Jump Then Fall Read online

  This, I had never experienced.

  “That’s my baby.” Squeezing my hand, Savana tugged me along behind her. “Come on. I can’t wait for you to meet everybody.”

  We ran-walked through a monstrous kitchen, in and out of a formal dining room that looked as if it got zero usage, and into what might’ve been a normal living room.

  Except for the twenty-some-odd acoustic and electric guitars sitting along the walls. There was a drum set in the corner, an upright bass leaning against a bookshelf, a banjo in an armchair. Mason-jarred candles burned atop a baby grand piano, where the girl I heard singing sat with a guy who couldn’t have been much older than me. His fingers stroked the ivories with ease, and she sang along as if they’d been performing together their whole lives. For about half a second I wondered if they were an item.

  Until Savana laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder, and she stopped singing to turn around, her face splitting into a wide grin.

  Savana said, “Hey, baby,” and bent to kiss her. “Miss me?”

  “You know it.” The girl was beautiful. Brunette with light blue eyes like me, but with the refined features of a runway model. “How was the gate?”

  “Not so bad,” Savana said and stroked her face. “I brought a friend. You’ll like her,” she whispered. “You sounded so pretty, babe.”

  “Thanks.” They kissed again, thoroughly, and I found myself looking away.

  PDA made me uncomfortable. It’s not that I hadn’t been kissed before; I had. But since Dad never dated, I guessed I wasn’t used to affection. Not like this.

  Heat spread up my cheeks, into my hairline, and I started taking in the room again. The instruments, the books, the awards, the photos of a little boy with a guitar.

  And then.

  Him.

  chapter two

  Handsome didn’t do him justice.

  Handsome seemed like the dullest, most cliché word in Webster’s Dictionary.

  Except handsome was the only word that kept spinning in my head.

  He sat to one end of a plush, cream-colored sofa, the ankle of one leg propped on the knee of his other. Alone. Away from everyone else. A deliberate decision, I gathered, for he was softly strumming a guitar, his head tilted ever-so-slightly. He was humming.

  When I was in sixth grade, my class went on a field trip to an art museum. It was early September. Temperatures had reached a peak high that day. Tired and sweaty, we welcomed the air conditioning of the museum, regardless that none of us gave two bits about art. It was an extra credit grade. We sucked up our irritation. There were centuries-old paintings that’d been on the walls for years, or so the tour guide said as we feigned interest, but then she pointed to a section reserved for a local artist. Those were new. Just brought in for a show that evening.

  I moved closer. Mountains, beaches and hilltops painted in swirls of blue and white and beige drew me in. In each depiction, a man stood alone. In one, his hands were tucked inside his pockets. The next, they were lifted toward the sky. Whether it was the same man in every picture, I did not know. But he captivated me. My other classmates walked past, uninterested. Someone asked where the restrooms were, another for the nearest soda machine. I stayed. Stared at the man. Wondering what his story was and feeling, for the first time ever, a swell of something in my chest.

  Setting eyes on this man was like viewing the man in the paintings. He moved me, shifted the ground where I stood. I was helpless to stare. To stop breathing. To feel emotion I hadn’t realize I possessed.

  His dark blond hair was styled in a clean-cut pompadour. James Dean, David Beckham, I thought, but no. Neither seemed right. This guy, he was in his own class. He wore a brown Henley, faded black skinny jeans and, God remind me how to breathe, a pair of custom black Converse.

  I was a sucker for a guy confident enough to customize his sneakers.

  He hit me in waves. His lashes as he closed his eyes and tilted his head closer to the guitar. His fingers as they dragged across the strings. The foot he had resting on his knee bobbed a beat.

  “Harper Evans?”

  “Y—” It took two tries for me to gain enough breath to answer. “Yes?”

  Savana gestured to the girl she’d kissed. “This is Christina Rose.”

  “Chris.” Christina offered her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Harper, and same.”

  “Savana says you two work together at the library?”

  “Yeah.” I glanced at the guy on the couch.

  “Hey, I’m Luke.” The boy at the piano. He was talking.

