Sweet Harmonies (23 page)

Amanda laughed, “I think he's charming.”

“
Talk to me again tomorrow.”

When Karina heard the front door close behind
her visitors, and she was finally all alone, she spent a moment
relishing the quiet, but quickly realized that it was not helping
her organize her thoughts at all. Instead, it actually felt
oppressive.

No, she had never been one for quiet
contemplation when trying to work through a big problem. Instead,
she did what she did every time in her life that she needed to
solve a situation, or process some emotions. She reached for her
guitar.

Chapter 15

Ryan irritably flipped over in his bed – the
latest turn in a night that had been filled with a whole lot of
tossing and turning and very little sleep – and gazed at the
glowing red numbers of his bedside alarm clock. 3:04 am. Ten
minutes after the last time he had checked.

The bright red numbers shining at him from
the darkness seemed to be angry, accusatory. They refused to let
him forget that the reason he couldn't get to sleep was because of
his own human weakness – namely, the raging hard on that had been
plaguing him pretty much since he left Karina hours earlier.

Every time he would manage to distract
himself, get both his mind and body under control, a mental movie
would pop into his head unbidden, of Karina slipping off her bra
and giving him his first unobstructed view of her glorious, full,
caramel-skinned breasts, topped with the hard chocolate buttons of
her nipples. Of Karina furiously pumping her hand up and down on
his shaft, as they stared into each other's eyes, their faces so
close that their foreheads touched, and he was breathing in her
sweet exhales. Of Karina in his arms, naked and shaking like a
leaf, her body contracting around him as she screamed in
release.

And then, of course, the illusion of control
he had managed to build would shatter in an instant and he would be
burning up with passion, his erection calling for his full
attention, and the promise of sleep would evaporate just as
quickly.

A hundred times, no a thousand times, that
night he had to stop himself from just grabbing his keys off of his
nightstand, jumping in his truck, and heading back to Karina's
house. It had taken all the willpower he possessed, plus some he
hadn't even known he had, to keep him in his own house and, more to
the point, in his own bed.

He tried to take the edge off by taking
matters into his own hands, so to speak. And that had provided some
relief. For a moment. But soon after his self-manipulated release –
during which all he could think about was what a pale and lifeless
sensation it was in direct comparison to the orgasm he had shared
with Karina – he was undone by his own thoughts, as he had a sudden
memory of the feeling of her body pressed against his, the soft
curve of her waist in his palm, and the soft touch of her lips
against his. And just like that, he was back at square one.

DAMN!

He had to stop this movie of the two of them
in his office naked and hungrily devouring one another from playing
over and over in his head. If he was ever going to get any sleep,
not just tonight but ever again...if he was ever going to be able
to fit into a pair of jeans again for that matter...he needed to
get a handle on this.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. He
slapped his palm to his forehead. He was an idiot!

He had turned his phone off for their date,
and he had never turned it back on. What if Karina had been trying
to get a hold of him? She might have called him, texted him...she
might have been trying to reach him for hours.

He leaped out of bed and scrambled to where
he had dropped his jeans on the bedroom floor before collapsing
into bed. He fumbled his phone out of the pocket and anxiously
switched it on.

His eyebrows drew together in a puzzled
furrow as he looked at the notifications screen. Thirty missed
calls? Forty text messages? What the...

Before he could even complete that thought,
he heard someone attempting to turn his front doorknob, and then
heard the scratching of the lock.

“
What the hell?!” he breathed, as he
quickly pulled on the jeans that were still in his hand, grabbed a
baseball bat, and as silently as possible, padded towards his front
door.

His nerves were on end as he waited for the
front door to open. He wondered if he should call 911, because what
good was a baseball bat going to do if the intruder had a gun?

However, his ruminations were cut short as
the door started to slowly inch inwards. No more time to formulate
a plan, it was GO TIME! He raised the bat and assumed the 'ready
position' stance.

