Becky Wicks - Before He Was A Secret (Starstruck #3)

by Becky Wicks

  ‘I will. Can I drive you anywhere?’

  ‘I have my car, I’m good, thanks.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Next block over.’

  For a second that feels like forever I sit looking up at him. He runs a hand through his thick hair as he studies me in what I think is amusement. ‘You planning to drive like that, Fred Flintstone?’ he asks eventually.

  I look down, pull my legs inside the car quickly. Damn, Stephanie.

  Conor shuts the door and walks away, smiling.

  4.

  Conor

  Two weeks later

  ‘I want that one again!’ River cries, pointing to the used Gibson Explorer. I reach for it before the nine-year-old can grab it himself and send the thousand-dollar instrument crashing to the floor. I hate making people pay for their mistakes in here, but it happens more than you’d think and my father isn’t exactly the most forgiving man when it comes to stuff like that in his store. Or anything for that matter.

  ‘How’s Grace?’ Kurt asks me now as I hand his son the Gibson and River drops to a stool with it, starts picking out a tune. He plays it every time they come in here.

  ‘Grace is great,’ I say on autopilot. ‘Everything’s going great. She’s out of town right now, though. Left last night.’

  ‘Ah yes, the annual Anderson jaunt,’ Kurt says, nodding his big gray head. ‘Don’t they gather everyone together in the Caribbean?’

  ‘Jamaica this time,’ I say, fixing my eyes on River. The strings sound dull unplugged, but he’s not at all bad. I notice a little girl watching him in awe now.

  ‘Right, I remember the Pastor saying now,’ Kurt says, folding his huge arms over his bulky stomach. ‘Three weeks in Montego Bay and Negril, wasn’t it? It’s alright for some.’

  I smile politely as predictably River stops and asks if we can wire the Gibson up to the amp. I can’t exactly say no. I help him, flicking the front of his baseball hat playfully as his fingers start flying over the frets. The little girl’s eyes bulge and so do mine. ‘Woah now!’ I say, stepping back and watching him play. ‘I’m impressed, you’ve been practicing, huh?’ River grins up at Kurt and I with gaps in his teeth, then grins at the little girl. He’s a good kid and I really am impressed. He’s one of those people who can pick up any instrument and exhibit expert skill in no time at all. He played at some Hearts Community event a couple months back and I remember the applause, but I’ve seen them all in here.

  Fret used to sell only guitars, but over the years it’s expanded to house pretty much every instrument under the sun and we get everyone coming through; from celebrities to tourists, to locals. I know all the regulars. I’ve been in and out every day since I was born, pretty much, and in the past five years I’ve spent working here I’ve gotten to know pretty much all of them. Unfortunately, they all know me, too.

  ‘Why didn’t you go to Jamaica with Grace?’ Kurt’s wife Anne asks me now, walking over from the songbook stand and looping an equally large arm through her husband’s. They both look at me expectantly for a moment. I motion around us, looking for my father. I spot him, over by the tambourine stand, talking to some guy in a Predators shirt.

  ‘Busy season. I’m needed here,’ I say quickly, ‘excuse me one sec.’ I head over to where a student in a Belmont shirt is eyeing up the electronic drum kits and busy myself with avoiding any more of their questions. Grace Anderson and I have been the most exciting topic in some people’s lives for a long time – especially people like Kurt and Anne, who also attend the World of Hearts Christian Center. There’s no greater love story in the Hearts Community than that of the beloved Pastor’s daughter and the son of Nashville’s most respected (and wealthy) music store owner, even though I haven’t attended in weeks.

  I’ve been busy. It’s been eight months since I set up the Notes for Hope Foundation – arranging free music lessons for children and youth in state custody. I’ve had my work cut out, what with local media interviews, delegating work to all the generous volunteers and also keeping the store open all hours in peak season. My father insists on one of us being here at all times alongside the other staff - it’s how we maintain our reputation as the friendliest family business in Nashville. An irony that never escapes me. Still, if I’m going to own and run this place one day by myself, I can’t start devoting less time to it. He’d take that about as well as he’s going to take the news about me and Grace.