  I shook his hand, too. “Harper.”

  And then someway, somehow, I got brave.

  “Who’s that?” I slipped a glance in his direction.

  The flash of his watch as his fingers moved across the fretboard. A leather bracelet with plated hardware. Biceps flexing with every single movement, regardless his arms were covered.

  Waves.

  “Oh, that’s just Lawson,” said Luke and he returned to the piano, played a jazz riff that made Chris go, “Ooooh, yes! Let’s.”

  “Come on,” Savana murmured close to my ear. She tugged the arm of my sweater, bared a shoulder. “I’ll introduce you.”

  “No, that’s okay.” Bravery gone. Poof. Out of here. “He’s clearly—”

  “Don’t be chicken, girl, come on. He’s really nice.” She pushed me forward until my thighs bumped the arm on the opposite side of the sofa. “Hey, Law, got a second?”

  “Evenin’, Savvy.” His eyes, those came in degrees, too. He looked up once, the quickest of glances in our direction, and then again.

  But that second time: a full-on, deep blue-eyed gaze that pushed my lungs up my throat.

  Fact: Men like this walked the planet. On the occasions I took breaks between studying, I’d seen Pinterest pages full of them. Models, actors, singers. Men who wore confidence like most men wore clothes. But to see one in real life? Less than five feet away?

  I couldn’t.

  “Who you got with you?” His accent was faintly southern.

  “This is Harper. Harper Evans. We work together.”

  “You got a job?” Lines formed over his brow. He was still picking out a tune on his guitar.

  “Couple of weeks ago,” said Savana. “Harper, Lawson Hill. This is his place.”

  My hands were shaking, sweating. I had this flash of a memory of an old miniseries from the 80’s about Priscilla Beaulieu when she met Elvis Presley for the first time. Inside, she was screaming like a banshee, and he was like hey baby, what’s up or whatever Elvis said that made girls’ panties melt off. Would it have been proper to offer him my hand? We’d just been introduced, and this was the South. But I couldn’t possibly. Touch him. Skin to skin. Pulse to pulse. Disaster.

  His smile explained at least half of the shiny records up the stairs.

  “Harper. Pretty.”

  His fingers never missed a beat, and it was as if he was playing the title track to my moment of supreme humiliation.

  “Thanks.”

  He shifted his gaze to Savana, and his left eye twitched. A wink, a muscle spasm, I didn’t know. Everything about him stood out, no matter how small.

  Our eyes connected once more.

  “Harper,” he said with a certain finality. Like saying my name granted me permission into his world. “Why don’t you come sit beside me?”

  I swallowed, positive at any moment I was going to pass out. Knees shaking, I s-said, “Okay,” and could’ve smacked myself for sounding like an idiot.

  His eyes remained on my face, lowering as I lowered myself to the cushion next to his.

  “Do you play?” He moved as if to hand over his guitar.

  I curled my legs beneath my butt. Shoved my hands between my knees. “I took piano lessons when I was four, but no. No instruments.”

  “You like music?”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  He went back to strumming, his fingers seamlessly jumping from chord to chor
d.

  He didn’t look away, though. Kept staring at my face, his eyes roaming from point to point as if committing features to memory. As if perhaps he meant to sketch me later. Or somehow turn me into a song.

  Which was absurd. And stupid. And entirely made up in my head. Obviously.

  “Who’s your favorite?” he asked.

  “My favorite?” My throat went dry.

  “Artist. You have a favorite artist, right?”

  I thought a moment. “Several, actually.”

  He smiled. “Fair enough. Who’ve you been playing on repeat?”

  “Hmm.” I looked up, thinking. Allowed my gaze to roam over the bookshelves lined with photos and awards, and awards and photos. All his, I realized, and wondered how old he was, how long he’d been doing this.

  Sighing, I caved, “I don’t know.”

  “Easy way out. Nope. Not having it.” The light in his eyes, the way he smelled, the genuineness of his smile. It was so much to take in at once. Like standing beneath a waterfall with a kid’s sand bucket, hoping it’ll all fit.

  “I’m a music wuss,” I protested.

