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She knocked at the front door and waited for Delanie to answer.
“Hey sweet girl, he’s in his room.” She smiled at her, and Hollis squeezed past to run up the stairs.
Before she even got to his door, she could hear the sounds of the string instrument echoing off the hallway walls, and he sounded…kind of good.
She peeked her head around the corner and watched him for a few minutes. He had a music sheet out in front of him as he sat crisscrossed on his bed. She remembered thinking that he looked way more grown up this way and that thought also made her kind of sad but then she realized she was just being stupid. Everyone needed to grow up eventually. Just because she was twelve and he was sixteen didn’t mean that he was going to leave her behind.
Jax started strumming his fingers across the stings of his guitar again, a pick between them–not noticing that he was being watched. He focused on what was in front of him as he was trying his best to get the song just right.
He’d been trying to learn the same song for weeks now, and he was so close to perfecting it. It kind of meant something to him, and the moment he got the guitar, he knew what song he wanted to learn first.
Hollis walked into his room and got close enough to alert him of her presence without scaring him and the second he saw her, his smile curled beautifully across his face.
“About time,” he said to her as he scooted his music over and patted the space next to him, allowing her to sit.
He uncrossed one of his legs and let it dangle from the bed as she cozied up next to him, not too close but close enough for her to feel butterflies.
That was a first, she’d never felt a feeling like that before. But she shook it off and focused on Jax who was preparing to play her something.
“Let me guess, Mary Had a Little Lamb,” she quipped.
“You’d be so lucky,” he joked back. “No. I found this song recently. It’s actually kind of old. But I just really liked it so I wanted to learn it because…” Jax trailed off knowing that he probably shouldn’t tell her that he liked it because it reminded him of her.
That would be weird for best friends, right?
“I just liked the beat of it,” he settled for, and she just gave him a curious look.
She straightened herself to feign importance and he rolled his eyes at her. She just giggled as he positioned the guitar across his lap and got his pick ready.
Jax took a deep breath, feeling more nervous than he did before because practicing was one thing, but actually performing for a person—especially one that meant a lot to you—was a whole different ordeal.
She waited patiently, seeing that he was hesitating. It was kind of cute because Jax didn’t get nervous about much. She watched him intently, watching the way his hand shook ever so slightly on the strings over the soundboard and the way his fingers adjusted over the fingerboard—all things that he walked her through before attempting to play the song.
When he started, she held her breath. She didn’t recognize the tune, and it sure as hell wasn’t Mary Had a Little Lamb, but she couldn’t figure out what song it was. At first, he just played the instrumental part of it. She swayed in awe as his fingers worked beautifully to play the song. She felt flips in her tummy to the sounds of the tune, not knowing what that meant. But she enjoyed the feeling, especially when Jax finished playing the song and looked right at her eyes.
He was searching for her reaction. And when he didn’t get one right away—because she was speechless—he immediately got defensive.
“I know the words. It might be better with words but my voice isn’t singing material, so I’ll keep practicing.” He sounded a bit frantic, like he thought she might have hated it. But she really liked it.
So much so that she wanted him to play it again and again and again.
She smiled at him before saying, “Words might add to it, but I think you did good without them.”
They looked at each other for a few moments, letting the space between them settle into something neither of them could explain. It was soft and warm and new. But they were best friends and they both probably just felt really lucky to have each other for things like this.
Hollis stretched her legs out on his bed and he looked down at his guitar, both of them not sure what to do or say next.
“What’s the name of the song?” she asked and right before he could open his mouth to answer, his mom was yelling from downstairs.
“Hollis, your mom called. Said you’re late for dinner!”
“Crap!” She jumped up from the bed, giving Jax a look that screamed she was in trouble. “I’m dead meat, call the cops if you don’t hear from me tonight,” she told him and then bolted out of the room in just a blink of an eye.
He laughed at her, but the second she was gone, he tossed his guitar onto his bed and sighed.
He wasn’t disappointed, but he really wanted to spend that time with her, tell her the name of the song and possibly why it was so special to him.
But before he could think about it much more, his new friend Mason was calling him, so he packed his guitar away and moved on to go hang out with his friends. Even though he knew it wouldn’t be as fun as hanging out with Hollis. No one could ever replace her.
