Page 61 of Songbird
I catch Rosie’s eye and mouth a question.Is this okay?She gives me a wink and removes the microphone from its stand, and it takes less than three and half minutes for her to wrap us around her little finger.
Rosie keeps her voice controlled and low, giving Izzy space to belt out her share of the lyrics, but there’s no question that Rosie is a natural performer. Her voice is as strong as it is soft. Her charisma is magnetic. You can’t help but look at her, and with a quick scan of the room, I can see her effect isn’t limited to me. Every person in the room is enthralled.
The song ends and Izzy throws her arms around Rosie, her laughter large and infectious. I share a grin with Rosie, who wraps her arms around the little girl hanging off her waist until Izzy gives her shirt a tug and asks Rosie to lean down to hear a whisper.
I know that whisper is about me when they both turn their eyes on me.
“Uncle Finn!” Izzy says. “Where’s your guitar? It’s time for ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb.’”
Izzy dashes to the side of the room to collect her trumpet, and while Dylan helps her set up, Rosie shoots me a satisfied look as I retrieve my guitar. I also pick up two counter stools from the kitchen and set them behind the mics. If I’m going to play, I’m going to need something to sit on, and Rosie might want somewhere to perch too.
I settle myself on the stool and strum to check the tension in the strings. Something that isn’t quite nerves yet isn’t exactlyimpatience makes my chest tighten. I’ve played a few times for my family, and although Charles is the only one who knows how much music means to me, it’s unspoken knowledge that of the five of us, I’m the one who inherited Mom’s affinity for music and art. Unspoken because I don’t like to talk about it. I never thought it mattered. Now, with “Mary Had A Little Lamb” on the horizon, I feel like I’ve got something to prove.
I risk a glance at Rosie, sitting on the opposite stool, and catch her watching me with blue eyes so deep I could fall into them and never meet the bottom. That’s when I get it. I do have something to prove. To me and to her.
Izzy counts us in with the tap of her toes, and the three of us manage a recognizable performance of the classic nursery rhyme. It’s next to impossible to make out the gentle accompaniment of my guitar or Rosie’s voice underneath the ear-piercing blast of Izzy’s trumpet, but when we’ve rounded out the final note, Izzy beams at me, then Rosie, and I’m grateful I could make a dream come true for her today.
Poppy jumps up to help Izzy with her instrument, and Rosie stands, too, but I stop her with the first chords of the song we wrote together. With a flash of surprise followed by a smile only for me, she settles back on her stool, shifting until she’s found a position that’s comfortable.
I raise my eyebrows slightly in question, she answers me with the drop of her chin, and I start to play.
I remember every note and word of the song we wrote on my porch because I’ve replayed every layer of it a thousand times in my head. I’m peripherally aware of the hush that falls over the room and the energetic thrum that tells me that, one by one, my family is catching on that we’re playing a Rosalie Thorne original. Her voice dances with the music from my guitar, balancing every inflection and note with expert control and instinct. Rosie gives an understated and emotional deliveryof the first chorus, and as I fill the next space with my fingers, I don’t think anyone expects me to open my mouth and sing. Least of all me.
I almost chicken out, but I want Rosie to know how much this song changed me. Writing it with her and for her. I want her to know I take her art seriously and that whatever is happening between us means something. And I have to believe, by the way she watches me croon the words she wrote, she understands what I’m trying to say. She watches me like she always knew I could do this.
The song draws to a close and we transition into silence with my fingers light on my strings. There’s a sense of a collective held breath as I set my guitar down against my chair and Rosie slowly comes to a stand. She closes the few steps between us and stops between my open knees. In front of everyone, she loops her arms around my neck, pulls my mouth to hers, and kisses me.
There may be applause. There may be cheers. There might even be a few sniffles. I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m too busy kissing the woman I love.
twenty-one
Finn
IholdRosie’shandon the drive home, and she cuddles against me on the bench seat of my old pickup truck. When the warmth of her skin and the twist of her fingers aren’t enough, I scoop her bare legs over mine until she’s all but sitting in my lap. She rests her head against my chest, and I release her hand so I can loop an arm around her. The need to be closer than my truck allows is palpable.
I pull up to the cabin and when the headlights cut out, we’re plunged into the kind of blackness that only exists in the middle of nowhere. Moonlight dapples the river with shimmering silver, the porch light illuminates the front door and not much else, and Rosie has never looked more beautiful. I slip out of the cab and turn around, slide her toward me, and set her on the ground, then take her hand again to lead her up the porch steps. The silence between us feels sacred, like one word might snap tonight’s enchantment and so before we speak, we need todo somethingto transform the fragile possibility between us into something nobody can break.
Now, I think when we’re standing by the door.Now. Before it’s too late.
I freeze with my hand on the door handle and kiss her. She kisses me back, and the entire universe contracts into the infinitesimal space between our lips.
I kiss her as I scoop her into my arms. I kiss her while I carry her inside. At the bottom of the ladder, when she tightens her arms around my neck and refuses to relinquish my mouth, I shift the way I hold her, wrapping her legs around my waist and kissing her while I take us up to the loft.
I kiss her until we’re in my room and my legs hit the mattress. I kiss her and she won’t let go, so I fall with her, stretching over her as she clings to me. She smells likeher, and when I attempt to pull away, just long enough to get her clothes off, she twists her fingers in my hair to keep my lips where they are. I give her what we both need, long, luxurious strokes of my tongue and hands that caress her sides. My cock thickens and I roll it against her center, but when Rosie slips her fingertips inside the waist of my jeans, I tilt away and finally release her mouth.
She’s pretty as a picture beneath me, and I kneel so I can peel the clothes from her body, starting with my flannel shirt and following with the white tank underneath. Her bra goes next, full breasts bouncing free, nipples tight and hard enough that I drop my head to suck one, then the other.
“Oh,” she moans as her soft, cool hands glide round the back of my neck.
She skims the skin at the opening of my shirt, and I drag it off. She approves with a contented sigh, and those inquisitive fingers tickle a path over my shoulders, down my arms, across my throat and chest, until the tease of her touch becomes too much for me to bear. I kiss her again, slowly and softly, inviting her to open her mouth with the tentative brush of my tongue, and when she obliges, I stroke a little deeper. Her welcoming mewl makes megroan, and I kiss her harder and rougher, with nips and tugs that will leave her lips swollen and bruised.
Rosie’s arms tighten around me, and I can tell by the shift of her hips, the way her fingernails cut into my skin, the hard stroke of her tongue, that she needs more. But fuck, I want this to last forever. I want to kiss this girl until the sun comes up. I want to go slow before we go fast. I want to be the first man to put his mouth on her pussy and make her come with my tongue.
I want to sink into this dream and not surface until… maybe ever.
Rosie seeks the button on my jeans, and I catch her hand with my own. When she tries to yank free, I tighten my grip and pull her hand from my waist, pinning it to the mattress above her head. I transfer my weight to my knees so I can catch her other hand too, lifting it higher and crossing her wrists to trap them there.
“What is it?” she asks, tossing her head. “Why can’t I touch you? What do you want?”
