Melody of the Heart (7 page)

Just when I had discredited it as my imagination working overtime, I heard, “Lily!”

Sprinting over to the window, I peered out. He stood on the lawn, his guitar slung over his back. “What in the…?” I muttered, as he beckoned me with his hand. Glancing over my shoulder, I groaned as I read the time on the digital clock. It was three in the morning.

My curfew was eleven o’clock during the week, and I was pretty sure that didn’t include a lawn rendezvous in the middle of the night. After hurrying out of my bedroom, I then crept down the hall, silently willing the creaky, old floorboards not to rat me out. Once I got to the backdoor, I entered the code for the alarm before heading outside. The moment I opened the door, the gentle strings of guitar music floated back to me. I ran across the steps of the deck and peered down at Brayden where he stood strumming his guitar.

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

A beaming smile lit up his face. “I just wrote a song.”

“Um, that’s wonderful, but couldn’t you have waited until the morning to tell me?”

“It
is
the morning.”

“I meant like when I wasn’t asleep.”

Brayden shook his head. “After I dropped you off tonight, I couldn’t go to sleep. My mind kept spinning and spinning, and then I would hear this melody in my head. And when I finally got up and started writing down the words, it wouldn’t stop. It felt like I was on a roller coaster or something. Then when I finished, I just had to come over here and tell you.”

Glancing over my shoulder, I nibbled anxiously on my bottom lip. “That’s really cool, Brayden, but you’re going to get me in trouble.”

“I don’t care,” he replied, with a chuckle.

My mouth dropped open in shock at his attitude. “Well, I do! And you should too. If I get grounded, I won’t be seeing you until after graduation.”

Taking a step forward, Brayden said, “Don’t you get it, Lily? I’ve never written anything in my entire life. Hell, I could barely string the right sentences together to write the essays for my English classes.” He stared determinedly up at me. “But then you came into my life just when everything had gone to shit, and I thought I could never be happy again without football. But I’m fucking happier than I’ve ever been. And when you chose me, it changed everything.”

“Oh Brayden,” I murmured, my heartbeat accelerating wildly at his words. For a moment, I had to resist the urge to pinch myself. Could it truly be possible a handsome guy with a beautiful heart was on my lawn in the middle of the night to sing a song he wrote just for me? Surely, I would wake up in a minute and find out it had all been just a dream.

“Want me to sing it for you?”

At that point, I didn’t care if my parents caught me and grounded me for the rest of my natural born life. I needed desperately to be serenaded. “Oh yes, please.”

Brayden grinned. His talented fingers began working over the strings of the guitar. A melancholy melody floated up to me, one I knew came straight from Brayden’s previous suffering.

Disappointments twisted and crippled me with rage.

Darkness held me bound like a prisoner in a cage.

Sadness wrecked me and brought me to my knees.

Suffering had me begging “Oh lord, help me please."

There was no reason to go on

Until there was you

Winking up at me, Brayden switched chords, and the sound of the sound changed to one more hopeful.

You drove away all the dark clouds with your smile.

You made life once again seem worthwhile.

You gave me a reason to go on.

A purpose to escape the twilight for the dawn.

Your love has the power to transcend and transform. 

You’re my Lily of the Valley, my savior from the storm.

Nothing really mattered in my life until there was you

When he finished strumming the last chords, I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. I raced over to the deck gate. I flung it open and pounded down the stairs. The moment my bare feet hit the grass, I began to run. I couldn’t wait to get to him. I had to touch him to know that he was really real. Tears blinded my eyes as I threw myself into his arms.

His guitar screeched between us. He chuckled against my ear. “I guess that means you like it.

“Oh my God, I love it!” I cried, before leaning back so I could smother his face with kisses.

“I’m glad to hear it,” he murmured, in between me kissing him.

“This is the most romantic thing a guy has ever done for me,” I gushed.

He grinned. “Now you’re going to make it hard for me to ever top this.”

I laughed. “I don’t know how you could.” Tilting my head at him, I asked, “Did I really do all those things like you wrote in the song?”

“You sure as hell did, babe. Every. Single. Word.”

When I reached to pinch his arm, he gave me a funny look. “What was that for?”

“I wanted to make sure you were real.”

“Why don’t you kiss me again and see just how real I am?”

