First Kiss (Heavy Influence) (36 page)

             
“
Sure. I’m heading home now too. Good night
.”

             
I sat waiting. I heard the door shut and it seemed like forever before I heard anything else. I wondered if Jake walked out with him, but I didn’t dare move. I couldn’t believe what I’d just overheard. I peaked out and Jake stood near the door, looking at me sheepishly.

35

Jake

              If Aly didn’t realize what she meant to me, she did now. I was both euphoric and terrified all at once. She crept out with her shirt pulled tight and wadded at her chest, nervous, and looked at the door. I turned, locking it. I couldn’t formulate my next words, what else could I say? She stood next to my guitar looking ever more demure and I wondered what she must be thinking. I was too afraid to ask. How ironic, at that moment both she and my guitar were
staring
at me. I’d always expressed myself through my music, now my words were raw. I was completely exposed.

             
“You know that song I’d mentioned to you earlier?” I said as I walked over next to her and grabbed my guitar. I lingered a bit, taking in her eyes, trying to mind read her.

             
“Yeah,” she said softly.

             
I brushed past her and the energy coursed.

I reached into my bag, grabbing out my leather bound notebook and sat on the bed. I thumbed through the pages, finding what I was looking for. “Here, these are the lyrics.” I handed her the notebook and getting up I grabbed a highlighter pen out of my desk drawer.

I glanced over my shoulder to check her reaction. I could see her eyes move over the words and her slender fingers came up, covering her mouth.

“Oh, Jake…”

I cleared my throat. “See, these words here.” I said, taking back the notebook and sat back down on the bed. “These are the ones that you’d sing.”

The black script lit up under the transparent bright yellow ink and my heart raced with each stroke.

“Jake, is this how you feel?” she whispered, taken with emotion.

“Yeah. It is.” I smiled and shrugged. “I’m kinda assuming a lot here.”

I tapped down hard on the highlighted lyrics, the ones that spoke of love.

“Those are mine, huh?” Aly leaned into me and put her head on my shoulder, dreamily. “Yeah, I think I’m there. I feel like I’m there, but I don’t know. When do you really know?”

I rested my head against hers. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just how you feel inside. This is how I feel inside.” I reached over for my guitar. “Whad’ya say that we give this a spin?”

Aly giggled and motioned for me to go for it. I began to play the tune.

“I’ll sing it through first, and then we’ll sing the whole thing together and then we’ll do separate parts.”

I SWEAR

Open your eyes

I won’t see them for a while

With all that space left in between

Now close your eyes

Let me hold you for a while

And feel me sweetly as I sing

I swear, I swear

That I won’t let you go

If you’re fallin’, I’m fallin’ too

You know, I swear

When I close my eyes

And I hold you into me

All I feel is everything

And all want, is all I got

all
I need is your love

So baby won’t you sing

sing
with me

I swear, I swear

That I won’t let you go

If you’re fallin’, I’m fallin’ to

I swear

This is my heart

Can you feel it beating

It has it scars, but it isn’t bleeding

I know you’re leaving

There’s one last thing

I
wanna say before you go

Cause I need you to know

I swear, I swear

I swear, I swear

That I won’t let you go

If you’re falling, I’m falling too

You know, I swear

              We never did sleep. We played and sang that song over and over again until Aly was satisfied she sounded good enough and had it memorized. Once her voice was warmed up and the more she felt confident, she sounded as sweet as could be. I couldn’t wait to have her voice recorded. At 6 a.m. I went out to see if my mom was home. She’d already left for the gym. Perfect.

             
“So what do you wanna do?” I said, coming back through my bedroom door quietly. Aly was snuggled under the covers. “Kate’s not home. I’d like to record this. You up for it?”

             
“You’re too used to being up all night. I’m so tired. Listen to how horse my voice is.”

             
She was right. Her voice sounded way tired and her eyes were glossed over, hanging half open.

             
“Ok. We just have to do it before noon. That’s when everyone will be here to pack to leave.”

             
My stomach dropped thinking that I’d soon be away from Aly for more weeks than I wanted to be. Damn, I was really gonna miss her.

             
I climbed in bed with her and brushed the hair out of her face. She was nearly asleep. I don’t think she realized I was next to her. I lied there staring at her, taking in every nuance of her features. I wanted to remember every curve and every bend. I thought about taking pictures of her. I hadn’t taken any pictures since my photography class had ended. It’d been more than six months. I wondered if Aly would be into it. We could shoot
and
record.

             
At 7 a.m. I groggily went out into my studio and tracked my acoustic guitar and my vocals for our song. I’d set the alarm for 9 a.m. to remind me to wake Aly, and it was tough getting her up. Her eyes were even redder than before and her voice sounded worse.

             
“Hey,” she said and her hand quickly came up rubbing at her throat. “Oh no. I don’t think I’ll be able to sing.”

