Angela Morrison - Sing Me to Sleep

He laughs. “Come here—one more time.”

We miss the third number, too.

“I gotta go.”

“Meet me tonight. I’ll hang outside your hotel until you can get out. We can go back to our bench by the lake.”

Is Meadow right? Does he expect that already? “I don’t know if—”

“This isn’t about sex, Beth. I wouldn’t disrespect you like that.”

I’m flaming red. “Am I that easy to read?”

“Trust me. I just want more time with you. We can walk and talk. Sarah told Blake you write, too.”

I’m going to kill her. “I scribble lyrics. Bad ones. Nothing like what you do.”

“I want to hear them.”

“No way.”

“Please.” He kisses me.

“No.”

He kisses me again—lingering and utterly persuasive.

“I’ll go out with you, but no lyrics.” I’d die if he ever heard that thing I made up last night. And no one will ever hear what I composed sitting on that bench this afternoon. But that was before. Before Derek found me and kissed me and changed me.

Derek smiles, gets ready to kiss me again. “Bet I can get you to sing them for me.”

“You’re welcome to try.” I close my eyes, ready to get lost in him one more precious time.

“I’ll bring my best tune.”

“Are your lips tired yet?” he whispers into my ear.

I’m in Derek’s arms, draped across his lap, knees bent, feet up on our bench. There’s a fresh breeze blowing so it’s cool. I snuggle into his warm hockey jersey-clothed arms, glad that he wore it. “I could kiss you all night.”

He props me upright and stands up. “Let’s take a walk.”

I don’t want to stop making out. “No.” I grab his hand and tug.

He pulls me to my feet and kisses me one more time. “I need a break—or it will be about sex.”

Why doesn’t that scare me? Crap. I have a massive urge to shove him back down on the bench and see what happens. The Beast wants loose. Who knew I could be this skanky? Maybe those dumb doctors do have something to worry about.

Derek takes my hand, and we walk along the paved pathway that skirts the lake. He points across it. “Those lights are France. Evian, where the water comes from.”

“How do you know?”

“I looked it up to impress you. The lake is a thousand feet deep.”

I stop walking. “I don’t want a tour right now.” I try hard to sound sexy. Me. Sexy.

He turns and points to three large tufts of feathers, bluish white in the moonlight. “Those are swans—should I wake them up?”

I shake my head and let him tug me forward. “Why are little boys like that?”

“I’m a little boy?” He glances sideways at me and frowns.

“No. Most definitely not.” We come to a grayed statue and turn our backs to the lake to look at the frozen woman. “I’m trying to figure out what you are.”

“Dazzled.” He brings my hand up to his mouth and kisses it. I’m surprised the statue doesn’t melt. I am. So melted.

We stand like that, breathing each other in, eyes sinking, sharing the miracle of feeling like we do. I think he’s going to kiss me again, but he turns away, coughing, gets out a fresh packet of tissues.

I sigh. The evening is cool for summer, especially here by the lake. This air can’t be good for his voice. “I don’t like the sound of that. Are you getting a cold?”

He coughs again.

“You’re singing tomorrow. You should get back.”

“Don’t worry.” He tugs on my hand, and we wander toward our bench. “I’m allowed to sleep in.”

“Star treatment?”

“This from the diva.”

“I’m so not a diva.”

“I know.” He wraps his arm around my back without letting go of my hand—so my arm goes with it, and he can pull me in close. “I can tell from the way you sing.” He speaks quietly, his breath warm on my earlobe. “A diva couldn’t come up with the purity and emotion you get. You’re an artist.”

“Coming from you—that’s huge. Thank you.”

“Simple truth.”

“I like the way you see the world.”

“I’m seeing it differently today.”

“You make it sound like I’m the first girl you’ve said that to.”

He stops walking. “I’ve had a huge crush on you—” He bends his arm and holds me tight to his chest, buries his lips on my neck.

I stroke his soft, perfect hair and whisper, “With my voice. You don’t even know me.”

He raises his face, lets go of my hand, so he can cup my face between his palms. “I know your soul. It’s there in every note.” He brushes my lips with his. “You can’t fake that. You can’t hide it.” He holds my lips a long time. “I was dying to meet you.” He’s breathing faster.

It all gets too unreal. I pull away. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“Very funny. You know what the guys back in the choir call you?”

I can imagine.

“The goddess.”

His eyes are so full, so deep—I drop mine, stare at the chipped pink polish on my toenails. “I’ve been called a lot of things but never that.”

He puts his index finger under my chin and gently raises my eyes back to his. “Thanks for hanging out with a mere mortal.” He tucks a sticky hair-sprayed dyed-blonde lock behind my ear and moves in to kiss me again.

“You know how fake I am?” I turn my face away. “This hair. My face. If you saw me back home—”

“But we’re not back home. We’re here. We don’t have to be who we are back home.” There’s a fierceness in his voice that frightens me. Is he running from the realities of back home as much as I am? That is what I’m doing—with him, to him—substituting how I feel when he kisses me for the empty desolation that tries to creep back as soon as he stops. I cling to him. Need him. He grips me tight. Can he need me, too?

We stand there holding on, trying to stop time, compress it into this moment so we can drift on this feeling forever.

I raise my head off his shoulder. “What is it—for you—back home?”

“Let’s walk.”

I keep expecting him to start telling me, but he’s silent.

It gets uneasy—at least for me. I want to ask him about drugs—is that what he’s in therapy for? Or is it something else? Musicians aren’t particularly stable. Even perfect ones like him. Instead, I just say, “When did you start composing?”

He swings my hand then, ready to pretend with me. “I’ve been arranging for the choir a couple years. I play the piano—guitar, too. Of course, there’s the choir stuff, but I like Marley, and folk. Jazz it up sometimes. Not much pure pop or rock. But sometimes I can get down. Guess I’m a musical omnivore.”

I look out at the black lake and the lights winking on the other side. “Me, too. I’m no expert on Marley, but the folky stuff works for me. And then, I do listen to most of those divas.”

“Do you play?”

I shake my head. My dad played the guitar in his band, left an old acoustic behind. Mom still has it. Strange. I don’t know why she didn’t burn it.

We stop walking, stare out at the lake. A ferry goes by, all lit up with music playing. Derek squeezes my hand. “Let’s hop on one of those. Run away.”

I like that idea. “But it’s a lake.”

“A big lake.”

“We need to go back. You’ve got to go to bed.”

“Sing me something you wrote first. I need a lullaby.”

I shrug my shoulders. “You first.”

He puts his arm around me and starts to hum, breaks into Ooohs . This voice is rich with texture—not that pure choir voice he used at the concert. The melody is entrancing, winds into my heart, makes me want to smile and cry at the same time. It fades away. “That’s all I have.”

“I love it. What do you call it?”