Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 60487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
“Grayson’s shortcake. Got it.” Carl rose to his feet; only after he closed Sage and Leo’s gate did he wonder: who was this Grayson? What was he supposed to look like?
He didn’t spy Sage, but one of the friendlier older ladies—Linda?—whose piano he’d promised to tune smiled and beckoned him to a picnic table on the footpath. “You look lost.”
“Need to find someone.”
“Of course you do, honey.”
Carl scratched the back of his head. “His name’s Grayson?”
“Nice young man. Bit burdened by his past.”
That was . . . a bit more information than he needed. “Any idea where to find him?”
“It’ll be quite a journey.”
“He lives very far from here? Any idea when he’ll arrive?”
“You’ll find one another eventually.”
Sage returned with a chipper laugh and a hug for Linda. She patted the top of Linda’s white ringlets, and mouthed to Carl that she wasn’t all there.
That was . . . quite okay.
What wasn’t okay was the sudden reappearance of the witches. “You’re back. Where were we? Ah, Devil’s Trill Sonata.”
“Tell us about it.”
“Yes! Please do.”
Carl started to sweat under his double-breasted waistcoat and paused to channel his best Jason: Knowledgeable. Professional. Accomplished.
He wriggled his fingers. Giuseppe Tartine’s Violin Sonata in G Minor. Often performed with a piano accompaniment. He cleared his throat and told them the story he’d just looked up online. “Guiseppe Tartine dreamt he made a pact with the devil: his soul in return for musical genius. After obliging, the devil took Giuseppe’s violin and played the most enchanting sonata he’d ever listened to. Upon waking, Giuseppe rushed to put all he’d heard down on parchment. The trill was challenging for many a musician, and this sonata was full of them. So full, he named the tricky piece after the tricky devil who gave it to him. Devil’s Trill.”
“Fascinating! Are there many other stories about musical pieces?”
Carl tugged at his tie. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“What about—” one of the witches started, and Carl jerked a finger towards the table, where a pitcher of lemonade and a stack of plastic cups sat.
“Excuse me,” he rasped. “Throat’s a bit sore. Talk more another time.”
He dashed for the lemonade, and Linda helped pour it for him. Sage, perched on a chair beside her, cupped her chin and stared up at him in awe.
Carl felt a little guilty at this. But then he remembered how Sage had cheered up seeing Jason Lyall come to her Street Greet and nodded to himself. Right thing to do under the circumstances.
Sage waved brightly to someone behind Carl and to the left. “Grayson!”
Grayson of the apple shortcake?
Carl turned—and dropped his lemonade in a sticky splash down his waistcoat. That was Jason’s suit jacket! And in it . . .
Gently-Judgy-Eyes.
They both blinked. Carl in an incredulous, you’re-kidding-me way, and Grayson in an I-expected-nothing-less-from-my-newest-groupie way.
Grayson stared at him, a long scroll from silk tie to polished Oxfords. And those dark, judgy eyes were in fine form.
Which was . . . completely enraging. Such a thought must be stopped at once. “I’m not into you!”
“No one’s introduced you?” Sage began pointing between them. “Grayson, Jason Lyall. Jason, Grayson Woods. Ha, that’s a mouthful. Let me take that plate off you.” She whisked the apple shortcake to the table, and in the process became a momentary buffer between them. Carl stepped back, shaking his head in utter disbelief, while two twenty-somethings in slinky black dresses came over and pulled Grayson in their direction.
One held out a small card to him. “This is to thank you for helping my aunt paint her fence.”
“No problem,” Grayson said with a polite smile.
“I—I’d like to take you out to dinner to say thank you?”
Grayson pocketed the card. “This is thanks enough.” With that he walked away—towards Carl!—and paused as he passed, whispering with a scrape of lips against his ear, “by the way, that isn’t how you pronounce Giuseppe.”
Carl’s heart did a wild, panicky lurch and set off a cascade of shivers.
Grayson had been watching him since then?
Carl had pronounced the composer’s name wrong?
Oh shit.
Had that been what his judgy eyes were about?
Was the gig already up?
Carl spun around and watched the man disappear into Sage and Leo’s home.
An arm hooked around his and Sage grinned up at him. “We all gaze after him like that.”
Carl blinked at her. “What’s his problem?”
“Why does he reject us all, you mean?” He actually meant in the metaphorical sense, but Sage kept going. “Not sure exactly. He doesn’t talk about it, but he’s been like that since his mother died and he broke up with his ex. Two years ago.”
A loud crackle and squeal came from a megaphone, and a voice was amplified.
“A reminder number five, seven, nine, and eleven have opened their backyards for you all to admire their gardens.”
Sage ‘ohhhed’ and jogged off, and at the sight of a witch pivoting in Carl’s direction, Carl scooped up some apple shortcake in a napkin and made for Sage’s—