This Love

by Hilaria Alexander

  “I’m starting to figure it out,” I said, my voice raspy, a low flutter starting in my belly.

  “Why do you think I’m always around?” he asked, playful. His smile was so contagious.

  I smiled widely too, and brought my hands back to his hair, so silky in my fingers. I raised myself on my tip-toes and kissed him briefly again.

  Every time we kissed, I had the feeling nothing else mattered. I even forgot why we shouldn’t be kissing to begin with. I didn’t want to fall for him, but the wanting was stronger than anything else. Then other feelings would make me backtrack. I stopped the kiss, and he looked at me worried, before figuring out I was having second thoughts again.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I can’t do this right now,” I said, trying to put some distance between us, “Lieke is upstairs.”

  “You’re right,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets, looking suddenly a lot less confident than he did just seconds ago. “I’m going to go, but—” he grabbed me by the hips and pulled me closer to him, “let’s have dinner. Tonight. Just you and me.”

  “Okay,” I replied, without giving it a second thought.

  CHAPTER 6

  “We can’t kiss anymore,” I blurted over dinner.

  He was momentarily startled, but then smiled, placed his silverware down on his plate, rested his elbows on the table and leaned toward me teasingly, waiting for me to say more. The expression on his face was the complete opposite of what I would have imagined. He looked amused.

  “Can we do other things?” he winked.

  “No!” I gave him a scowl.

  “What can we do, then?” he asked.

  “We can hang out. We can play together. We can play music together.” I said, immediately correcting myself.

  “Okay then.” He stared at me, still enthralled by our exchange. “Can I ask what the reason of this sudden change was? You seemed to be pretty into it just a while ago,” he joked, still grinning.

  He was right. When he had left the apartment earlier in the day, I went back and forth on the reasons why I should stop anything going on between me and him. This, to me, didn’t feel like a regular hookup. We had spent so much time together already, I felt I knew him more than some people I slept with in the past. What would I do when he had to leave? Even if I did follow him to Florence, what would happen between us? I felt like whatever could be happening had some kind of expiration date slapped on it.

  But dammit, I kind of hated myself for doing this. Even more so, because he looked so handsome tonight. All dressed in black, just like me. Slacks, button-down black shirt, and black tie. He looked simply delicious. I couldn’t help but thinking he put all this effort into dressing up for me, as if he were some kind of present. Well, the thought of unwrapping him had certainly crossed my mind. But I knew better, and it could not happen. It was hard pushing him away, especially when my eyes would meet his, which seemed to pop even more against the black of his shirt. When he texted me to tell me where we’d be going, I quickly found out through a google search that it was a restaurant with a certain dress code.

  I had to scramble to come up with an outfit to wear, but I had found a nice black silk blouse, leather leggings, and ankle boots. I borrowed a statement necklace from Helga that went with the outfit. She, of course, gave me a wink worth a million words when she heard I was having dinner with Lou.

  “The boy sure knows how to play the game,” she had added. I rolled my eyes, thanked her for the necklace, and marched back downstairs.

  When he picked me up, I had made the “no kissing” rule in my mind, but I hadn’t told him yet. So, naturally, he gave me a small peck on the lips, and I didn’t back away. It did feel like the most natural thing to do, and it made me want to reciprocate the kiss. I should have said something then. Instead, I let him take my hand while we walked together.

  Now I was just staring at him, mesmerized by his good looks.

  “Why did you suddenly decide we shouldn’t kiss anymore, Ella?” he asked, still smiling.

  “I don’t want to be your rebound,” I confessed hesitantly.

  “Who’s the one making assumptions now? You wouldn’t be my rebound,” he said, and the expression on his face seemed to imply the rebound had already happened.

  “What would I be then?” The words came out before I realized what I was saying. It sounded like I was asking him what I would mean to him.

  “You would be someone impossible to forget. You would be Unforgettable, just like the song,” he replied without an inch of shame.

  “Oh God, stop being so cheesy!” I laughed and slapped him on the arm.

  He grabbed my hand and held it between his, bringing it closer to his mouth, kissing it briefly, and never breaking eye contact with me. He was just kissing my hand, but the gesture felt so intimate.

  “I’m serious. You know I could spend my time elsewhere, right? But day after day, you’re the only person I want to spend time with. I guess you don’t feel the same way I do about you.” He didn’t look mad, but the tone of his voice betrayed a certain sadness.

  “It’s not that,” I said, in a tone sounding so sweet, I could hardly recognize my own voice. I pulled back my hand and rested it in my lap.

  “I didn’t decide to stop this because I don’t like you,” I told him, looking straight into his eyes. “I have to put a stop to this because I don’t want to think about you after you leave.”

  He seemed to be shocked by my confession but quickly recovered.

  “Sweetheart,” he said with that southern drawl that would pop up from time to time, “you know you’ll still think about me, even if you put an end to things now. And then you’ll regret it. I thought you didn’t want to have any more regrets.”

  My breath faltered, my chest started heaving and I couldn’t bear to look into his eyes anymore. I exhaled a deep cleansing breath and tried to come up with something else to say, but thankfully, he filled the uncomfortable silence.