As the door swung even further inward, the
image of the intruder materialized from the darkness. Ryan exhaled,
and his muscles unconsciously relaxed as he recognized the form of
his grandmother, Sue Ann, as she walked into the room, muttering
and fumbling with the key in the lock.

“
Granny!” Ryan exclaimed, causing Sue
Ann to scream and jump almost a foot in the air.

Sue Ann spun on him, and punched him in the
shoulder, harder than he would have thought her capable. “You
scared me!” she yelled accusingly.

“
I scared you?” Ryan shot back
disbelievingly, “You're the one who's sneaking into my place at
three in the morning like a cat burglar!”

“
Well,” she said reasonably, “I didn't
expect to find you awake and alert, I expected to find you passed
out face down on the living room floor, sleeping off a drunken
stupor!”

Ryan was stupefied, “That's so...specific,”
he finally managed, “Where on earth did you get that idea, Granny?
I barely even drink.”

“
Well, why else wouldn't you be
answering your phone?” she responded, as if this was the most
obvious answer in the world, “We've been calling and texting you
for hours now. In fact, your voice mail box thingy says it's
full.”

Ryan felt his stomach drop, and his legs go
numb.

“
What?” he breathed, “Mom and Dad? Are
they OK? What's happened?”

He felt the same panic rising up in him that
he felt on the day he had walked into his house, that spring
afternoon when he was 14, and had seen his Mom crying and his Dad
patting her back. The same panic that had closed his throat and
threatened his ability to breathe when they'd turned to him and
oh-so-gently told him that they had some bad news. Oh, God. This
couldn't be happening again!

Sue Ann turned to him brightly, totally
oblivious to the emotional tumult he was experiencing, and he was
shocked that an internal storm could rage so violently and yet give
off no outward indications.

“
Oh, they're fine!” Sue Ann chirped,
grinning from ear to ear, “And nothing's happened. Nothing, that
is, unless you consider their son and my grandson becoming a
YouTube sensation! Which I very much do!”

“
Granny,” Ryan said, slowly shaking his
head, “It's the middle of what has proven to be a very long night.
You are going to have to forgive me if I'm not firing on all
cylinders, but I'm not following you at all – what in the world are
you talking about?”

“
Your video!” she responded excitedly,
clapping her hands in front of her like an excited school
kid.

Ryan closed his eyes against the frustration
and took a deep breath, speaking slowly, “What video?”

“
Oh, honey, you haven't seen it? I
think you must be the only person on the internet who
hasn't!”

Ryan was still shaking his head in puzzlement
and was starting to wonder if this might, in fact, be some sort of
fevered dream when his phone rang in his hand, startling him a
bit.

He looked down at the display to see who
would be calling him at this hour and was shocked to see the the
face of his ex-girlfriend, Brianna.

“
What in the world?” Ryan mumbled to
himself. When he looked up to tell Sue Ann that he should probably
take the call, he was surprised to see her sitting at his computer
typing away.

She pulled up a page on YouTube and, as the
video started and Kyle Austen Reed began giving his introduction on
the screen, she turned to Ryan, her face shining, and said, “See
for yourself!”

Ryan stepped closer to the screen and watched
the video play, entranced by watching the scene unfold before him,
a moment that he had not been aware was being captured, and one
that he had been too swept up in to really register at the
time.

He watched himself adopt a sly expression as
he called Karina to the stage, and his breath caught when she
stepped into the video frame. She was beautiful. Would he ever see
her and not feel this hollow, heart-racing sensation?

His eyes narrowed as he saw Kyle Austen Reed
plant a smooch on her cheek as they passed. Hmmmm. He hadn't
noticed that at the time, probably because of nerves, and he didn't
like it one little bit right now.

But the annoyance he felt was swept away in
its entirety as he saw Karina take her place next to him and heard
the two of them banter back and forth, followed by the opening
chords of “Love is the Key.”