  ‘I came for an Alesis kit, but how’re these?’ the student is asking me now and I realize I’ve zoned out again. I’m so tired today.

  ‘The Yamahas are pretty good,’ I tell him, dashing a hand through my hair, ‘but the Roland HD-3 Vs are on special right now, so you’ll get a free stool and sticks. Less than five hundred bucks, too. Want to test them out? You can add a beat to River’s song over there if you like.’

  The guy shrugs and I move the stool around for him, stand beside him adjusting the levels as he sits down. I hand him the sticks. He smells of marijuana and coffee. I need more coffee. I barely slept again.

  Last night we laid on my bed, a meter apart, just holding hands as the pain we’ve caused each other stacked itself in solid form like bricks between us and prevented us from saying anything else. When her cab arrived I walked her to the door, carrying her bags.

  ‘Don’t let them do anything crazy,’ she said finally, resting one hand on the doorframe and the other against my chest, looking up at me with watery emerald eyes. ‘We’re doing the right thing. I know that.’

  I kissed her out of habit, and because she’s been a part of my life for so long, and because I knew that as soon as that cab rolled away, she wouldn’t be ever again. Also because, in spite of our mutual agreement to finally set ourselves free, I’m afraid for us both right now. ‘Don’t let them break you either,’ I said. Grace is going to Jamaica, but after that she’s moving to New York, where she’ll study business accounting at NYU Stern and ride horses with her rich older cousin on the weekends in the Hudson Valley.

  As the college kid starts his beat on the drums and River starts a new riff, their music joins forces and flings my tired brain back even further in time – back to the look on my father’s face when I plucked up the nerve to tell him Grace and I were an item.

  We were sitting on the porch swing on another muggy July night, watching the lightning bugs flicker on and off. For years, maybe like all kids do, my brother and I believed they were fairies. ‘Don’t screw it up like Micah did,’ was all he said, puffing on his cigarette and turning my excitement into fear in an instant like some foreboding wizard, as the white fog curled from his nostrils into the night.

  My stomach lurched as I realized he and the entire Hearts Community would be watching me even closer from that point on. But I was seventeen and Grace’s lips had long became these crazy, hallowed pillows I would dream about. I finally got the chance to feel them against my own, three dates in when I drove her home. We were sitting outside her house in my car. Reba McEntire was singing Fallin’ Out Of Love on the radio just as I was falling into it. I was telling her about the fairies as they buzzed in the trees beside us, but before I knew it we were making out and there were no more innocent thoughts left in my head.

  Just six months later of course, my father and everyone else in the community was frowning down on me, even as I did my best to be her everything and not to screw up… like Micah did.

  ‘These sound amazing, man! I’m gonna have to take them,’ the student’s saying now, breaking into my thoughts. ‘I think the credit card can handle it.’ Three of his friends are standing round, tapping their feet. ‘Thanks for the jam, dude,’ he says to River as he gives the kit a final flourish with the sticks and River ends his dramatic tune and opens his eyes.

  Anne and Kurt laugh as he blinks, like he himself has just been sucked back into reality from a dream. Only two things on this earth have the power to transport you, mind and soul to another world, I think suddenly to myself. Music and love. I’ll have to
write that down when I get a second.

  ‘We’ll take this one, too,’ Kurt says now and River stands up so fast his stool crashes over. Luckily his new, used Gibson is clutched tightly in his hands.

  ‘Really?! Oh my god, thank you, daddy! Thank you!’

  Kurt sighs through a smile as River wraps his skinny arms around his dad’s bulk and Anne ruffles his hair. ‘I think it’s about time. If we have the new Hendrix on our hands, he’s gonna need the right tools to continue his mastery, ain’t that right?’

  I can’t help laughing as I go about unplugging the amp and help them and the college kid with their purchases. I give both of them the customary free branded guitar picks before they leave, promising as usual to deliver the drum kit by noon the next day.

  I make most of Fret’s deliveries in the area myself – another one of the friendly family services my father insists on us offering. My grandfather did the same thing when he first opened the store. I never really minded. I get to know a lot of awesome people this way and I’ve landed a lot of teaching gigs like this, too. It was seeing all these homes and privileged kids and families that first gave me the idea for the Notes for Hope Foundation. Some of the kids I teach have lost family members to drugs; something I can relate to. Not everyone is born lucky, or even gifted, but I’ve always thought everyone should have the gift of music in their life. I know it’s saved mine a hundred times over.