  “Can we just stop talking about how my mad kissing skills have you losing your mind? I honestly wanted to talk about playing music together,” he put the emphasis on the word music just as I did earlier. He was really set on this playing together thing, wasn’t he?

  “I should have been recording this album already,” he said tucking a strand of hair behind his ear, “but I was…distracted. I had seven or eight songs written down, I had been rehearsing them a bit on my own, but I didn’t feel ready to set foot in a recording studio and wasting anyone’s time. I couldn’t focus, I wasn’t ready to go through with the whole process. So I told the label I wanted to take some time off, and they were understanding…to an extent. They just wanted to make sure I was going to start working on it soon. Initially, they hoped to have this album come out by the fall…”

  I flinched. The fall? It was spring, and he had nothing ready. I didn’t know much about the recording process, but that didn’t seem like enough time for recording, mixing, and whatnot.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said while looking at the worried expression on my face. “I told them I’d work on it on my own, and I’d tell them when I’d be ready to go in the studio, but...”

  “But?”

  He took a deep breath and said, “I just spent three months like a recluse in my own home, trying desperately to find the will, the inspiration. I couldn’t bring myself to accomplish anything. It probably didn’t help that Ashley and I were in the midst of our divorce proceedings. I told you, we’ve been apart for a while now, and I’m not in love with her anymore.”

  He said the words looking at me like he wanted to make sure I heard them. That was reassuring, and yet I didn’t want to backtrack on my decision.

  His brows furrowed.

  “The whole process…it’s not fun. However amicable you might try to keep it, when a relationship that was your whole life ends, you end up feeling dead inside. You feel so defeated, like you’ve been stripped of a part of yourself. I believe it sort of killed my
creative streak. Josh suggested we take a trip, get away, clear my mind, so I could have a clean slate and start working on new stuff.”

  He looked at me as if he was waiting for me to say something. His eyes were fixed on mine, and then I saw them drift to my lips and then my neck. The look of desire in his eyes almost made me want to throw the no-kissing rule out the window. I had to tell myself to keep breathing and keep my shit together, even though every one of his little gestures was undermining my willpower.

  “I told you why Josh had to stay in Tennessee, and when I got here, I wasn’t really sure I would ever be able to accomplish anything. And then I met this girl that flat-out insulted me on the street,” he said with a mocking smile, nodding in my direction.

  “Oh my God! Are you ever going to let that go?” I asked him, tilting my head backwards, pretending to be exasperated by his comments.

  “Never,” he teased leaning forward, his face just a few inches from mine.

  I bit my lip and smiled back at him.

  “Anyway, the next couple of days, I wrote two songs.”

  “Did you, really?” This was the first time I heard any of this.

  “Yeah, and I hadn’t written anything in a while. The songs I was planning to use for the next album were all from a couple years ago. You know, unreleased stuff. I had been playing them on and off. I should have been just able to waltz in the recording studio and get them done, right? But they felt stale, and like I said, they were old, so they applied to stuff I didn’t really feel anymore. And personally, I don’t think there’s anything worse than singing about something that isn’t true and you don’t feel connected to.”

  “Agreed. That’s the same way I am about playing music I don’t feel a connection to,” I said pensively, thinking about my distraught relationship with the piano and classical music. His words, though, and the stale songs he was talking about, didn’t help take my mind off Ashley. Although Lou kept saying the two of them had been apart for a while before filing for divorce, it did look like she really did a number on him. The more he talked, the more I didn’t regret trying to stop whatever this was. The problem was that either way I thought I was undeniably destined to get my heart broken in some capacity. Maybe it wasn’t enough putting a stop to the physical attraction between us. Maybe I should have stopped seeing him altogether. But how? I couldn’t just tell him to get lost, could I? Could I ask him nicely to just leave me alone? And how would I even deal with that? I had seen him every day in the last couple weeks. Not seeing him anymore wasn’t going to make me any happier. My life in Amsterdam was quiet and safe, but I had to admit I hadn’t had this much fun in a long time, if ever. Maybe I was giving Ashley way too much importance. Didn’t he just say he wrote two songs after he met me? Were they about me? Only one way to find out.

  “So you really only have two songs,” I joked.

  “I actually have five now,” he grinned.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah, really,” he said, giving me another one of his intense gazes.

  “So what are these songs about?” I asked nonchalantly.

  “Well, actually…you got me thinking. That first evening, when I saw you play that song, it made me ask myself, ‘What do I regret? What would I have done differently?’ And I realized a few things.”

  “What things?”

  “It just got me thinking about a few decisions I made in my life. Did I regret making certain choices in my career? No. Did I regret getting married so young? No, I didn’t. Did I regret getting divorced? Yes and no. If I could have done anything in order to avoid it, yes, I would have, but I think there was really nothing I could have done to prevent it. I think more than anything else, I missed the sense of belonging to someone. Life on the road is hard, but Ashley and I both knew that. However, what I do regret is how things ended. Even before we started dating, we were friends. There was a lot of love there, so how did we end up like that? When did it all change? How did we come to the point of despising each other so much? Thinking about choices and regrets made me realize that someday I hope we can still go back to being friends. I want her to be happy and I know that she’d want the same for me too.”