             
“Sure you will. It used to happen to me all the time when I first started singing. I’ll make you some tea. Get up. We only have a couple of hours and I wanna do something else too before Notting and my mom get back.”

             
She rustled up. “What? What else?” She asked curiously and rubbed her eyes. She looked as cute as I think she’d ever looked, natural and beautiful.

             
“Stay just like that. Don’t move one inch.” I rushed to my closet. “I wanna take some pictures of you just like that.”

             
“Oh
no
you are not!” She protested. “Are you kidding? I look like shit!”

             
“No, no you don’t. I promise,” I begged, as I threw shoes out of my way looking for my camera bag, finally finding it.

             
“Jake, you can’t be serious.”

             
“I’m very serious. These will be black and white. I promise they’ll look good, if they don’t we’ll delete them, together.” I held up my camera. “It’s digital.”

             
She slumped, resigned.

             
“Oh come on, Alycat. Give me a smile?” I said taking off the lens cap and pointing the camera at her. I began clicking away.

             
She smiled warily and threw a pillow at me, but I just kept clicking away.

             
“Ok, ok calm down. Sit there, please. Please do this for me?”

             
She sighed. “Ok. If you promise to show me every single one.”

             
“I’ll just take a few. Get back in bed and pull the covers up around you, like peak out over the covers, playful like.” I directed. “There you, go.”

             
Aly got into it and I we took more than just a few. Now I wanted her to take her shirt off, to get her bare back.

             
“Ok, now don’t freak out when I ask you this, but I want you to take your shirt off.”

             
She froze. My stomach sank and we just stared at each other. I watched her gulp.

             
“Um.”

             
“Aly, I don’t wanna see your tits. I mean I’d like to see your tits, but I don’t need to see ‘em now. I mean you know what I mean.” I stammered and I felt myself get hot. “Fuck.” I laughed.

             
She laughed too.

             
“Turn around,” she said softly and pointed at me.

             
“Wait, get up outta the bed and stand with your back toward me and wait until I tell you to pull the shirt over your head.”

             
Catching a glimpse here and there of her side boob, she was the most innocent yet sensual thing I’d ever seen. I cleared my throat. “You can put your shirt back on,” I said turning around, clicking through the images on my tiny camera screen. “These are gonna be so good. You look great.”

             
“Really, you swear?”

             
“I swear,” I said, winking at her. “Take a look and I promise I’ll delete every single one that I don’t use. I’ll have something put together soon.”

             
Aly turned and grabbed her shirt. I looked at the camera screen and back at her as she was pulling my white Hanes V-neck over her head. She caught me staring at her bare breasts as the shirt draped down, covering them. The heat flashed through me.

             
“You’re beautiful.”

             
She smiled softly. “You make me feel beautiful,” she said and walked up hanging on my arm, hugging it. “Let me see.”

             
These last few days were the best days ever, I thought. I never felt more close to anyone in my life than I did at that moment.

“Come on. Let’s get to it. I really
wanna finish it before I leave. I packed all my gear and I’m ready to go too, so all I’ll need to do is mix the song while the guys are packing the trailer.”

             
“You’re so business like,” she said, in mocking me. “Ok, lead the way.”

             
Aly sat on the stool as I handed her the headphones. “Ok, you know the lyrics, right?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, the music’s gonna start playing, you’ll hear my voice and you’ll know where to fall in. Just sing into the mic and we’ll go back and fix the parts that aren’t right during playback.”

“You mean you can pick up right in the middle?”

“Yep, even if it’s just a blip.”

“Cool.” She beamed, excited.

The hoarseness in her voice was gone and she sounded amazing.

36

Alyssa

              I sat on Nicole’s bed with a smile a mile wide. Nadine and Nicole were in rapture with my story, but I didn’t include our recording session. It was just too much. It was enough that I was sharing everything else.

             
“I just can’t believe I sat there listening in on Jake and Notting talk about me. It was like, surreal, to say the least.” I swooned onto the bed. “Jake admitted to writing love songs about me and I had to hold my breath. You could have probably heard a pin drop it was so quiet when they weren’t speaking.”

             
“No freaking way!” Nicole gasped. “I woulda passed out for sure.”

             
“I woulda shit myself.” Nadine laughed.

             
I looked at Nadine, wondering what it was like for her and Chris. She just had to be doing it with him by now.

             
“Nadine. What’s it like.” I asked flat out.

             
“What?”

             
“Don’t act stupid. You’ve gotta be doin’ it with him. He’s all over you.”

             
“We only make out. You know, heavily, over and under the clothes touching.” She admitted. “But don’t get me wrong, if I wasn’t so scared of getting pregnant, I would. He’s to die for.”

             
“La la la la la!” Nicole sang out. “I really don’t wanna hear how you’d like to do the dirty with my brother.”

             
We all laughed out loud.

             
“I full on touched his junk. It’s crazy how big it gets.” I admitted and stuffed my head in a pillow.