Page 35 of Play the Last Track
In the moment, I forgot about all the cameras and the people that were likely watching us because Flynn is so famous. It felt like I was hanging out with a friend.
No.
It felt like I was on a date.
A scraping sound pulls me from my thoughts. Justin is pulling the chairs from under the tables and stacking them on top. My chefs closed up the kitchen over an hour ago. Monday’s aren’t allthat busy, but I gave myself a shift tonight knowing that Flynn would be out of town. The house is a little too empty without him there. It feels weird.
The game was on here anyway. Flynn scored three touchdowns, and I watched every single one.
I look back down at the picture of us in the bowling alley. It makes me feel …
I don’t know. Or at least, I can’t name it.
It’s not butterflies or anxiety. It’s not nervousness. It’s almost as if it’s comfortable. I’m relaxed and happy, and laughing in the picture, so I feel all of those things looking back at it. But then I remember what happened the last time I let him in, and I can’t seem to correlate the two feelings.
It’s confusing.
“Whoa.” Justin leans over the bar and looks at the photos. “I cannot believe you’re dating Flynn Reed. That’s so awesome.”
“Uh-huh,” I murmur, not really paying any attention.
“Are you just staring at pictures of the two of you making out?” Justin laughs when my gaze shoots up, and I scowl at him.
“No.” I close the paper and tuck it away in my bag under the bar. “There’s a picture of Ivy and me that I really like and want to keep.”
Justin just laughs as he collects his things. I walk him to the front door. “Drive safe,” I tell him as I wave him off. It’s just past eleven p.m., and as I lock the front door to the bar and start my rounds of all the windows to check their locks, my fingers start to feel like they’re buzzing.
When I’m confident I’m safely locked inside of Pat’s, I turn out the lights to the main bar area and make my way down the hall to my office. Two years ago, when I started doing more ofthe management stuff for Mom and Dad, I decided to convert the office into a secret studio. I never sat in here doing any actual work, so it was hardly used, and Mom has her own down the hall, so it’s all mine.
I turn on my computer, get the recording program up, and then set the camera to the right angle. It isn’t a very fancy setup. I don’t have the same production value as some videos I see across the site, but considering this is my secret channel, I don’t think anyone cares.
Years ago, when I gave up playing music and singing in the quad, I started to feel like I had lost my connection to music and how happy it made me when I was playing it. Grant obviously hated me playing at home, so when I started to work more here at the bar, I just switched.
I started staying late and extending my hours. I started adjusting my schedule so I would close the bar down because once I did, I retreated into the office and I played.
Then, one day, I posted a video of myself playing and singing an acoustic version of a reworked Adele song onto an anonymous YouTube channel. It blew up.
So I posted another. And another.
Never showing my face. Never saying anything other than when I sang the lyrics to the songs I chose. I didn’t have any fancy editing or production. I record directly onto the site, and then I just press upload. No caption, nothing.
Just me and my music.
I take a deep breath, getting up the sheet music and the lyrics for ‘Better Man’by Taylor Swifton the screen in front of me. When I press record, and I strum the first few bars of the music onthe guitar in my hands, everything fades away. Grant. Flynn. Fake relationships. Real feelings.
While I’m playing, while I’m singing, I’m free.
Chapter Ten
Katie
Weddingmagazinestakeoverthe dining table. There is a large piece of cardboard with circles drawn on it and other smaller pieces of paper stuck around the corners. Of course, Ivy would make her own seating chart. Any excuse for arts and crafts.
“Katie, look,” Flynn whispers from his seat beside me. I glance up from the magazine I’m looking at. He’s got a grin on his face as he holds up the little pieces of paper with our names on them. “It’s us in seating chart form.”
I shake my head, suppressing a laugh as he turns the two little pieces of paper into one another and touches them together, like he’s a child playing with dolls. Flynn and I are sitting next to each other with Ivy and Scott on the other side. This morning, I got a panicked call from Ivy, freaking out that she’d been engaged for almost six months and hadn’t planned a single thing. She begged me to come spend my Sunday with her to get the ball rolling.
I was almost out the door when Flynn caught me, made me tell him where I was going, and then decided to come along. “I’ll drive,”he’d said, and then he just ushered me to his truck.
