Page 53 of Betsy
20
Asher
Los Angeles traffic was going to give me a brain aneurism. It wasn’t like I-5 didn’t get as clogged as a frat house toilet after Oktoberfest farther south, but at least our bottlenecked lanes moved along like an infant already having learned to crawl. Here, with the Hollywood sign visible on the distant mountains to the east, we were at a standstill. Dave might as well have killed the engine to save on gas. It didn’t look like we were going anywhere anytime soon.
“How about another game?” Tricia suggested.
I glanced back from the passenger seat and felt like I stared into three separate mirrors. Tricia at least looked to be fighting her frustration with the traffic by putting on a fake glow. Or maybe that was just the effects of being pregnant. Jimmy, Marcus, and Betsy, however, looked as fed up as I did.
“Let’s play Highway Harmony.” Tricia tried again when no one responded to her suggestion, much less with any sense of enthusiasm, feigned or otherwise.
“Never heard of it,” Betsy mumbled.
Tricia’s eyes flashed. I sat up straighter. What was the busybody up to?
As far as I knew, Betsy hadn’t shared our moment in Las Vegas with anyone in the band, and I knew I hadn’t. Then again, only someone completely oblivious wouldn’t have noticed a shift between us. Tension crackled like a visible thing, the air charged around us. We’d become one of those plasma balls my fifth-grade teacher had had in the classroom. The ones that looked like they contained lightning inside a glass globe, but when you touched the surface, all those bright, shining currents shot out toward your hand.
“It’s fun.” Tricia’s voice was overbright. “Someone starts singing a song and then a second person joins in by harmonizing.”
Betsy’s gaze flicked to me, the corners of her lips turned down.
Did she think I’d put Tricia up to this? While I fully wanted to encourage and support her to take the first step she was for some reason too scared to take, I’d come to accept that pushing her wasn’t the way to do it. She’d only push back harder times ten. No, Betsy would have to come to her own realizations in her own time.
I just wished she’d let me close enough to see it when it happened.
“Betsy, you go first,” Tricia pronounced.
“I really don’t want—”
“Please. It will help me take my mind off things.” She rubbed the side of her belly.
I couldn’t tell if she was using the situation to manipulate Betsy or if she really was sincerely asking Betsy for a favor.
Betsy held Tricia’s gaze for a few beats, then dipped her chin in agreement. After a moment of thinking, she began to sing.
“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me!”
The timeless hymn, known and loved by many throughout the ages, filled the inside of the bus. Reached down and touched my spirit in the same way I imagined many had believed the waters of the pool of Bethesda were stirred.
Tricia hadn’t named a person to step in to harmonize with Betsy, per the game’s rules. Even if she had, I didn’t think I’d have been able to stop myself from opening my mouth and joining my voice to Betsy’s. She called out to me in ways I’d never heard before, and it was beyond my control to choose whether to respond.
When she started the second stanza, I came in under her. Lifted her up. Supported her in ways I’d longed to do, if only with my voice.
“I once was lost, but now I’m found; Was blind but now I see.”
Our voices blended together in layers I hadn’t thought possible. Like a chef finding the perfect balance of flavors with sweet, salty, acidic, and rich. I’d always suspected we’d sound good together, but even I hadn’t been prepared for the harmony that danced around us in a perfect waltz.
Betsy’s gaze had tangled with mine as soon as our perfectly pitched notes had floated out into the atmosphere. Current meeting current.
How could she not see? As well as our voices fitted together, we could be so much more. If only she wouldn’t push me away. Would acknowledge the gift she’d been given. Trust that not every musician—me, her, if she’d ever accept that no matter how much she denied it, music was as much a part of her as anyone who took to the stage or was heard on the radio—would hurt those closest to them for the taste of a dream.
I wasn’t alone in my growing feelings. Our kiss in Vegas had made that clear. But she would never truly be able to accept the two of us being together until she accepted all of herself first.
Tricia gasped and clutched the underside of her belly. “Ummm, guys?” She looked up at me, her eyes rounded in perfect circles. “I think my water just broke.”
“What!?” Dave wrenched around to look behind him, his elbow slamming into the steering wheel in the process.
Tricia bit her lip and nodded.
