Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
“Hers? You wrote her songs?” my young friend wheezed, acting like he was floored.
Yuki nodded way too enthusiastically. I just bared my teeth at him in a noncommittal smile and threw in a shrug for the hell of it.
The confusion—and surprise—on his face didn’t go anywhere, and just as he seemed to think about what to respond with, a car started coming down the driveway, and we all turned as a familiar SUV drove by and did a three-point turn, a teenage girl coming out while it was still in motion. The window rolled down, and Clara’s familiar face appeared behind the driver’s seat. “Hi! Bye! I’m late!” And then she was gone as Jackie carried her backpack in one hand and headed toward where we were.
It was Am who held up his hand in a stopping motion and said, “Jackie, don’t freak out—”
And that’s when she stopped walking, the smile she’d had on her face dropping like a damn fly as her gaze landed on the person sitting next to me.
She fell over like a fucking tree.
So hard it was a miracle her skull didn’t smack against the concrete foundation as she passed out.
“Told you,” Am muttered as we all rushed over, crouching beside her just as her eyes shot open and she screeched.
“I’m fine! I’m fine!”
“Are you all right?” Yuki asked, kneeling beside her.
Jackie’s eyes went wide again, and her face went just as pale as Amos’s had earlier when I’d told him that we were going to recruit Yuki into helping today. “Oh my God, it’s you!” she shouted with another gasp.
“Hi.”
Hi. I almost burst out laughing. “Jackie, are you okay?”
Jackie’s eyes filled with tears, and I realized Amos and I were invisible now. “Oh my God, it’s you.”
My friend didn’t even hesitate; she scooted forward on her knees. “Would you like a hug?”
Jackie’s eyes were full of tears as she nodded frantically.
“I didn’t look like that, did I?” Amos whispered at my side as the woman and the teenager hugged and even more tears spilled out of Jackie’s eyes.
She was sobbing. Jackie was flat-out sobbing.
“Almost.” I met his eyes and grinned.
He gave me a flat look that reminded me way too much of his dad. I laughed.
But as I turned back, I happened to catch Jackie’s eyes as she pulled away from Yuki’s hug and saw something that looked an awful lot like guilt in them.
What was up with that?
Eventually, after Jackie had calmed down and quit crying—which ended up taking close to an hour because the second she would start to get herself under control, she’d burst into tears again—we all managed to take a seat in the garage. Amos and Jackie let us keep the seats while they sat on the floor, one of them looking nauseous and disgruntled at the same time, and the other . . . If my life were an anime, Jackie would have had hearts in her eyes.
“So . . .” I said, eyeing Amos especially.
He looked up at the ceiling, but I’d caught him peeking at me a second ago.
I wasn’t going to put him on the spot if he was really against it. He either wanted to perform, which we hadn’t really talked about much yet, or liked to write. He could just write for himself.
Amos had a beautiful voice, but it was his decision what he wanted to do with his gifts. Keep them to himself or share them with the world—it was his choice.
But I wanted Yuki to hear what he’d written, at least one song. Because maybe he didn’t admire her work, but without a doubt, I had a feeling that any praise she had for him would be good for his soul.
And if that meant me having to do it, so be it.
“Am, do you mind if I show Yu a little bit of your other song? The darker one?”
He peeked at me again, pink taking over his neck. “You’re not gonna make me do it?”
“I’d like it if you did because you know how I feel about your voice, but it’s 100 percent up to you. I just want her to hear it. Only if it’s okay with you.”
He lowered his head then, and I could tell he was thinking about it.
He nodded.
As he handed over his notebook, I pointed at the acoustic guitar he had propped up on a guitar boat at his side, and he passed that over too, along with a guitar pick. I ignored the raised eyebrow he was shooting at me. This child never believed.
Beside me, Yuki threaded her fingers together. “Oh, I love it when you sing!”
I groaned, propping the lightweight guitar across my lap, and sighed. “I’m not that great at singing and playing at the same time,” I warned the two teenagers, one of whom was staring at me intently and the other who I was pretty sure hadn’t heard a single word out of my mouth because she was too busy still staring at Yuki. “So it’s just an idea,” I said, even though we’d worked together enough to know that everything was just an idea until it had been tweaked to the second.