Discreet by Nicole French

22

We meandered around the property for over an hour after Will loaned me a pair of old sweatpants and a t-shirt I could wear while my swimsuit dried on the deck. I needed to get back to the house. We had a lot of drywall to put up this week, and it wasn’t fair to leave it all to Lucas, who had probably shown up just after Will and I started swimming. But Will was finally opening up a little, and I wasn’t about to shut that down for a bit of home improvement. And maybe, if I was being honest, there was also a part of me that just didn’t want to go home and face my mother. Or my future. Or the fact that somewhere in the back of my mind, I suspected they were one and the same.

The lot was much bigger than I’d thought, extending past the road up to the top of the mountain and running down to the water. Will basically owned an entire compound that allowed him to exist off the grid. He informed me that on the mountain side of the property, he had installed a well, a septic system, and a small solar array that powered his house most of the year. Down at the bottom, he showed me the boathouse, in which he kept a canoe and a kayak, as well as a bunch of exercise equipment that basically looked like a CrossFit gym. Well, that explained his exemplary physique.

But it was the rest of the house that I was the most interested in, since it said the most about him. The upstairs was the plush, loft-like space with a bathroom. But the downstairs had three other rooms besides the bedroom, all of them with an entire wall of windows that looked through the trees to the lake, each of them containing surprises.

The first shocked the hell out of me. I had been expecting a tame office, or maybe a guest room (though a reclusive misanthrope like Will having a guest room was probably less likely than discovering the Cave of Wonders inside his house). Instead, we walked into a real, miniature movie theater with two rows of seats facing a massive projector screen, and an entire wall of DVDs opposite the picture window, which Will assured me could be covered to darken the room for viewings.

I gaped. “Wow,” I said as I perused the wall. “Bit of a movie buff, huh?”

Will shrugged, staying by the door. “A little. But there are some films you have to see on a big screen. It’s just not the same otherwise.”

“I guess. Wow, you must have every Cary Grant film ever made.” I pulled out a copy of His Girl Friday and waved it at him. “This one’s my favorite. Rosalind Russell is a badass.”

Will chuckled. “For sure.”

I continued perusing his collection, which was arranged alphabetically. “Whatever happened to ‘Netflix and chill,’ huh?”

Will didn’t smile though, just sagged in the doorway as he watched me moving around the room. “I don’t have internet access. Not to mention streaming quality on most films is shit. Come on. There’s more.”

We went to the next room, and I smiled, feeling a little like Goldilocks this time, trying out all the rooms. Will gestured into an office that was lined with built-in bookshelves, all of them stacked floor to ceiling with books.

“Holy smokes,” I murmured as I took in the books. While his library was small compared to something like a university, it was comprehensive. I stared at the titles, seeing everything from Shakespeare to Chinua Achebe. He had a propensity for post-war fiction—there was a complete set of well-thumbed Kerouac books near the desk, and a first edition of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on one shelf.

The desk itself was piled high with papers—two stacks of crooked white packets that framed a laptop computer and a small printer on one side. It was a desk where someone spent a lot of time. The work was scattered, and there were a few old coffee cups in one corner.

I turned around. “I thought you said you didn’t have internet access.”

Will shook his head. “I don’t. I did before, but even then, I mostly used it to type. The internet is…a distraction. I fucking hate it.”

I put a pin in that. He spoke with a lot of vitriol for something that was so ordinary to most people our age. What was the point in hating the internet? It was everywhere.

“So…what did you type?” I asked instead, looking back at the stacks of papers.

“Well…” Will traced the edge of the desk with one finger. “I actually went to school for a while online and got my degree. And my MFA.”

My eyes bugged even further. “What?” Up until now I had mostly just imagined Will roaming the countryside with an ax like some kind of demented woodsman. Not studying. Not reading books.

He grabbed his knot of hair meditatively, squeezing it like a stress ball before his hand drifted down to massage his neck. “I…had a bit of time on my hands since moving out here. I figured I’d do something productive for once in my life.”

I looked back at the room. I didn’t know why I assumed that Will had no intellectual education. He must have if he had gone into marketing, but I wasn’t expecting such refined taste on his part. Maybe he had washboard abs and lived like an ascetic lumberjack, but he was also well spoken and intelligent, and as I looked around, clearly very well read.

For once in my life. What was he talking about? Drugs, maybe? Working in the entertainment industry? Advertising?

Something didn’t quite match up.

“What was the MFA in?” I asked, looking sideways at the stacks of papers again.

Will worried his mouth a little. It made me want to kiss him. “Screenwriting, actually. It’s, um, sort of a hobby now. In my spare time. Which is most of my time. So I have a lot of them.”

