Hendrix
Elle laughs and the sound drifts over my skin. Above us, the night is filled with a million stars, and the cool autumn air nips at my skin. Elle is in a sleeveless gown. Dark blue silk and it’s been my pleasure to escort her to my school’s fall dance. Without a doubt, she was the most beautiful girl there, and I’m the lucky bastard who got to slow dance with her all night.
I pull off my suit coat and wrap it around her shoulders as we walk across the grass of her backyard toward the gazebo where I held her this summer. Elle pulls it tight, appears to breathe in my scent and then smiles up at me.
Her real smile, the one that owns my heart, the one still reserved only for me.
Elle’s parents are gone for the weekend, and tonight, we’re alone. I squint as we come closer to the gazebo. Small lights flicker, and I glance over at Elle for an explanation. “Holiday and Kellen may have been helpful tonight.”
“Helpful?” My mind tries to figure out what helpful might mean as Elle twines her fingers with mine and pulls me forward.
“Tonight is what I have wanted for so long. For there to be music and laughter and dancing and singing, and I knew I wouldn’t want it to end, so Holiday and Kellen helped me, so it doesn’t have to end quite yet.”
Two steps up into the gazebo and there are lit candles creating a circle. Elle leads me into the middle. On the bench is a basket full of food, a blanket and an iPod with speakers. With a few swipes of her fingers, music begins to play. Soft and low and seductive, and I can’t help but smile at the smooth jazz tones.
Jazz, as I’m discovering at my new school, is what I have been born to play. Jazz, as Elle has discovered, is her least favorite music to listen to, but listen she does. To each and every song I play, and she does it all with that amazing smile on her face.
When a public high school in our county heard how I had been offered the spot at the private youth performing arts school and then how that offer was rescinded due to the parents’ and board’s concerns, they contacted me. They told me about their fledgling music magnet and asked me to be part of the charter class. I agreed, but only with the condition they took Marcus, as well. They did, and so far, it’s been one of the best experiences of my life.
“We can dance to something else,” I say.
She shakes her head. “We’re only dancing to what you have created.”
My head whips in the direction of the iPod, and Elle slips her arms around me in a hug. “I might have called the school this week, and for once, might have used my semi-celebrity status to ask for an early copy, and they might have said yes with the promise I wouldn’t release it in public.”
My mind is spinning as I listen to the notes, to the chords, to the steady beat, and there’s a building in my chest. That’s my song. I wrote it from scratch, from my heart, from my soul, and each and every instrument is played by me, as well. This is my song, belongs to me, and I thought it would be weeks before I heard it all together, but Elle has given me a gift. So many gifts and this one nearly brings me to my knees.
Elle beams up at me. “Shall we dance?”
Dance. I don’t know how to dance, because I don’t know how to thank her, how to let her know how much she means to me. I touch her. My hands along her back, and I lean down and I kiss her. Gently. Lovingly. Reverently.
Her lips move against mine, her hands begin to wander along my back, and tease the hair along my neckline. She presses her body closer to mine, and the flame of desire grows. It burns warmer in my blood, causing me to deepen our kiss.
We kiss more, and we break apart long enough for her to slip my jacket off her shoulders, for the blanket to be laid on the floor and then for those items to cover us up on the cool night as we resume kissing. We continue to explore until we reach a point where Elle decides if we go much further she’ll explode.
With a happy sigh, Elle curls into me, and I hold her close. I kiss her lips again, and she runs her fingers along my arm in encouragement. She then rests her head on my chest, and I listen to my songs and the symphony of katydids and frogs that is our own private orchestra.
“Are you happy?” she asks.
“Very.”
“So am I.”
Tonight, we don’t know if the Second Chance Program will be saved, we don’t know if her father will win the election, we don’t know if her relationship with her parents will be repaired, and I don’t know if I will truly have a career in music.
But there are things I do know. No matter what happens, no matter what dark moments we face, Elle and I have both learned how to stand on our own two feet, and we’ve also learned that the journey is sweeter when it is shared together.
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Keep reading for an excerpt from by Katie McGarry.