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Several minutes later, the final note lingers in the air like a trace of sweet perfume, and I float back to the present. I turn to Garrett, but his face is expressionless. I don’t know what I was expecting him to do. Praise me? Mock me?
But I hadn’t expected silence.
“Do you want to hear Cass’s version?” I hedge.
He nods. That’s it. A quick jerk of the head and nothing more.
His shuttered face unsettles me, so this time I close my eyes when I sing. I move the bridge to where Cass argued it should be, add a second chorus like he insisted, and I honestly don’t think I’m biased when I say I prefer the original. This second version drags, and the extra chorus is overkill.
To my surprise, Garrett agrees with me once I’ve finished. “It’s too long when you do it like that,” he says gruffly.
“I know, right?” I’m thrilled to hear him validate my own concerns. God knows MJ can’t speak her mind around Cass.
“And forget the choir. You don’t need it. Hell, I don’t think you need Cass.” He shakes his head in amazement. “Your voice is…fuck, Wellsy, it’s beautiful.”
My cheeks heat up. “You think so?”
His impassioned expression tells me he’s dead serious. “Play something else,” he orders.
“Um. What do you want to hear?”
“Anything. I don’t care.” I’m startled by the intensity in his voice, the emotion now glittering in his gray eyes. “I just need to hear you sing again.”
Wow. Okay. My entire life people have been telling me I’m talented, but other than my parents, nobody has ever pleaded with me to sing to them.
“Please,” he says softly.
So I sing. An original piece this time, but it’s still rough so I end up switching to another song. I play “Stand By Me.” It’s my mom’s favorite song, the one I sing to her every year for her birthday, and the memory carries me away to that peaceful place again.
Halfway through the song, Garrett’s eyes flutter shut. I watch the steady rise and fall of his chest, my voice cracking from the emotion behind the lyrics. Then my gaze travels to his face, and I notice a small white scar on his chin, bisecting the stubble shadowing his jaw. I wonder how he got it. Hockey? An accident when he was a kid?
His eyes stay closed for the duration of the song, and as I strum the last chord, I’ve decided he must be asleep. I let the last note trail off, then set down the guitar.
Garrett’s eyes pop open before I can rise from the bed.
“Oh. You’re awake.” I swallow. “I thought you were sleeping.”
He slides up into a sitting position, his tone laced with sheer awe. “Where did you learn to sing like that?”
I shrug awkwardly. Unlike Cass, I’m far too modest to sing my own praises. “I don’t know. It’s just something I’ve always been able to do.”
“Did you take lessons?”
I shake my head.
“So you just opened your mouth one day and that came out?”
A laugh slips out. “You sound like my parents. They used to say there must have been a mix-up at the hospital nursery and they got the wrong kid. Everyone in my family is tone deaf. They still can’t figure out who I got the music gene from.”
“I need to get you to sign an autograph for me. That way when you’re cleaning up at the Grammys, I can sell it on eBay and make a killing.”
I let out a sigh. “The music business is tough, dude. For all I know, I’ll crash and burn if I try to make a go at it.”
“You won’t.” Conviction rings in his voice. “And by the way? I think you’re making a mistake singing a duet for the showcase. You should be on that stage alone. Seriously, if you sit there with a single spotlight on you and sing like you just did now? You’ll give everyone in the audience chills.”
I think Garrett might be right. Not about the chills thing, but that I made a mistake teaming up with Cass. “Well, it’s too late. I’m already committed.”
“You could always back out,” he suggests.