He gestured shyly at the papers, which I then realize were clipped into separate files about a half inch thick.

“Fletcher’s Creek,” I read sideways. “‘One man’s journey through the heart of America.’”

“That one’s junk,” Will said quickly, swiping the screenplay off the desk and tossing it in the trash. “It’s just a rip-off of Into the Wild. I’ve done much better since.”

I glanced over at the others, but couldn’t read any other titles as quickly. “Can I read one?”

Will frowned. “They’re not any good. I don’t really show them to anyone.”

I tipped my head to the side, trying to make out the words on a screenplay on the other side of the desk. “You’ll never know unless you put it out there.”

He pressed his lips together and stared at his hands as a light flush ran up his neck. For some reason, the suggestion obviously made him very uncomfortable.

“Tell you what,” he said finally. “I’ll let you read one if you let me record you in the studio.”

My head jerked up from the papers. “The what now?”

The sly half smile returned. “Come on, Lil. There’s one more room down here.”

He took my hand and guided me out of the office and down the hall to the final room at the end. When we entered, my eyes practically popped out of my head.

“What. Is. This?”

Next to me, Will chuckled. “You like it?”

I turned to him. “This is a recording studio. A real recording studio. Why in the world do you have a recording studio in your house?” A thought chilled me. No. It couldn’t be. “You didn’t…you didn’t put this in here for me, did you?”

As soon as I said it, I realized how ridiculous it sounded. Will and I had known each other for a matter of weeks. It would have taken much longer to install something like this in his house, much less underneath my nose.

Will snorted. “Considering I didn’t know you when I moved here four years ago, and it would be pretty impossible to do something like this in the time since we met, no, Lil. This isn’t for you. But I’m flattered, you narcissist.”

I socked him on the arm, and he chuckled more as he slung an arm over my shoulder and pulled me in for a kiss—the kind that made me stop thinking about mysterious screenplays and movie theaters. The wide smile on his face cheered. Even if it was at my expense, one day I was going to make Will Baker laugh for real. I could feel it.

He released me, and I turned back to the small room, walking around the calm, simple space. Unlike the previous two rooms, this one had no window, to keep the sound confined. The walls were padded with brown leather, and several instruments were set up on the rug beside the sound equipment: a bunch of guitars, a set of keys, and a drum set. All of them were pristine, top-of-the-line pieces. Through a small glass window I could see a tiny control room with space enough for maybe two people to sit comfortably behind the mixing console.

I fingered the cord hanging off a microphone. “So, why do you have all of this? Are you a musician too?”

For some reason—I couldn’t tell you why—the idea hurt. Music was my thing, one of the only parts in my life that ever defined me in a good way. It started when I was little, playing on my friends’ pianos. One of their parents had been a music teacher who had taken pity on me—the poor kid with a mess for a mother—and had given me lessons once a week. But it wasn’t until I got my first guitar, the Yamaha Mama found without strings at a yard sale, that I really found my passion for it. I saved up for some strings and learned to play simple chords from YouTube tutorials on the school computers, but it didn’t take long before I was sounding out songs by myself, and eventually writing my own. I wasn’t well trained, as more than one professor at NYU had informed me, but I did have raw talent. This I’d always known.

So, I felt territorial about it—almost like it wasn’t something I wanted to share, even if I wasn’t exactly practicing right now. Will already had so much. He was rich, clearly, and talented enough that he could write stacks of screenplays in his spare time. Music was mine in this relationship. It was the only thing I brought to the table besides an empty savings account and a drunken mother. It was all I had to offer.

“It’s stupid rich dude shit.” Will touched a padded wall wistfully. “I never use it. I had this idea at one point that I could learn to be a rock star. But honestly, I have no rhythm, no pitch, no musical talent whatsoever. It’s pathetic.”

I tipped my head, ignoring the relief that coursed through me. “Well, you’re talking to the girl who literally moved to New York for eight years trying to make that happen. I’m the queen of pathetic.”

But he just shook his head, making the flyaway strands of blond that framed his face rustle back and forth. “You haven’t heard me sing, Lil. I sound like a dying cow, and I play the guitar like a toddler. It’s not pretty.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Did you put anything down? Can I hear it?”

“Maybe one day…” he said. “When, I don’t know, I lose a bet or something, I’ll play you the few shitty recordings I made when I was bored. But since I’ll probably lose you forever when that happens, I’m going to delay it as long as possible.”