  I’m just about to tell my father I’m heading out for a much-needed coffee when the door opens again and a familiar face starts looking around the store. I stand rooted to the spot for a moment, till her eyes find mine across the songbook stand.

  She’s wearing The Nice Rack uniform again and I catch the vague scent of ribs and BBQ sauce in the air as she walks around the books. ‘Hey, Conor,’ she says. I notice how her hand moves up to a necklace around her neck as she stops in front of me. It’s half a guitar on a silver chain, longwise, hovering above the neckline of her red shirt.

  ‘Well hey, miss Jackson,’ I say in surprise as my heart gives an unexpected leap. I’m not entirely sure if I should be extending my hand or kissing her cheek or what, so instead I do neither and put my hands in my jean pockets. She does the same instantly, studies me through her bangs. ‘How’ve you been?’

  ‘Great,’ she answers and she smiles with those white teeth that I noticed the other night are cutely crooked along the bottom, like a row of melting icecaps. ‘I’m just on my lunch break.’

  I frown, looking at my watch. ‘It’s ten-thirty.’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘I’ve been on shift since six a.m.’

  ‘Oh, right. Wow.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s crazy.’

  ‘It’s that time of year,’ I say. ‘I was just going to go grab a coffee, wake myself up.’

  ‘Well, I won’t keep you.’ She pulls something out of her pocket. ‘I just remembered, I found this and I’ve been meaning to give it back, but things have just been so busy…’ She trails off and holds out her hand, drops a guitar pick into my palm. I smile, almost laugh.

  ‘Where did you find this?’ I say, closing my fingers over it.

  ‘On the sidewalk the next morning. I think it fell out of your pocket when you kicked that asshole to the curb… literally.’ She smiles and the icecaps gleam and I contemplate not telling her, but Stephanie’s already looking over my shoulder at the box of picks on the counter by the register. She pulls a face and I notice her cheeks flush a little. ‘Oh,’ she says, rocking onto the heels of her white cowboy boots. ‘I see.’

  ‘Yeah. Plenty more where this one came from,’ I grin. I don’t miss how Ariana is pricing up some CDs behind me, listening to every word we’re saying. ‘But I appreciate you bringing it home. That’s very noble of you. You must be a southern girl.’

  ‘Born and raised.’

  I put the pick back into the box behind me and at the same time, pick up five or six more, hand them out to her. ‘Here’s your gift for being so honest.’

  She laughs, shaking her head as I drop them into her palm. As she puts them in the pocket of her daisy dukes I can’t help notice how tan her slender legs look against the white of her boots. She’s tiny, but curvy at the same time. Not that I should be registering this girl’s kickass body at all.

  ‘Do you play?’ I say, putting a thumb through my belt loop. In my mind I can still see her staring up at me from below the stage in McFlannerys that time; the way she came with me when I sang my song. I can still feel the weight of her gaze as she sat down in her car and I forced myself not to let her drive me home. I lean back against the counter, studying her face in the light. She’s really pretty. Her blue eyes look bigger for being framed by thick blond bangs. I’m guessing she’s my age; twenty-four, maybe a little younger.

  ‘I play some guitar, sure,’ she says and I notice her eyes are sweeping the store. ‘No pianos in here?’ she asks, almost warily.

  ‘Nope, just keyboards.’ As I say it my eyes land on my father, still over near the tambourine stand. ‘You want a piano?’ I say to her as I watch him wander across the floor, start showcasing a Fender six string to a guy in sweatpants and flip flops.

  ‘No,’ she replies. Something in her voice draws my eyes right back to her face. ‘I loved your music, by the way,’ she adds. ‘You really have an incredible voice, Conor. And your lyrics… wow. The one about the battlefield, and the other one, about the girl wearing your shirt…’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, as a flicker of something I don’t even want to address starts stabbing at my heart. I focus again on the silver guitar around her neck. I wonder where the other half is. ‘I want to write, more than I want to sing. This city is all about the songwriters, you know?’ I say. ‘Have you been to any more decent open mics lately?’

