Page 61 of Second to None

I looked up at Emily, hands on her hips as she assessed me. The grave impression was somewhat lessened by her pink, frilly bathing suit. We’d bought it the day before in a tourist trap kind of shop, the three of us browsing for silly hats and outrageously patterned shirts, posing with feather boas and party glasses, until she decided that this wasthebathing suit for her. I wasn’t sure she’d taken it off since.

“The song I’ve been working on?” I asked, tilting my face into the late afternoon sun. To me, it felt more hopeful than sad, but I could see how a kid would have a different interpretation of whatever snippets she might have caught.

“No, yourmusic.” Her tone implied I was being willfully slow on the uptake, and, uh. Levi had let her listen to my music? Or Levi’s parents? Some of it wasn’t exactly... child-appropriate.

I glanced at Geoff, who was reading a garden magazine and taking notes, while Levi and his mum were in the kitchen, making pizza dough from scratch. Apparently, Levi had discovered his inner baker—something about the smashing success of triple chocolate muffins he’d done for Emily’s birthday.

“It depends,” I told Emily. A smear of flour on her cheek suggested she’d tried to help with the pizza preparations. “I’ve got quite a few happy songs, too.”

Especially on my first album, when I’d tried to carry on the Neon Circuit combination of mostly upbeat pop with an edge, hiding behind other people’s songwriting. The second had been more honest, more mine, and same for the third, but my singles still tended to be of the less personal variation.

“Not a lot,” she said with utter conviction. “I listened to it with my friend, because Lee did your concert.”

I set my phone aside—no need to review the plans for next year’s tour right this very moment. “Well,” I said. “You’re kind of right. I guess I was a bit sad when I wrote some of those songs. Because I made some mistakes, you know? It’s really important to think about your mistakes and learn from them.”

She pursed her lips and gave me a shrewd look. “Because you broke Lee’s heart?”

Wow, okay—talk about a punch to the gut.

Geoff had stopped flipping through the magazine, although he kept his head ducked over the page. I cleared my throat, breathing in the scent of rosemary blooming in the garden, and tried to choose my words with care—good chance Geoff would report back to Cecily, and I wouldn’t put it past Emily to share her version of this with Levi. So, no pressure.

“That’s a big part of it,” I told her. “I was scared, you see? So I broke both our hearts and made us sad.”

She digested this, green eyes the same shade as Levi’s. “And now you’re not scared anymore?”

“I’m still scared.” I shot her a tiny smile. “But I also think I’m a little braver now.”

“Because you learned from your mistakes?”

Man, kids were awesome—all linguistic laser focus, and if they liked something, they locked on and fired it back when you were least prepared. My assistant had a son, and whenever she brought him over, he’d pick the weirdest things to repeat, verbatim, with the earnest sincerity of a six-year-old.

“I really hope I did,” I told her.

“So does that mean…” She paused, clearly still working through the whole thing, her face scrunched up. “If you’re still scared, but you’re braver… Does that mean you won’t break Lee’s heart now?”

Yeah, that kind of hurt.

“Well, sweetheart. It’s, you know. It’s not that easy.” I forced a smile and didn’t dare look at Geoff. “Your Lee and I —we’re not together anymore. He doesn’t love me like that.”

“But he’s helping you.” She said it like that disproved my words. “Like, he’s gonna hold your hand and stuff, because you’re his friend. Don’t you love your friends?”

Child logic. It all seemed so simple, didn’t it?

“Yeah,” I said. “I love my friends a lot. But it’s different from the way I”—love—“loved Levi.”

Her nod conveyed all the wisdom in the world. “Because you want to kiss him.”

Movement on the edge of my vision made me glance over. Levi stood in the doorway, his dark blue T-shirt dusted with flour, head tilted at an angle that made me wonder how much he’d heard. I’d said nothing he didn’t already know—other than maybe the thing about my music because I suspected he’d steered clear of me, at least for a while. Not that I blamed him.

“Yeah,” I said softly, still looking at him. So what if his dad was listening too? I had nothing to lose. “Yeah, I do want to kiss him.”

Something eased around Levi’s eyes—an almost-smile. Without a word, he turned to head back inside while Emily pondered whether she would want to kiss any of her friends. The answer, apparently, was no, although she thought they were all beautiful because they were her friends soobviously.

When Geoff flipped to the next page, I leaned back in my chair and tried to forget that our days here were coming to an end.

CHAPTER15

Levi

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