Sensing I wasn’t going to get any more out of him on that point, I turned to the instruments. Will had a beautiful collection—there were a couple of Fenders, a very pretty Dobro, and even a bass next to the drum set and keyboard. The guitars were all mounted on the walls, waiting to be played, though I did notice the strings on a few were starting to rust. Will’s house was immaculately clean, but a bit of dusting couldn’t deter the effects of neglect and waterfront property.

I turned back to him. “This isn’t just for you. You have an entire band’s worth of equipment in here.”

Will shrugged, but wouldn’t meet my eyes. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Well, I have a wicked guitarist now, don’t I? Singer, too.”

I ran a finger over the head of the acoustic Fender. It was a beautiful guitar, although not as nice as my Martin. I had saved for three years to buy that guitar. It was my prized possession.

“Would you ever let me record you?” Will asked behind me. “Maybe that song you played by the fire? Or…or whatever you want, really.”

I hesitated, looking around. It was funny. For a long time, this would have been everything I’d ever wanted. I’d paid to have a few demos done, of course, and I even had an EP that I’d actually recorded on my own computer and some rented equipment in order to sell at shows. But I’d never been able to finance a full album. Now I had access to a beautiful studio offered to me on a silver platter…and I didn’t want it.

Didn’t I?

For the last year I’d been a shadow, afraid of everything. Afraid of being on stage. Afraid of trying new things. Until I met this strange, mysterious man.

Being around Will made me feel stronger. Made me realize that maybe I didn’t want to say goodbye to all my dreams by coming back here. That maybe I really did have more to offer the world than just being Ellie Sharp’s pathetic bastard kid.

I took the guitar off the wall and turned to Will. “All right.”

He glanced between me and the instrument, clearly surprised. “You want to do it right now?”

I weighed the neck in the curve of my palm. It felt good. Right. I inhaled, breathing the wood of the shiny floors, the slight metallic tinge that came from the equipment. “It’s now or never, Baker. You want these pipes, you better press record.”

Will pushed off the wall almost immediately, then moved about the room for a few minutes, unspooling cords, arranging the mics, and doing all the small things necessary to get ready to record. Then he went to the console, and I sat down on one of the stools, balancing precariously, trying to calm my heart pounding away in my chest. For some reason, this was scarier than playing in front of five thousand people at Irving Plaza.

“You ready?” he asked through the speakers.

I nodded, unable to speak. I just needed to calm my nerves. Close my eyes. Remember why, once upon a time, music had set my soul free.

“All right,” Will said. “You’re on.”

A green light flashed on from the room, indicating that we were recording.

And I. Did. Nothing.

For nearly a minute. I sat there, frozen while I stared at the frets, looked at the way my left hand was poised over them, pressing so hard on a few. I knew how to start. A variation on a simple Travis pick, not much different than “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” A strum on the bass E-string at the third measure. Hammer on the A-string twice, then sing.

But my other hand didn’t move, and my mouth didn’t open. I sat there like a statue. Completely paralyzed.

“Lil?”

Will’s voice was muted, coming over a loudspeaker from the console room.

I closed my eyes. Suddenly, I was back on that stage. Back under those lights. A phantom terror watching me from the back of the room, there in spirit, though at the time he was still in jail.

Except now he wasn’t anymore. My phone was at the house, but I already knew that when I got back, there would be another message or two waiting for me. Theo liked to play with his mice before he ate them. He loved to torment and tease.

“Maggie?”

I didn’t even notice that Will had entered the studio until he was sitting on the seat next to me.

“I’m here,” he said quietly. “You don’t…just play for me, all right? There’s no recording. It’s just me and you.”

I shook my head. “I…can’t. I can’t anymore.”

“Lil.” Will placed a wide hand on my knee and the warmth of his touch soothed my rapidly fraying nerves. “It’s just me and you, Lil. Just us.”

“I don’t want to,” I whispered. It was a lie. I wanted to play right now more than I ever had. I had about a million emotions running around inside me, crashing into each other like pinballs. Music had been my release my entire life, providing an outlet for that energy that would have destroyed me otherwise. But I was stuck in place.

“Look at me, Lily pad.”

Will’s voice was barely more than a whisper, but I obeyed. I turned to him, and found his green eyes wide and open. Loving. Kind. He smiled, and my heart leapt and calmed at the same time. Slowly, my heartbeat fell back to normal.

“Let me hear you,” he murmured, his voice so low I almost couldn’t hear it.

He leaned over the guitar and pressed a light kiss to my lips. His scent surrounded me, blocking out the nerves, the awkwardness, the fear.

“Will you play for me now?” he asked, his breath still mingling with mine.

I blinked. He was so close that my eyelashes brushed the tops of his cheeks. Then he sat back, his expression warm and open.

Finally, I nodded.

And then I played.