Page 58 of Disharmony

Is the Pope a Catholic? Of course, I want to listen in!

I stop my fingers from whizzing over the keypad. I don’t want to come across as desperate. After debating in my head for twenty minutes, I settle on a reply.

Me: Sure.

All that thinking for one word? Unbelievable!

I walk aimlessly through the trees, suddenly not feeling tired at all, when I hear a guitar playing and someone singing. It’s a soft riff with a nice ring to it. After a few lines, the player stops and restarts, then does it again. And again. And again.

The song is missing something, but the player can’t figure it out. I’ve been there before. Sometimes I get stuck for hours on a line and repeat it until it’s perfect. I can imagine how I want it to sound in my head, but it falls down somewhere in the execution.

“It’s good,” I say to the back of the tree where I see the head of the guitar and feet poking out the other side. “But I’d change the two middle notes.”

As I walk around the trunk, I want the ground to swallow me whole. Fuck! No one wants unsolicited advice, especially when that someone has won too many awards to count.

“What?” Levi looks up at me in surprise. He’s lost in his own world, and I snapped him out of it. He regards me with curiosity. “Did you say something?”

“No,” I lie, backing away. “Sorry to interrupt you.”

“Wait,” he calls. “Why don’t you tell me what you think? You must have some thoughts.”

I bite my lip, not sure whether to take him up on his offer.

He sweeps his chin-length wavy hair off his face and says, “Don’t worry, I won’t bite.”

“I know,” I reply indignantly, pulling my cap down and sitting opposite him on the grass. His mouth opens in shock, like he hadn’t expected me to join him. Why invite someone if you don’t want them to take up the offer? “Well? Are you going to play again, or what?”

A notebook with scrawled lines lays open in front of him. His handwriting sprawls in random directions over the page. If I were a shrink analyzing it, it’d indicate all sorts of chaos going on.

Levi starts playing the tune. His movements are almost pained. He curses under his breath as he stops at the end of the verse.

“It’s…” I try to find the right word. “Nice.”

“Nice?” His nose scrunches like I poked him in the balls with a drumstick. “Is that all you’ve got to say?”

“Can I hear it with the lyrics?” I ask.

“I’ve not finished them yet,” he says. “But I’ll read you what I have.”

Most girls would faint to be read music by Levi York, but all I can hear is the music. I close my eyes as he plays. Levi doesn’t sing often, but he has a beautiful voice. There’s something haunting about it.

“You see her dancing at the bar,

How can you be sure she’s what you’ve been searching for?

I can’t see in her eyes what she’s thinking.

But I want to take her home—”

I hold my hand up to stop him. “How about changing a line? ‘Her eyes hold secrets that she’s keeping’ could work.”

He tilts his head, considering my suggestion, then leans forward and scribbles a few sentences down to make the changes.

He sings it again with my changes then halts, “That’s better.”

“Much better, but you’ll need to credit me if this gets to number one,” I tease.

He smiles shyly and my cheeks heat. “Maybe I will.”

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