Sing For Me by Rachel Schurig

Eva

Iwish we could stay here forever.

I feel like this farm out in the mountains has helped me to heal in a way fifteen months of physical therapy and doctor’s care has never done. The mere fact that I played guitar and sang the other night says so much about my state of mind. Ever since then, my fingers have been itching to touch a piano’s keys.

And then there’s the time I’ve spent with Will. I haven’t slept alone since the night of the campfire and though I’m not getting as much sleep as I did at the beginning of the trip, it’s well worth it to spend my nights wrapped up in him. Will doesn’t save his affection for the bedroom, either. He’s constantly touching me, a hand on my hip while we sit around the deck, fingers entwined when we walk anywhere. He presses little kisses to my cheeks and forehead and the top of my head all the time, almost like it’s second nature to him after only a few days.

Yeah, staying forever sounds like a great plan.

When I share that thought with Will, he makes a face. “Seriously? I’m more than ready for a little privacy.”

“I don’t know,” I argue, cheeks pinking up as I remember our morning walk in the woods that had quickly turned into a make-out session in the grass. “I think we’ve had plenty of privacy.”

Unfortunately, CeCe chooses that moment to come in and try to climb onto Will’s lap, begging him to take her out on the ATVs. “You were saying?” he asks over her head.

My hip has been bugging me a little more than usual this morning, probably because I haven’t been taking the time to do any of my at-home PT exercises all week. So I decline the invitation to go riding and instead go in search of Rose and Alex, who mentioned they wanted to get a yoga session in.

Paige and Karen, Alex’s mom, decide to join us and we end up in the basement of the lodge where there’s a full gym—in addition to a billiards room and a movie theater. Rose is actually certified to teach yoga, so she takes us through a series of poses, concentrating on lower body stuff to help me stretch out my hip.

She has us relaxing in child’s pose at the end of our workout when the serene silence of our session is broken by the reverberating noise of an electric guitar.

“Seriously?” Karen mutters, pushing blonde hair from her face. “They have to do that now?”

“Like there’s ever a time they don’t feel like they have to do that,” Paige says, just before an earsplitting banging of drums fills the air.

“Our dads have a recording studio down here,” Rose explains to me over the noise. “They bring artists from their label out here to write and record all the time.”

“And they apparently can’t go a single week without plugging in their instruments,” Karen adds.

We all stand and start rolling up our mats. The girls talk about what they want for lunch but I’m distracted by the continuing noise of instruments.

I want to play.

We’re almost to the stairs when I decide to go for it. “Um, Paige?” I ask, feeling shy. “Do you think they’d mind if I joined them? I just want to see the space.”

Her face lights up. “They won’t mind at all! Please, feel free.”

But behind her on the stairs, I can’t help thinking Rose’s expression isn’t quite so sure.

My heart is pounding in my chest as I approach the room where the noise is coming from. The door is ajar, which saves me from having to try and knock and be heard over the instruments. Instead, I peek around the corner to see the four Ransome brothers and Wyatt lounging around with their guitars on couches in a comfortable looking sitting room. The tell-tale glass of a recording studio makes up the back wall, but that room is dark.

Wyatt sees me first. “Hey, Eva. How’s it going?”

I smile at him. “You guys interrupted our yoga session.”

Cash winces. “Shit, we’re sorry. We didn’t know anyone was down here.”

“We were just finishing up.” I hover around the door, feeling shy as they study me, probably waiting for me to explain myself.

“We were going to jam for a little while,” Reed finally says. “Len has something he wants to get down so we thought we’d work through it.”

“You want to join us?” Daltrey asks, and I very nearly swoon. Daltrey Ransome is asking me to jam with them!

“That would be great,” I say before my nerves can convince me this was a mistake.

“You want a guitar?” Cash asks, gesturing over at a dark wooden cabinet which houses the most amazing collection of guitars I think I’ve ever seen in one place. Gibsons and Fenders and what looks like a vintage Martin. There are probably tens of thousands of dollars worth of instruments in that cabinet.

I know I should say yes. Both Daltrey and Wyatt play piano and there’s only one in this room. But it’s been so long since I’ve played that instrument I can’t seem to keep my eyes off the gorgeous Steinway in the corner.

Daltrey follows my gaze and grins at me. “You play?”

I blush as I nod. “It’s been a while.”

Wyatt hops off the piano bench, gesturing at the keys. “Give it a go.”

“Are you sure? You probably wanted—”

He waves me off, heading to the gleaming guitars. “I play piano thirty-five hours a week. I could use a break.”

“You could use some practice on a real instrument, you mean,” Cash says. “Your guitar skills are subpar.”

Wyatt flips off his dad and I can’t help laugh at the easy banter they all share.

“Come on,” Daltrey urges, gesturing to the piano. “You know you want to.”

All the noise in the room, the teasing and the back and forth between the guys, dulls as soon as my fingers touch the smooth ivory keys. I flex my hands, a thousand memories flooding through me, and take a deep breath, trying to breathe in the familiar smell of the wood that only a grand piano seems to have.

Before I can think much about it, my hands start moving across the keys, Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat Major coming back to me without need of sheet music. I always said I could play this piece in my sleep, and, apparently, that hasn’t changed much in the last year and a half.

I don’t realize that they’ve all gone silent for a long moment. I finally look up to see every eye on me and I gulp, embarrassed, cutting off in the middle of a chord.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Wyatt says, grinning at me broadly. “You sound great.”

I can feel the fire on my cheeks and I duck my head. “It’s just been awhile,” I repeat.

“You can come down here to play any time,” Cash tells me, and there’s more understanding in his voice than I can wrap my mind around.

“Thanks,” I whisper.

“Okay,” Reed says, thankfully directing the attention away from me. “Let’s get this started.”

