“Liddie, there’s a boy on the phone.” Ace said with a straight face as he handed the receiver over to her.

She could hear Tobias laughing on the other end of the line before she even brought the receiver to her ear.

“You should be glad you live alone,” she said.

“Oh, believe me, I am. I get enough ribbing without sharing a house with those two jokers,” he replied, still chuckling. “Hey, darlin’. How was your meeting? Did you get through it okay?”

“Yeah, I did. Can you hold on just a sec?” Liddie hauled the heavy black phone off the phone stand and pulled it into the coat closet snugged under the stairs. “Okay, I’m good. Hey, Toby.”

“What were you doing?”

“I figure, since I’ve obviously reverted back to junior high, I might as well do what I did when I was fourteen. I’m in the coat closet.” Tobias was quiet for so long that she thought he hung up. “Toby? You still there?”

“You are nuts, lady. Absolutely crazy.” Tobias cackled. “You’re really in the closet?”

“Yessir, I am.” Liddie couldn’t help but grin. “Where are you? Are you outside?”

“Well, I’m sure as hell not in a closet. I’m actually on the porch, enjoying the weather.”

“That sounds nice.”

“It is. And speaking of nice and porches, what do you say about coming to see me play on Friday night, down in Cabbagetown?”

“Um . . .”

“You’re nice, and the bar that I’m performing at has a porch, so . . .”

“I’d love to, but Cabbagetown is in Atlanta proper, right?”

He cleared his throat. “Um, yeah, and I usually stay at Nolan’s apartment when I play down there, because the shows tend to run late and it’s a long trip back. So . . . yeah.”

Liddie considered her options. On one hand, she wanted to see Tobias play again. At the Hemlock Creek Tavern show, she was so stunned from being in close proximity to him that she really didn’t even hear the music. But on the other hand, staying with him in Atlanta? She wasn’t sure she was ready for that.

“I would get you a hotel room if you felt more comfortable with that. Or we could come back after. Regardless, I would really like for you to come with me, Liddie.”

“It’s Monday, so . . . can I think on it a few days? Like, until Wednesday?”

“Sure thing, darlin’. Ever what you want.”

“God, I haven’t heard that in years,” she said with a sigh. “You know what? Yes. I don’t need to think about it. Yes. I’ll go with you, and we can stay in Nolan’s apartment. And we can . . . just play it by ear regarding . . . other stuff.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Liddie took a deep breath. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

“If you change your mind, that’s fine, okay? But I’m glad you’re going. And . . . and staying, too.” Liddie heard him blow out a shaky breath. “Yeah, okay.”

“Tobias Harper, were you nervous?”

“Fuck yeah, I was nervous. I still am.” He laughed quietly. “You make me feel like I’m fifteen again.”

“Me, too. Lord, me too, Toby.”

“I guess that’s not too terrible, then. Right?”

“Right.”

Just then, the door of the closet flew open, and Liddie was blinded by the bright overhead light in the hallway. “Good Lord, shut the door.”

“Mom, what in the world? Do you think you’re a boy wizard?”

Tobias cackled. “Okay, you’re busted. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, darlin’. Have a good night, and tell your family ‘hey.’ ”

“You have a good night, too, Tobias.” Liddie shot Tally a death glare and tried to grab the door to shut it. “I’ll tell everyone ‘hello’ except for my brat of a daughter, whom I am going to snatch bald-headed.”

“Rude!” Tally shut the door in Liddie’s face.

“Now she’s shut me in the closet.” Liddie howled with laughter. “Oh God, I am too old to do this.”

Tobias snickered. “I am not even responding to that. I’ll talk to you soon, Liddie. Night, hon.”

“Night, Tobias.”

“You hang up first.”

“Okay, bossy.” Liddie laughed again. “Night.”

She hung up the phone because she knew he was serious about his demand that she end the call first. Liddie sat in the cool, dark closet for a few more minutes until the doorknob rattled.

“Harry! Stop playing with your wand!” Tally was laughing so hard Liddie could barely understand her because of the chortling.

Sweet Jesus, I really am too old for this.

´*•.¸(*•.¸ *¸.•*´)¸.•*´

Tobias laughed and laughed as he heard the phone click off. Still chuckling, he walked around the house, turning off the lights, straightening things up, and letting the melody in his head percolate a little. The click-click-click of the girls’ toenails on the hardwood floor provided a counterpoint to the tune that was fermenting. He went out to the covered porch, parked his butt on the couch, and the two dachshunds joined him, each curling up on opposite sides of him.

He loved this view, and the house was secluded enough that all he could hear was the river and the occasional train. It reminded him of a simpler time when he was small and his mother wasn’t as ill. Tobias was just learning to play the organ and the guitar, and he’d savored the attention his father had bestowed on him. Of course, that changed as Tobias got older, and for some reason, he ended up a rival instead of a partner.

He shook his head, determined to not get bogged down in the bullshit and to relish this second chance at a something with Liddie. He wasn’t kidding when he’d told her she made him feel fifteen again. All those jumbled feelings—equal parts excitement, trepidation, and lust—put him right back where he was all those years ago when Liddie skipped out of the church lock-in on graduation night. He’d asked her to run away with him, and he’d been serious. He’d had a plan, and actually a decent one, but things hadn’t worked out. Not by a long shot.

While his mind roamed, he caught himself playing the “What If” game, and that never, ever ended well. However optimistic the scenario started, he couldn’t help but play devil’s advocate and imagine the flip side, when things went wrong and the bloom faded from the rose. What if that happened now? What if they’d changed too much, if the events in the thirty years that had passed made them such different people that they had nothing in common anymore except that night in the moonlight? He didn’t think he could bear that. Would it be better for them not to even start, for them just to let the past remain a vivid memory?

He really didn’t think so, which is why he invited Liddie to the show in Cabbagetown. The Cabbagetown show would be a chance for them to physically distance themselves from the past, and maybe, just maybe, allow them to leave the emotional past behind as well by making some new memories.

New memories.

The phrase sparked a blaze of melody in his head, which led him to leap off the couch and head down to the basement studio. He grabbed his cherished Dobro off the stand, clicked record on the computer program, and then sat down to play. He laid down the track in one take, not even bothering to try to transcribe the music this time. There would be time enough for transcription, and anyway, the melodies always transformed a bit.

Then he played back the earlier piece, the one he recorded before he was inexplicably drawn outside to find Liddie sitting on the dock. The piece was darker than what he’d recorded this evening; it had a yearning, a depth of emotion he hadn’t heard in his own music in a long time. He’d been churning out chart-toppers for other people for so long that he didn’t know if he could even create music for himself. These two recordings proved that he could.

He’d teased Mick with his talk of a solo record. But maybe it was time.