Beatless (6 page)

I opened my mouth to let the small sound come out and he pressed inward, making the note fuller.

“Breathe in. Low. Under your belly button.”

I was trying to but having him so close was making my head swim. What the hell was my problem?

“You should breathe like you do in your sleep. Like a baby. With your full stomach, not up there.” His lips were right next to my ear. “Lower your chest.”

“Are you
looking
at my chest?”

He exhaled and pulled me closer. “I don’t really have a choice at the moment.”

His palms opened on my stomach and I squeezed my eyes shut to concentrate on what we were actually doing, and not on what my brain was wandering off about.

“Remember the basics. Don’t lock your knees. Don’t force it. Find your center.”

So I sang. I sang in front of him and he held me upright while I did. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t perfect or beautiful. But it was a start.

After I’d finished the scale as far as I could go, he squeezed me a little from behind. “See? You’re still alive. It didn’t actually kill you.”

I stepped away and looked around the room, trying not to make eye contact. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to be able to do this on a stage or anything.”

“Not yet.”

There was a loud noise from upstairs and Tucker’s attention went to the basement door. “Eliza’s home. She usually needs some time to wind down after she’s been gone. We can leave out the back.” He grabbed his keys and headed for the side door and holding it open for me.

As I inched past him, he held a finger against my hip bone. “We’re going to do this again and again until you get comfortable.”

It didn’t even feel like a threat.

***

Berkley was still skeptical about the entire thing, but once we were in her house to rehearse, she lost her edginess. “I just don’t want this to blow up in our faces. We have a reputation to maintain.”

Sara pressed her fingers down on the keyboard creating a chaotic sound that made us all turn in her direction. “Just bringing this meeting to order.”

Tucker handed out all the sheet music, making sure to keep mine just out of reach so I had to push upwards to snatch it from his hand. The other girls exchanged a look and I ducked my head to keep from smiling.

“Until we have more of these perfected, we’re going to have to cut down on our set time. So I’d say we should have a goal of four songs in the next week that are good enough to do in front of an audience. Miller’s been telling people that he quit so there’s a lot riding on this if we want to prove that we don’t need him.”

It took exactly one hour to figure out we weren’t ready.

“We need something.” Sara’s fingers plinked across the keyboard again and she groaned.

“What about loops?” Tucker moved across the room to Berkley’s laptop. “We could record parts on loop and then it would be easier to sing the harmonies. I don’t have an issue with what was suggested, I just think that it’s going to require more time than what we have right now. And it’s not cheating because it will still be our voices.” I watched as he hit a few keys on the computer and brought up what appeared to be an equalizer. “Mal, come here for a second.” Without even asking, he took hold of a silver microphone head on a stand.

I crossed over to him and waited.

“Can you just repeat after me?”

With a quick glance around the room, my palms started to sweat. “Sure.” I copied him, my voice not coming out very sturdy at all. He gave me a pointed look and moved his hand in a circle like I should do it again. So I did.

He nodded and leaned over the board, concentrating. “Marcus. I need a bass line.”

The other boy stood and crossed over to stand in front of the computer and did as he was instructed. We knew there wouldn’t be an issue with him dropping a beat; he’d been doing it the entire time when he was rapping onstage. He was comfortable with it, so it seemed like an added bonus.

For the next couple hours, each one of us was required to add a part. I thought about all of the videos I had seen on Youtube and movies about a cappella groups. I tried to envision all of us on that stage, giving our all. The recordings were only seconds worth but by the time the entire thing was done, Tucker had added the files to the computer for us to practice with.

“I think it sounds okay.”

“I think it sounds incredible.” The other girls in the room shared another look and I had to close my mouth from saying anything more.

“So we start here. Unless we can get some more people in here, we should just do this.” He regarded us seriously. “Are we ready to begin?”

Mal,

I want to tell you that everyone makes mistakes. You already know that, but what you probably don’t understand is that the human condition is called that for a reason. It’s a burden to be alive and responsible for every action that we make. Our humanity is our downfall. But, if we’re lucky, we have people that will accept us – flaws and all. And they’ll forgive us for our mistakes. They’ll pardon us for the choices that we’ve made that are beautiful, tragic, and life changing.

