Page 30 of The Voice We Find

I’m not sure if it’s the question she asks or the expectation behind it that sends my mind swirling down a funnel of no return. Without warning, I’m back to the conversation I overheard between my parents after they listened to me play an entire song from the radioon our old, out-of-tune piano stored in the garage. I hadn’t missed a note. I was seven years old.

“But how, Brian?”Mom whispered.“Tell me how that’s possible when he’s never taken a single piano lesson? Neither you or I can sing, much less play an instrument.”

“I dunno,” Dad said in that bewildered way of his.“Perhaps God’s given him a special ear for music.”

Mom’s laugh-cry was muffled then, and when I peeked around the corner into the kitchen, I watched their embrace, Dad’s arms tightly secured around her back. “Do you think he could be some sort of prodigy? He’s constantly drumming on every surface—chairs, countertops, windowsills. Even my leg when we all sit together at church. It’s like there’s always a song playing in his head. I thought it was just a boy thing, but maybe it’s—”

“It’s not for us to determine, Sara. We can hire a music teacher and get an assessment. But even if he is ...special, fixating on a singular gifting is not our job. Our job is to help him mature into a man of character.”

“August?” Sophie’s voice slingshots me back to the present, where concern has crimped her brow. I blink and work to smile normally.

This isn’t where I wanted our conversation to land before Sophie takes the booth for our next session. I was thinking more along the lines of discussing the possibility of a nice restaurant in Napa where the two of us could—

Sophie stands abruptly from the sofa and moves to assess the framed pictures of artists I’ve worked with in the past. She sweeps her pointer finger through the air as if she’s puzzling something out. “You’re a sound engineer now, but you worked as a music producer in LA.”

“That’s right,” I say carefully.

And then she rotates to the assortment of guitars hanging on the opposite wall near the keyboard and synth pads in the corner. “At first I thought these instruments were here for aesthetic reasons.” She slowly turns in my direction. “But you can play all of these, can’t you?”

I hesitate. “Yes.”

Iwatch a switch flip on inside her at my answer. “Does that mean you compose?”

“No.” It’s not a lie, but it’s not exactly the truth, either. She didn’t ask if Ihaveevercomposed, but if I compose. As in present tense. And that answer is accurate.

Somehow, she doesn’t appear deterred by my short response.

“May I?” She points to my 914ce Builder’s Edition Grand Auditorium acoustic guitar. It’s my second favorite Taylor.

“You play?”

“Only good enough for a campfire setting.”

I chuckle at that but stop laughing when she whips out her cell phone and does a quick tune using an app. After securing the strap around her neck, she faces away from me and strums a chord.

“What chord am I playing?” she asks.

Tiny pinpricks of sweat break out under my arms. I don’t care much for this game, but I keep my voice light and unassuming. “How would I know? I can’t see your hands.”

She glances at me over her shoulder and narrows her eyes in adon’t-toy-with-mekind of way. She strums another chord. “What about this one?”

“Sophie, I think this party trick of yours might need some work.”

She stops the resonance of sound with her palm and twists to face me.

This time, when our gazes collide, I wonder if this is how it happens. How a man lost at sea finally surrenders to the siren’s call. Sophie is beautiful and generous and filled with the kind of magnetic goodness I’d do almost anything to stay close to. But it’s the admiration in her eyes that feels altogether unsettling.

Vanessa never looked at me like that.

With her, every step of our relationship was a premeditated equation. She knew all there was to know about me before I ever laid eyes on her that first time. She knew I traveled with a band who sang about Jesus on stage and lived like they knew nothing about Him as soon as they stepped off it. When she found me, I was days away from throwing in the towel and going home with my tail tuckedbetween my legs. My parents had never been on board with LA. My mom hadn’t felt a peace about the band I produced for, even from the start. Vanessa had come along at just the right moment, stroking my ego with a dream job I couldn’t say no to. And just like that, I’d become the ace up her sleeve.

There was nothing she denied me as long as it meant I remained at her studio, and eventually, at her home. I certainly wasn’t the first man under her employ to fall prey to her snare of chart-topping clientele, massive bonus checks, and the high-roller lifestyle I’d been convinced I wanted.

Until I wanted none of it.

Until the shame of my recklessness had become like barbed wire around my neck.

Is that why I was so drawn to Sophie? Because everything about her felt like the opposite of everything about me?

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