He saw the enraptured expression on Karina's
face as she looked at him and sang, and the wide, awestruck smile
that spread across his as he looked into her eyes. He was taken
aback by the intensity of their connection, and how visible it was,
even to the casual observer. Of course, he had known how it FELT to
be that connected to Karina...he was just shocked by how it
LOOKED!

It occurred to him how bizarre it was that he
– little ol' Ryan Perkins from Montana – was up there on the
internet, starring in a YouTube video with “Karina Black – Super
Star.” It was odd, but since the initial shock of discovering her
identity that first day at her house, he had had difficulty
thinking of her like that. He just didn't see her that way, he
didn't know if he ever would.

And, to be honest, the person he saw on the
screen with him in the YouTube video didn't really seem like that
icon, either. She just looked like Karina. His Karina.

“
Can you believe this?” Sue Ann's
excited voice intruded on his thoughts as the final chords of their
song died out on the computer screen, “You need to call your folks,
they haven't slept a wink all night. They just keep refreshing the
screen to watch the views go up, and reading the comments. They
can't believe it's real! Hurry up, call them!”

“
What do you mean, watching the views
go up? Are people actually watching this?” Ryan asked.

Sue Ann silently pointed to the number of
views displayed underneath the video, and Ryan did a double take.
He rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things, but sure
enough, the number read 3,575,263 views.

“
Holy crap, what is going on?” Ryan
blurted.

“
Well,” Sue Ann replied somewhat
shiftily, “Best I can tell, somebody was so excited that Mr. Kyle
Austen Reed was in town – and emceeing the Town Follies no less –
that they thought they should save it for posterity, and once you
and Karina started playing, just kept recording. Then...as best I
can figure out, mind you...that person decided the world needed to
see it and so she uploaded it to her YouTube channel.”

Ryan narrowed his eyes in suspicion,
“She?”

Sue Ann looked up at him, the picture of
innocence, “What?”

“
You said 'she' – you seem pretty
certain this person is female. Why is that?”

Sue Ann hung her head sheepishly.

Ryan said, “Granny, no! Did you put this up?
Why would you do that?”

“
Well, honey, I honestly never thought
it would get this kind of attention, to tell you the truth. I just
wanted to show you off to my subscribers.”

“
Your subscribers?” He said, surprised.
He looked at the line below the view count and saw that the video
had been uploaded by 1TwiHardGrannySueAnnFan.

“
You're a Twilight fan?” he asked her,
amazed.

“
Team Jacob, and proud of it,” she
replied, puffing out her chest as if this was a badge of
honor.

Ryan felt a headache building behind his
eyes. This was all too much to take in. What was Karina going to
think about this? He sighed deeply.

“
You have to take this down, Granny,”
he said gravely.

She dismissed this without even a second's
consideration, “Oh, I can't do that!” she protested, “I'm too proud
of you. Not to mention, look at you two. You can't deny it's
something special to see. Besides, it's gone viral now, so it
wouldn't make much of a difference even if I did take it down. It's
out there now.”

Determined to get some kind of handle on this
situation, Ryan walked into his bedroom, pulled a sweatshirt over
his head, and slid his feet into sneakers. Without even bothering
to stop and lace them up, he headed for the front door.

As he exited, he reiterated forcefully,
“Granny, you have to take it down. You can lock up on your way out
since apparently you have a key and you're not afraid to use it.
I'll see you tomorrow at the cafe.”

“
Okay, sweetie, tell Karina I said
hello!” Ryan heard her chirp as he stepped out, and the last thing
he heard as he clomped down the stairs was the opening strains of
“Love is the Key” restarting as Sue Ann replayed the video, and
began to sing along.

--- ~ ---

Karina had not realized how exhausted she was
until she actually slid her aching and weary limbs into the sweet
comfort of her waiting bed, after a six-hour-long songwriting
session which had been both physically and emotionally
draining.