked at me. “So maybe you guys can just form another band without me.”

I touched his arm. Maybe I wasn’t head over heels for this guy anymore and probably never would be again, but I still cared about him, cared about the pain he carried, the guilt he lugged around like a boulder. “Why don’t you just sleep on it? Don’t make the decision now. And if you feel the same way in the morning, then maybe we can have a meeting tomorrow night instead of a rehearsal.”

His eyes searched mine and in them I could see the understanding. When his eyes drifted to my lips and he touched my forehead with his index finger to brush back a lock of hair, I stiffened.

“I’m sorry…I’m just not in the mood tonight.”

“You’re always in the mood.”

“Not tonight,” I said as he brushed the hair off my shoulder. “I’ve been through too many emotions.”

“Aw, come on.” Lowering his lips, he started to kiss my neck. “You know makeup sex is the best.”

Forhim. But it was always bad for me. I always gave in, though, every single time. Maybe it was because I felt like it was a way of showing love…but I never personally felt better after it.

Tonight was no different. I gave in, and we wound up making love. But having sex was better than one of us sleeping on the couch. That was the only other alternative.

Afterward, as I fell asleep in his arms, I said what I always did every night before going to sleep. “I love you, Kyle.”

Muttering against the back of my head, he replied, “You too, Hayl.”

But I didn’t believe the words coming from either one of our lips. Wecaredabout each other, to be sure…but the love ship had sailed long ago. Still, looking back, I wish I’d cherished that moment in his arms more than I had, because there was no way I could have known then thatthatwould be the last time Kyle and I would ever make love.

CHAPTER 4

After getting home the next day from work at my job as a barista at Early Rise, the only gourmet coffee shop in Charlotte, I went to the bedroom and found Kyle still sleeping. Try as I might, my empathy flashed to anger again—and, even though it wasn’t my place to tell the guy how to mourn, he was wallowing.

The way his mouth hung open with his head turned to one side on the pillow made me worried he was taking smack again.

Grabbing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt out of my drawer, I shed my work clothes and got dressed again. After sitting on the edge of the bed to put my sneakers on, I turned to look at Kyle once more.

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