Being alive is the greatest gift we’ll ever receive. But our responsibility is to accept our imperfections and move on. Dwelling on the past and wallowing in our failures will not help anyone. It’s getting back on your feet and proving that you’ve learned and are willing to try again that shows who you really are.

Sam

~*~6~*~

It was grueling and a little exhausting singing so much. Learning so fast. I had to call in sick to work that week in order to make sure I had enough time for rehearsals and homework. Not to mention my driving lessons.

The day I mastered the clutch I almost cried. “I hate this car, but oh my God, I actually did it.”

“We should celebrate.” Tucker beamed at me from the passenger seat. He’d kept his hands to himself since that day in his basement and I’d lulled myself into believing that the chemistry between us was simply based on a moment of silliness in the car and the intimate way he’d been teaching me the scales and breath control. It was a passing thing. Nothing to dwell on.

“Okay.” I reached over and squeezed his knee. He jumped a little and I clutched harder. “Are you ticklish?”

“No.” His face was telling a different story, though. And while he was trying to pull my hand from his leg, I gripped even tighter.

“I had no idea!”

“I’m not!” It came out in a howl of laughter.

His arms flailed and he scooted away from me, his upper body almost halfway out the window in an attempt to escape. I finally let him go and he settled back into the seat begrudgingly, giving me a hilariously dirty look. “If you tell
anybody
. . .”

“It’ll be our little secret,” I promised.

The drive from the school parking lot to my house was carefree while we listened to the radio and I tried my best not to stall out at the multiple stop signs that lined the road. Once in the driveway, I checked for any sign of Sam, but again, she wasn’t there. “I thought maybe you’d get to meet my aunt, but she’s gone a lot lately. She’s been acting so weird.”

Tucker leaned forward and gazed up at my house. “Like how?”

“I don’t know. You’d have to know how she used to be to understand. I know she’s sad and it’s not easy. But I’ll find her watching the same movie that she’s already watched a thousand times since she moved back in. Or she’ll wander around the house like she doesn’t know what to do with herself. Yesterday she called me Myra. Not that it means anything because my family has a habit of interchanging people’s names, but I’ve never known Sam to do it. I chalked it up to her missing my mom and getting it wrong.”

“Hmm.”

“Honestly, I wanted to show her that I finally got the car to go.” I smiled and brushed the thoughts of Sam aside. “Whatever. Come in and I’ll make a snack. Sam’s actually good at keeping the fridge stocked.”

He trailed behind and it didn’t occur to me until I’d pulled a box of taquitos from the freezer that he’d never been in my house. While removing the wrapper, I offhandedly offered, “Want the grand tour?” It was something that my mom had said so many times to guests that I didn’t even realize that I’d repeated it until he accepted.

We walked the halls and I showed him around, shrugging as I opened doors like it wasn’t a big deal
and why had I offered to do this again
? We climbed the stairs and for the first time since we’d been at his house, I felt nervous to be alone with him. “This is mine,” I said quietly and opened the door to turn on the light.

The switch was attached to the lights on the far wall, as well as my lamp, and the darkened walls glowed lighter blue around the bulbs. He leaned into the doorway, his eyebrows furrowed and hands digging deep into his jean pockets.

“What? Did you expect pink and glitter and . . .”

“No. I expected exactly this. It’s weird.”

“What do you mean?” I wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or not.

He slipped by me and walked to the window, peeking out through the blinds before turning to regard everything with a sweeping gaze. “I mean, when I imagined where you slept or did your homework – when I imagined what your room would look like, this was exactly what I had in my brain. Blue walls and everything.” He rested his butt on my desk and crossed his arms. “It’s just so Mallory.”

“Wow. My entire name from your mouth.”

He glowered. “I call you Mallory.”

“No, you call me Mal. Not that I mind. It’s just weird to hear it.”