“Okay,” I murmured. Just as I leaned in to bring my lips to his, the flood-lights came on all around the house. With a squeal, I jumped away from Brayden and glanced up at the deck. My dad stared down at us with his arms crossed over his chest. My mother stood behind him. While she wanted to look stern, I could see she was trying hard not to smile.

Brayden threw up one of his hands to my parents. “Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Gregson.”

My dad grunted. “All right, the shows over. Lily, get your ass up here and get in bed. Brayden, get your ass to your own home and go to bed.”

“I’m sorry for waking you up, Mr. Gregson. I didn’t mean to cause any problems by coming over here. Lily didn’t know I was coming, so please don’t punish her for my mistake,” Brayden pleaded.

My dad huffed out a breath. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

“Thank you, sir.” He started backing away from me, and then he stopped. In a flash, he was back at my side to plant a chaste kiss on my lips. “Goodnight, Lily.”

“Goodnight,” I called, as he started running around the side of the house. Ducking my head, I walked over to the stairs. I went up them a lot slower than I had come down them. When I got to the top, I dared to peek at my parents.

With his arms still crossed firmly over his chest, my dad’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “I’m sorry, Daddy. He just wanted to sing me a song he wrote. I promise we weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“Excuse me that I might misinterpret the situation after seeing you two with your hands all over each other.”

“Paul,” my mother cautioned.

“What?” he demanded.

“They didn’t have their hands all over each other. They were just hugging.”

His brows shot up. “Whose side are you on, Marie?”

She smiled. “I’m not taking sides. I’m just stating facts.”

He muttered something under his breath before he eyed me contemptuously. “I should ground you for this. Not only were you out past your curfew, but your boyfriend woke me up out of a dead sleep.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” I said again.

“Fine then. Get in the house.”

“Yes, sir.”

When I started past him, he reached out for my arm. “You could smooth things over by giving me a goodnight kiss,” he said, with a wink.

I grinned and reached up to kiss the salt and pepper stubble on his cheek. “Goodnight, Daddy. Goodnight, Mama.”

My mother reached in to kiss my cheek. “Goodnight, sweetheart. Your Brayden sure does have a romantic side, doesn’t he?”

Before I could reply, my father groaned. “You’re killing me here, Marie. Don’t encourage her.”

She waved her hand dismissively at him. “I seem to remember someone else being awfully romantic when he was Brayden’s age.”

“Hey, I’m still romantic,” he argued.

“Of course you are.”

As my parents bantered flirtatiously at each other, I headed back into the house. I didn’t know how I was going to go to sleep. I was still so wound up. Brayden had written a song just for me. He’d come to my house in the middle of the night because he had to sing it to me. It still was unbelievable.

Until There Was You
—the song that started it all for the two of us.

   
LILY

       
 
PRESENT DAY

“How impressive that you wrote your first song when you were just sixteen,” Giovanni remarked.

Brayden nodded. “Looking back, it’s not the strongest one I’ve written musically or lyrically, but I wouldn’t change a thing about it. The song represents such a time of rebirth in my life.”

With a smile, I said, “I like it just the way it is.”

Brayden chuckled. “I’m sure you do since it’s singing your praises.”

“You got that right.”

Giovanni grinned at the two of us. “So that was the most romantic thing Brayden did. I’m curious to find out what was the most romantic thing
Lily
ever did.”

Tilting my head, I replied, “Hmm, I’m interested to hear his answer for this one, too.”

“I’m surprised you even have to ask. I would think it would be a given.”

“Being the mother of your three children?”

He laughed. “Okay, I guess you need to think a little more superficially than our kids.”

“Is it sitting at home in our garage with its own custom-made covering, and no one is allowed to get too close to it?"

“Bingo!” Brayden replied, his eyes wide with amusement.

“Hmm, let me guess? It’s a car,” Giovanni said.

Brayden winked at me. “It isn’t just a car. You can’t call a ‘68 Challenger just a car. It was my pride and joy until Lily came along, but she managed to make it special, too.”

Giovanni’s brows creased in confusion. “Is that where the most romantic thing comes in?”

Brayden held up a hand. “Hang on. To understand why the Challenger is the most romantic thing, we have to give you a little backstory with the car and with us.”

Feeling warmth flood my cheeks, I said, “I don’t know how much I can actually say about us and your car that is appropriate.”

“While you’re giving him the just the basics of the story, I’ll be remembering all the good details…or maybe I should say the naughty details?”

“You’re impossible,” I muttered.

Brayden merely grinned. “But you love me.”

“Yeah, I do.”