  “Nobody’s a music wuss. Come on. Play the game, Harper.”

  I pressed my lips together, annoyed and impressed by his persistence. “Fine. I’ll go with the last song I was listening to this morning.”

  “Which was…”

  “Tame Impala.”

  His head jerked back. “Tame. Impala.”

  “I like their sound. It’s different. Doesn’t fit in to any genre, although I think they’re categorized as—”

  “Alternative rock, yeah.”

  He was staring at me, lips parted. He’d stopped playing, too. I didn’t know when that’d happened. Chris and Luke were in their own world, working out harmonies. Savana was swaying to the music, a glass of something in her hand.

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  “Which one?”

  “Huh?”

  “Which song?”

  “Oh…uh, Patience? I think?”

  “Great choice.”

  “Yeah.” Hours later, I’d rewind and replay all I’d said to him and wonder how on earth I managed to nail my admissions interview to Cambridge.

  “I must’ve tried to work out that piano part fifty times before I finally had it.” Carefully, he set down his guitar. Turned to face me, head-on, and all the blood vessels in my chest began knotting themselves together.

  “You play piano, too?” I asked.

  “Little bit of everything. All you see in this room, yes, and a few you don’t.”

  “Like?” I was eager to keep him talking, to keep living this moment for hours.

  “Ah, let’s see. Kazoo?”

  I cocked my head and an eyebrow. “For real?”

  “Legit. Amazing kazoo player. What else? Um…accordion, mandolin, fiddle, dobro—” He was ticking off fingers, gaze flicked upward. “Ukulele, cello. Harp, but not too well.”

  “Trumpet?” I asked, the first thing that came to mind.

  “Heck, no. Terrible at brass instruments.”

  “Saxophone?”

  He shook his head. “Woodwinds, either. They don’t like me.”

  Laughter spilled out of me faster than a speeding car.

  He was laughing, too, and oh, God, he sounded like freedom. Husky yet boyish, as though he purposely teetered the tightrope between the two.

  Then again, no. He wasn’t a boy.

  I’d dated. Not much, but enough to block a few numbers from my phone. Some good, some bad. No one who made me feel that oomph in the pit of my stomach. That flutter, that sensation of involuntarily sighing at the very thought of him.

  More than that.

  I’d never been in the presence of a man that made me so aware—so very, very hyperaware of how much of a man he was.

  And how very female I was.

  “So, where you from?” He leaned back, reached behind for a bottle of water he had sitting on a table. The cords in his neck strained, and I decided then and there I’d need a cold shower, once I got home.

  “Is it that obvious?” I asked.

  He unscrewed the cap. “No, it’s—something to drink?”

  “I’m good.” I wasn’t. Not by a large margin. “Thanks.”

  “You just don’t seem like most of the other girls I’ve met.” He took a long pull from the bottle, and there was something incredibly intimate in watching him drink. “At least, the ones I’ve met here.”

  I’d’ve bet all I had he’d met plenty, too.

  “Columbus,” I said. “Ohio.”

  “Hmm.” He recapped the bottle. Narrowed his eyes. “Not an Ohio State fan, are you?”

  “Diehard.”

  “Wow. Yeah.” Biting his lower lip, he shook his head, set down the water bottle. Eyed me from the side, a grin he couldn’t conceal toying with the corner of his mouth. “I don’t think we can be friends.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “UT?”

  He looked insulted, and I almost laughed. “What? No,” he said, hand over his heart as if I’d mortally wounded him. “LSU.”

  It was my turn to make a face, and he did laugh. “Really?” My nose wrinkled. “With all the purple and gold and adding -eaux to the end of every word?”

  “I’m just gonna stop you right there, darlin’, before I’m forced to call you a cab home. I try my best to be a hospitable host, but lines are gonna have to be drawn.”

  “Clearly those lines merge along the Mason-Dixon.”

  He grinned. “Something like that. But hey—” He stood, and his open hand appeared in front of me and I didn’t know what to do, because here I was, faced with the decision of whether or not touching him was a good idea, when clearly, clearly, clearly it wasn’t.

