Page 54 of Musical Games
‘Are we going to travel back in time?’
He smiled. ‘Maybe we already have?’
She turned her head. Apart from the modern gate, the landscape around them was timeless.
‘Have you ever brought a woman up here?’ she asked.
‘Once,’ he replied.
He turned and walked into the middle of the circle, taking a blanket out of his bag and laying it on the ground.
‘I thought we could have our final practice here. Or you could lie back and I could play you “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”?’
‘Or “Lucky Star” by Madonna?’
He grinned. ‘Moby’s “We Are All Made of Stars”?’
‘“Starman” by Bowie?’
‘Deal.’ He took out his guitar and sat down to tune it.
Sam sat next to him, watching his hands on the strings, his fingers tightening the pegs. Lust coursed through her so sharply her eyes fluttered closed. She lay down and let the night sky fill her vision.
He started to play. ‘Hey now, now. Oh, oh, oh...’
Her eyes pricked with pain and the stars blurred into a hazy light above her. As he sang the chorus, she wanted to join in but knew she couldn’t hold her voice steady, so dug her nails into her palms and let Jamie’s voice wash over her.
‘...He knows it’s all worthwhile.’
Was Brad worthwhile? Was he really the Starman waiting for her at the end of the day? She wanted to scream at herself. What the fuck was she doing? Everything was such a mess.
Jamie carried on singing and she listened. Even when he started playing their songs, she didn’t join in. She just inched her hand towards him and touched the side of his leg.
He shifted a millimetre closer and her heart skittered in her chest. He hadn’t moved away. When he’d played through their songs twice, he let the guitar fall silent. She stared up at the stars and the moon shining through a gap between the stones. Would she ever be anyone’s world? Someone’s sun, moon and all their stars? Another poem came to mind and before she was even aware, she was speaking the second half out loud.
‘I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)…’
She trailed off and Jamie took it up, his voice low and hesitant. He knew all the words.
She let her voice join his for the final line.
‘I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart).’
Silence hung heavy between them. ‘I didn’t know you knew E.E. Cummings,’ she said.
‘We did it at school and I remembered it.’
‘Have you ever said it to a wo—’
‘Once,’ he replied, cutting her off. He packed his guitar away. ‘We should get going. Try and sleep a bit before…’ He sighed. ‘Before later.’
Sam sat up. ‘Yeah, sure, good idea,’ she replied brightly as her heart cracked open with questions of who this woman was who had stolen his heart.
17
When they got back to the house, Jamie had tried to rest but instead oscillated between anxiety-fuelled nightmares and living his fears fully awake. When his mother called them down for breakfast, Sam was as grumpy and snippy as he was. It didn’t help that the previous day, Rory had gone full Hulk and thrown Brad in the loch. It was all over the internet and TV, and the speculation was that the two men were in a love triangle with actress Kirsten Bjorkstrom. Sam was now fretting Brad wouldn’t show up that night to their concert. Zoe soon arrived at the house followed by Fiona and Liam, and when they’d all finished eating, Morag brought in the morning’s papers.
The press had gone to town, with pictures of Kirsten in her costume looking scarily like Zoe, Rory topless in a kilt and wielding a broadsword, and Brad his usual perfect self. Jamie knew it was all bollocks but part of him wished it was true and that Brad’s amorous attentions would be directed away from Sam. He knew he didn’t have a chance with her but felt ill at the thought of Sam throwing herself at Brad and having her feelings reciprocated.