Tucker nodded and looked away, his attention diverted to the bed for a second before he straightened up and sauntered over to my bedside table. He took liberties everywhere he went, so it came as no surprise when he shifted his shoes off his feet and started to play with the knobs on the radio. Music filtered through the speakers and I tried to remember the last time I’d actually used the radio on my alarm clock.

He tapped his fingers against his pockets, something I noticed he did when he was trying not to come across as nervous.

I stood awkwardly to the side of my desk, watching the way he was appraising everything, like he was trying to memorize my belongings. The song on the radio was one that I liked and I didn’t even notice I was swaying until he’d made a circuit around the room and was standing in front of me. He raised his eyebrows and reached over to place his hands on my shoulders, sliding them down the tiniest bit so that his thumbs rested just out of reach of my bra cups through my shirt.

“What?” I laughed and uncrossed my arms letting them hang uncomfortably.

The left side of his mouth lifted and he shook his head the tiniest bit before sliding his palms down my arms to my wrists until he had my hands in his. He shifted so that we were palm to palm and slowly lifted them to chest level, his eyes taking in how we fit together. How his fingertips sat at least an inch above my own. I stood still, held in place with rapt fascination. The heat from his touch was making my hands and arms tingle.

He stepped into me, pressing our palms between us, and then let my right hand go to place his hand on my waist. I melted into him, allowing my eyes to close as he swayed and I followed. His fingers moved along the top of my shorts and when he’d found where my shirt started, they slipped upwards, softly caressing the skin above the waistband.

I exhaled in surprise, never opening my eyes but trying to concentrate on getting a handle on the way my heart was thundering in my chest. He had to be able to feel it there between us.

“Hey,” he whispered just next to my ear.

“Hmm?”

He stepped back and I followed, almost tripping in the unexpected space between us. Tucker let go of my hand and reached by me to grab something off my board. “You kept this?”

My mouth went dry and I reached out to snatch it back but he held it above his head, just out of my reach. “So? I found it before school started while I was cleaning my room.”

“But you kept it.”

“On accident.” God, it was so embarrassing the way he was looking at me.

“I really did make this, you know. I don’t think you believed me when I told you.” His gaze roamed the plastic beads, his thumb sliding over them as he reminisced. “I actually thought this,” he shook it at me, “was reason you stopped talking to me.”

“Well, that’s stupid. It was just a bracelet.”

A small smile played across his lips while he thought carefully over his next words. He inhaled like I was about to hear something very important. “I was going to ask you out that day.”

“What? You’re lying. When I was in seventh grade?”

His eyes met mine. “Yeah. But the bus came and I lost my nerve. Then the next day one of the guys I was playing basketball with in P.E. was talking shit about seeing us out by the tree – asking if we’d done it and making fun of me because you were a year younger - just saying bullshit. So I punched him. It was an easy decision to make.”

My heart couldn’t have been beating any faster but somehow it accelerated to an uncomfortable cadence. “I had no idea. You got suspended because of me?”

“Not just you. Us, I guess. I didn’t want people saying that about you. We hadn’t even kissed or anything . . .”

“Hadn’t?”

He leveled me with his gaze. “Haven’t.”

“We could change that,” I whispered.

There was hesitation in his step as he closed the distance between us, placing his palms down on each side of my hips. His face was dipped toward mine, his lips so close that if I were to exhale deeply we’d be touching. He breathed out slowly and I closed my eyes, my entire body tingling with anticipation, feeling lightheaded as I waited.

And then . . .

"Mal?" Sam's voice slammed up the stairwell with such force that Tucker jumped back at least four feet from where we'd just been, his heels landing just short of the end of my bed.

My hands were shaking and I pulled at the hem of my shirt, avoiding eye contact as I crossed to the door. "Yeah?"

"There's a sheet of snacks practically on fire in the oven. Did you
want
it charred or . . ." She stopped short when she got to the doorway. Her eyes locked on the boy standing at the foot of my bed, shoeless and ruby red around his jaw. His hands were shoved into his pockets and he looked like he was afraid to swallow. Sam's lips twitched and she gave a little salute. "Tucker. Nice to see you."