Page 352 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
Her dad’s voice echoes her mom’s. “Love you! Tell your sisters hello!”
Audrey ends the call and drops the phone onto her towel. “So that was my parents,” she says, her eyes still laughing.
“They sound fun,” I say.
“They really are. You can follow them on TikTok if you want. They’re traveling the country in an RV, documenting their adventures, and they’ve gained quite the following.”
“Really? That’s awesome.”
“They’re pretty adorable. They were both music professors at UNC-Asheville until they retired together last summer and decided they felt like traveling.”
“I love that.”
She smiles, her expression warm and genuine in a way that can only mean the relationship she has with her parents is a good one. “Mom plays the cello, and Dad the violin. They have their instruments with them, and wherever they stop for the night, they have these impromptu concerts. Mostly in RV parks. But they’ve done them in the lobbies of hotels, in restaurant parking lots, in public parks.” She reaches for her phone. “Here. Look. I’ll show you the one that went viral.”
She scrolls and clicks a few times before she holds it up, the video already playing. I move through the water to get close enough to see, stopping just in front of her and dropping my hands onto her knees. She doesn’t flinch or move away, so I assume it’s okay.
Her parents are sitting in the middle of a gravel road, her mom sitting on a small stool while her dad stands behind her with his violin. They’re wearing Tevas and casual clothes and floppy sun hats, and there’s a small playground and a giant sign behind them that reads “Frank’s RV Park and Campground.” The music though—it’s polished and refined and a complete contrast to the casual surroundings. “That’s Bach, right?” I ask. “His Two-Part Inventions?”
Audrey’s eyebrows shoot up. “You know classical music?”
“Little bit.” I hand back her phone. “Your parents are great. I’m not surprised they’ve gained a following.”
“Hold up,” Audrey says, setting her phone down behind her. “People who knowa little bitof classical musicrecognize Pachelbel Canon. But Bach’s Two-Part Inventions?”
I grin. “Maybe I know more than a little? It’s the only thing I listen to when I’m getting in character for a role.”
She studies me for a long moment, her lip clasped between her teeth, and I resist the urge to reach out and tug her into the water just to have her close to me. “It’s what I listen to when I’m working,” she finally says, “and it’s pretty much all we listened to growing up.” She kicks the water lightly, splashing my chest.
“Are you ever coming in?”
She nods, then pushes off the deck and slides into the water. She gasps as the cold hits her skin, but then she drops all the way into the water, her head disappearing for a moment before she rises back up like some sort of ethereal water goddess, no care for what the water might do to her makeup—pretty sure she isn’t wearing any—or her hair.
I’ve been around women angling for attention, and that isn’t what Audrey is doing here. She isn’t trying to be sexy, but sheissexy. Maybe even sexier because she has no idea what she’s doing to me.
She runs her hand over her face and down her wet hair. “Do you have a favorite composer?”
I love so much that she seems to have forgotten that she came here for a purpose. We’re just talking, getting to know one another, and it really seems like she’s enjoying herself.
“I love Copland,” I say. “And Dvorak. And Eric Whitacre. He’s contemporary, though. What about you?”
“Bach, probably,” she quickly says. “Because he’s so familiar, but there’s also something about the intentionality of his work that appeals to my scientific brain.”
Once, after wrapping a particularly difficult scene inTurning Tides,Claire found me out on the beach, headphones on, listening to my favorite classical playlist. She stole my headphones, listened for a few seconds, then rolled her eyes, declared my music boring, and asked me to go skinny dipping.
“I like Bach, too,” I say, loving that Audrey and I have this in common. “I get what you’re saying about intentionality.”
Audrey holds my gaze, her head slightly tilted, then she shakes her head and sinks into the water, her palms lifting to her face. Her expression looks disbelieving, but why?
The fact that we both like classical music?
Or is it more than that? Is she feeling this too? This tension?
If she’s feeling even half the attraction that I am, she’s gotta be overwhelmed, because I’m nearly out of my mind.
Wanting her like this—it’s torture and bliss. Agony and ecstasy. But I don’t even care. Even if this goes nowhere, I’ll take the sting of that disappointment if it means even a moment of the pleasure that comes from her company.
Audrey Callahan has me hooked.