  ‘A few, but like I said, I’ve been kinda busy.’ She throws me a flustered look that I can tell is masking some kind of annoyance at herself. Then she confirms it. ‘I haven’t even been to the Hall of Fame yet.’

  ‘You’re kidding me?’

  ‘Nope. I mean, I went to Ernest Tubb’s, saw the Midnite Jamboree stage, but I swear the ghost of Elvis was mocking me ‘cause I couldn’t even afford to buy a record.’

  ‘The prices are hiked, you’re not the only one.’

  She smiles. ‘I haven’t seen much but hey, I can reel off nineteen different salad dressings in less than fifty seconds!’

  ‘Impressive. Listen,’ I say, an idea forming. ‘I’m still really needing that coffee…’

  ‘Oh, right, sorry…’

  ‘How long do you have left of your lunch break?’

  ‘Forty minutes,’ she says, looking to my watch. She grabs my wrist suddenly, looks at it closer. ‘Make that thirty-eight.’

  I reach for my hat on the counter, avoiding Ariana’s eyes as I put it on my head. ‘OK, that gives us some time, but we have to move fast.’ My eyes find my father again. He hasn’t seen us.

  ‘Time for what?’ Amusement crosses Stephanie’s features as I motion for her to follow me back to the door and out onto the street. It takes me three minutes to reach Mitch’s stand and grab the two iced coffees with half-and-half on the corner of 4th. I hand Stephanie hers and she squints at me in the sun for a second, sucking on her straw before I hurry her alongside me, through the crowds on Honky Tonk Row to where they start to thin and Broadway dead ends into 1st. ‘Where’re we going, Mr Mysterious?’ she asks, laughing.

  ‘You need to start seeing what really matters in this city,’ I tell her and we keep on walking past the restaurants and tourist tat stores and oversized plastic Elvis Presleys. I lead her to the Court of Flags and smile to myself as I see the food truck Lou told me I should never visit if I want to keep what she calls man-boobs off my chest. Obviously I didn’t listen. I figure I work out enough.

  ‘Two please,’ I say to the bearded hipster guy with a nametag reading Henry, and he sets to work putting the fluffy buttermilk biscuits into the cardboard containers and adding a dollop of thick vanilla cr
eam and homemade strawberry jelly to the corner of each one. Stephanie looks on with eyes wide, making an exaggerated mmmm sound. ‘Do these taste as good as they smell?’ she asks, leaning on the steel counter.

  ‘They’re award-winning,’ I confirm and she smacks her lips as she takes the trays from Henry and I hand over ten bucks. They’re more than worth it. I lead her on to Riverfront Park and we drop to the grass, watching the kids run around and the families chattering away, looking out over the river.

  ‘The secret to success for biscuits… so my grandmother used to say, is to work the dough as little as possible and keep the fats cold for twenty minutes in the freezer. Helps them rise,’ I tell her, stretching my legs out in front of me and scraping the cream and jelly over my biscuit with my plastic knife. I remember I didn’t eat breakfast and I’m starving.

  ‘You should be a baker as well as a guitar maker,’ Stephanie replies, before taking her first bite of a biscuit next to me. I watch as the flour covers her lips and she licks the jelly from the corner of her mouth. A look of total pleasure crosses her face for a second as she chews and smiles and closes her eyes again and swallows. ‘Wow, I can see why they’ve won awards.’

  ‘Right?’

  ‘Right. I really did need to experience the real Nashville. Thanks, Conor.’ Her hair blows around her face in the breeze as she takes another bite.

  ‘I wish I made guitars,’ I say, putting my biscuits down next to me. ‘Fret’s the family business. I’m all set to inherit it one day.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ she says smiling. ‘It’s a great store.’

  I nod, ignoring the twinge of discomfort I always get when I think about the responsibility Micah left me with. We were meant to run it together. That was his dream for our future, not mine.

  She's still looking into my eyes. The blue of hers mesmerizes me for a second. They’re oceans. ‘Stephanie, why are you here, if you don’t mind me asking? I mean, not that The Nice Rack doesn’t deserve you.’