They start by playing a few of their old songs and I have no problem picking them up, adding a couple little jazzy embellishments in certain parts and making Daltrey groan.

“You’re popifying my piano solo, young lady,” he says, and I laugh, more at ease than when I first came in here.

Then they start working on Lennon’s song, which so far seems to consist of only a few chords and a handful of notes for the chorus. I don’t contribute a whole lot to start, content to watch them. Hell, watching them is fascinating. The way they build off each other, adding layers and ideas. The way they practically seem to be able to read each other’s minds.

“There’s no sense in talking to them when they get like this,” Wyatt tells me. “They’re in their own little world.”

“I don’t mind,” I tell him honestly. Then I get an idea. They’re working through the bridge and it sounds too monotonous, almost flat. “What if you took it up here?” I ask, taking the chords up a step and a half. “That might give you more texture.”

“I like that,” Reed says. “Play it again.”

So I do and, to my shock, they keep it that way. None of them stop to make a big deal out of it beyond a casual “good idea,” from Lennon, and somehow, that’s even better than a bunch of compliments. Using my idea means they’ve accepted me, just like that. And how crazy is that?

My soaring spirits crash to the ground the second Will comes banging into the room, his face a mask of rage. For a split second, I think he’s come to yell at me, but his eyes flick over me without hardly registering. Instead, all of his anger is directed at the men in the room.

“What. The. Fuck.”

“Hey,” his dad begins, standing. Wyatt and Daltrey both shoot me worried looks and I have no idea what’s going on.

“Someone want to tell me why I just overheard my brother talking about going on tour?” Will grinds out, his face red and his hands visibly shaking.

A chill seems to settle over the room. “It’s not like what you’re thinking,” Reed says, setting down his sticks.

“Did you or did you not tell your kids they could go on tour this summer?”

“It’s not a real tour, Son,” Cash says, and Will whirls on him.

“They have a whole schedule,” he spits out. “I saw it, Dad!”

“It’s kid stuff,” Cash insists. “Friends of friends. Birthday parties and—”

“It’s not fucking happening!” Will shouts, so loud that I flinch.

“Calm down so we can talk about this.” It was the wrong thing to say and Cash seems to know it as soon as the words are out of his mouth. “I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t you fucking tell me to calm down,” Will yells. “You let them start a band? They’re actually playing gigs? And none of you thought you should tell me?”

“How could we tell you?” Cash shoots back. “We knew how you were going to react.”

“So you just kept it from me.” Will laughs, the sound so bitter it gives me chills. I’ve never heard him like this before. “After everything that happened you just kept it from me.”

“They’re allowed to follow their own passions, Will,” Lennon says, his voice much more gentle than his brother, but Will reacts as if he slapped him, whirling on the older man.

“You know what? I would almost expect it from them,” he snaps, gesturing across the room. “From my dad and Reed. But you, Lennon? Seriously? You’re going to let this happen?”

“Nothing is happening, Will,” Lennon argues.

“Lyric is fifteen!” he bellows. “Fifteen, Lennon!”

“I’m aware of how old my daughter is,” Lennon says, his voice tight for the first time. Something about his tone seems to calm Will a little because he steps back, breathing heavily. But his hands are still clenched into tight fists.

“Someone want to fill me in?” Wyatt asks and Will shoots him a glare.

“You seriously didn’t know?”

Wyatt holds up his hands. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“They’re letting the kids start a band,” he spits out. “Presley and Nix and Lyric.” He glares at his dad. “And Silas.”

There’s a beat of silence as understanding fills Wyatt’s face. He doesn’t look angry, like his brother, or cautious, like the parents. Instead he just looks really sad.

“Will—”

“Don’t you tell me it’s not a big deal, Wyatt,” Will barks out. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“It isn’t a big deal,” Reed insists. “They mess around in the garage and they’ve played a few shows for their friends.”

Will spins to face him, eyes flashing. “And that’s where it ends, right Reed? You expect me to believe you’re going to be satisfied with that?”

Reed glares at him. “No one is putting pressure on those kids, Will.”

Will lets out another bitter laugh. “I’m so sure.” He runs his hands through his hair, looking almost unhinged. “God, you were all just waiting for this, weren’t you? Waiting to get your hooks into someone. I wouldn’t let you do it to me so you moved on to the younger kids.”

“Will!” Cash barks, clearly pissed. But there’s concern, too, behind his anger. Concern in all of their faces while he rants at them.

“I’m not going to let you do this,” he says, shaking his head back and forth like he can undo whatever it is he thinks is happening. “I’m not going to let you ruin someone else’s life.”

There’s a beat of stunned silence. Finally, Wyatt stands, walking towards his brother, hands held out in front of him. But Will doesn’t wait for whatever Wyatt is going to say. Instead he grabs an abandoned tambourine and throws it at the wall so hard that I jump. It rattles loudly before falling to the floor, leaving a visible dent in the drywall.

There’s a beat of silence, like everyone is too stunned to react. Then Will turns to face me. “Eva,” he says, in a much more measured tone, like it’s taking everything he has to keep his voice even while he speaks to me. “We’re leaving.”

I have no idea what to say. No idea what’s even happening here. It sounds like his brother and cousins started a garage band—the same kind of thing thousands of teens their age do all over the country every single day. Why is he acting like the men in this room have personally betrayed him because of it?

“You’re not taking off like this,” his dad tries and Will turns his glare in that direction. The heat has left his eyes, replaced by something icy that somehow seems much worse.

“I never should have brought her here. I can’t believe I was actually starting to trust you again.”

Cash looks like he wants to throw up. He makes a move towards his son but Will spins on his heel, shooting me a look as cold as the one he just gave his father. “I’ll get our things.”

And then he’s gone, leaving a ringing silence behind him.