  “At least we have one thing in common.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “We’re both strangers to this town.”

  But he wasn’t. He wasn’t a stranger. People knew him. I didn’t. But people did.

  My hand slipped inside his and he squeezed slightly as I stood. He wasn’t tall. Taller than me, sure, but only by two maybe three inches. Where he lacked in height, however, he’d clearly made up for by taking care of himself. His skin was beautiful, his body tight.

  He released me and a tiny pang hit my stomach. “So, Columbus. You played piano when you were four?”

  Shuffling on the other side of the room. But I couldn’t look away from him. He was captivating, Lawson was, and I had the fleeting thought he could ask anything of me in that moment, and I would’ve been hard pressed to say no.

  No wonder women gathered at his gates. Hoping for a glimpse. A few precious seconds of his eyes locking with theirs.

  “Yeah, sure. For, like, less than a year, though.” Dad discovered I was better suited for community softball and spelling bees.

  “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  “What?” I glanced at the piano, which Chris and Luke no longer occupied. They must’ve heard the word exit Lawson’s lips and instantly dispersed. In fact, they were nowhere to be seen. Neither was Savana. Some date she’d turned out to be. Ditching me within half an hour of arrival.

  Was this what it was like to be his friend? To be in Lawson Hill’s inner circle?

  “Where’d everybody go?” I asked, looking around.

  “Probably outside to the pool. Late night swim. Come on.” He made for the piano.

  “You have a pool?”

  An airless chuckle. “Yes, Columbus, I have a pool.” He sat to the left end of the piano and patted the space of bench he’d left open. “Sit.”

  I did, because, one, I didn’t want to be a bad guest and, two, to disobey him seemed absurd. If a musician invited you to sit while he played, you listened. He was the artist, not me.

  “Let’s see.” He began to play and, I swear, I had the ridiculous but real thought the keys could’ve been sticks of butter beneath his fingers.

  Music filled the room. Beautiful, smooth music tha
t made light bloom in my chest.

  “Like any of the classics?”

  “Like classical? Sure, loads. Bach, Chopin—”

  “Damn, girl, you’re gonna make it real hard on me, aren’t you?” His smile was infectious. “I can play, but I can’t play classical. I mean, I can, but not well.”

  Of course, he could.

  “I meant like Billy Joel, Elton, Stevie.”

  “Elton John,” I said. “My dad, he’s a big fan.”

  “Yeah? Okay, then. Elton, it is.”

  When he struck the first chords of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, my breath caught. Excitement welled like a fountain, overflowed. Everybody knew that song. I’d grown up with the vinyl album on repeat when I was a kid. Dad played piano on the kitchen countertop; I sang into a hairbrush.

  This was surreal. Unbelievable. Overwhelming to the nth degree.

  But then he started singing—When are you gonna come down, when are you going to land—and the light in my chest, it exploded.

  Dear God, he could sing. A honeyed, flawless pitch most depended on a recording studio to perfect. I’d been to a couple of live shows. Local stuff, nothing big. But not one of those singers had sounded like Lawson Hill.

  I could’ve died on the spot. Poured off the bench, melted into the hardwood floor. A happy, meaningful death, for sure. Better than anything I could’ve imagined.

  I watched him. Awestruck. Mouth open. A little drool might’ve come out. I was aware of very little but him. Of him singing, his eyes opening to glance at his fingers as they played the familiar melody, closing again as he hit those high ooohs and aaahs.

  Happiness, pain, contentment, longing. A plethora of emotions passed over his face as he sang and played like a seasoned performer.

  After he finished, I breathed, “Wow, that was—” But he didn’t allow me to finish, went straight into another number, almost as if he’d forgotten I was there beside him, his arm brushing mine, our thighs touching.

  Later, much later, almost midnight, Savana drove me home, and she was talking about Chris and an upcoming show and how stupid-excited they were, but I wasn’t listening. It felt like there was a veil between me and her, between me and anything, but him. He’d overtaken thought. He’d overtaken reason. He’d overtaken the ability to decipher whether tonight had been real or a very colorful figment of my own imagination.