  So this song was more about his doomed relationship with Ashley than me. It stung a little. Still, I was the one that gave him the spark, apparently. But I couldn’t deny that it made me uncomfortable hearing Lou talk about his soon-to-be-ex-wife this way. I knew that I shouldn’t be as affected by it as I was, but I just couldn’t help being a little jealous. Although he did sound a lot more optimistic than the first time the subject came up.

  “Wow, you do sound less bitter than the first time we talked,” I meant to make it sound like a compliment, but realizing too late it might have the opposite effect.

  He burst out laughing. “Did I really sound bitter when we talked?” he asked with a smile.

  “A little, maybe…” I said, a little embarrassed. “Maybe you were just frustrated with the press more than anything,” I added, trying to make up for it.

  “Probably so,” he said leaning in toward me, the omnipresent smirk on his face.

  “So, going back to the songs, I really need some help. First off, I need to try to rehearse with someone. I need to get a feel of how the songs sound. Also, I need to have someone who could be a sounding board—other than the very opinionated Hans Koll—and I think you’d be perfect. You’re never afraid to say what you think. I know you can do this, Ella. I have seen you. I have confidence in your talent. You need to be the one to believe it.”

  Wow. I suddenly felt very thirsty and had to drink a sip of water before I could look back at him and answer to that. Thankfully, he kept talking.

  “What if we play in the afternoon after the restaurant closes? I asked Johan and Helga and they said they’d be okay with it.”

  Talk about being proactive. He only needed me to agree to it, didn’t he?

  “You really thought of everything already, haven’t you?”

  He didn’t reply but gave me a lopsided grin.

  “What about Florence? You know I can’t come. What about recording it here?” I asked.

  He laughed softly. “Actually, I talked about that with Johan and Helga too. They didn’t make it too big of a deal, just like I told you. They said they’d make it work even without you around. They know this would be a good thing for you. If you decided to come, I’d have the label draft a contract and everything.”

  “That’s very generous of Johan and Helga to agree to it, but it doesn’t feel right leaving them, you know? I owe them a lot!” I replied.

  “I know you feel that way, and I have considered the possibility of recording it here, trust me. The problem is, it’s not that simple. I already know I would have everything I needed down there, and the label already agreed to it. If I had to go back to them asking to record it here, I would have to get that approved or pay out of pocket. The main problem, though, is that I know I have already wasted enough time and they’ve been pretty understanding. I can’t keep changing my plans. I don’t want them to lose their patience with me.”

  And just like this, we were at an impasse. Well, I guess for now, we’d start playing together and then we’d say goodbye. I had no idea what was going to happen. What I did know was that I was excited and terrified at the same time.

  In the following days, Lou and I started playing together in the afternoons. Sometimes, Johan and Helga would still be around, doing something in the kitchen or things around the restaurant. Other times, Lieke would be with us. Overall, it was quiet enough for us to rehearse. He would teach me to play the songs he wrote, we’d make changes together to the melody and to some of the lyrics.

  I told Ally I had started helping him and the first thing she asked me was, “Have you signed any contract? If not, stop anything you’re doing now. You don’t owe him a thing.” That was true, and still, I felt this was a learning experience for me. I didn’t really care about being compensated for it. It’s not like I was cont
ributing that much. He mentioned signing a contract if we did decide to record together, and that made sense. I kept thinking about changing my mind and going to Florence. But I didn’t trust myself around him.

  I thought that putting an end to any physical interactions would put a stop to my attraction for him, but I was wrong. So wrong. The problem was that Lou Rivers didn’t play fair. I made the mistake of taking him to one of my favorite music stores in Amsterdam. No one knew who he was, but when he started playing an electric guitar, everyone was immediately captivated.

  What’s even funnier, is that it was clear it came so natural to him. Each gesture was so effortless. It really looked like he wasn’t doing it to draw attention, but soon enough he had everyone’s eyes on him. And I was swooning, so hard. I felt like I was going to turn into water and collapse to the floor like in that scene from Amélie.

  It wasn’t any easier the next day, when he caught me learning to play a Ryan Adams song watching a YouTube tutorial. I’m used to it being so quiet in the restaurant after we close. Usually the doors are always shut, so when he stormed in, he scared the beejezus out of me and I almost dropped my guitar. I’d always let him in after we closed in the afternoon.

  “Jesus! Couldn’t you have knocked?”

  “The door was open. Johan left it unlocked for me.”

  “I see,” I told him as he took a seat next to me.

  “Why are you always so damn tense?”

  “Hmph,” was all I replied. I turned back to the tutorial on the computer screen.

  He sat next to me, of course.

  Why did Johan and Helga have to leave the door open for him? I felt like he was always sneaking up on me.

  “What are you doing?” He asked, peeking at the screen.

  “Nothing,” I said trying to close the page.

  “Jeez, you’re so stubborn. Let me see!”

  “Fine!” I relented.

  “Oh! I thought you were trying to hide something…like trying to learn the chords to one of my songs,” he teased with a look full of mischief.