Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 60487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Grayson scrubbed his face and breathed deeply into his hands for a few moments before looking up. “Would this be a two-way street?”
Carl sharing his secrets too?
Hadn’t he started already? “That sounds . . . like a good kind of road.”
Grayson nodded thoughtfully, stood, and gently towed Carl to the door. “Let me think about it.”
The emerald door shut in Carl’s face.
Carl frowned and headed down the street and up some stairs to the main road, where very soon he spotted Leo ducking into Over The Raindough. He headed over there himself. Sage was busy with a long line of customers, still smiling, and Carl slouched to the table Leo had nicked for himself.
Almost immediately, Leo asked, “When can we do our first lesson?”
Carl took his time seating himself and clasped his hands together. “Theoretical knowledge of music is foundational. For the first couple of weeks”—as long as Carl was here—“that will be our focus.”
“I’m good at theory! Test me, test me. I know everything.”
“That took an unexpected turn,” Carl mumbled.
“Turn. A sideways S shape symbol above the notes. Means to quickly play the note above the main note, the main note, and the one below it, and back to the main note.”
Carl wince-smiled. “Seems theory is your forte.”
“Forte, loud. Fortissimo, very loud. Mezzo-forte, moderately loud.”
Carl nodded. “A natural.”
“A squarish-looking symbol. Put before a note restores any altered sharps or flats to their natural pitch.”
Carl decided he should stop opening his mouth, propped his elbow on the table, and clamped his lips shut with his fingers, smiling and nodding at Leo instead.
“Does that mean we can start practicing right away?”
“Leo,” Sage said, shaking her finger at him as she crossed to their table with cupcakes. “I told you not to put pressure on him. It’s kind enough he offered at all.”
Leo sank his head and apologised but Carl hurriedly stopped him. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Totally no problem.”
“Then we’ll start tomorrow?” Leo asked brightly. “Have heaps of lessons since it’s school holidays now?”
Carl’s breath caught in his lungs and his brain blanked. No excuses came to him, and two sets of big eyes were looking at him hopefully, waiting.
“Of course!” he blurted. “Yes. Tomorrow morning sound okay?”
“You’re the bestest, Jason. The best.”
“Not as good as these cupcakes.” Carl stuffed one into his mouth before his face filled with fret.
“I’ll have Leo bring some more tomorrow. I gotta get back behind the counter. Jason, let’s talk later.”
She left, and half an hour later, so did Carl. He moped around Berhampore and was about to head home when he glimpsed Grayson turning onto the city-to-sea walkway. Spotting him wasn’t unusual—he was used to seeing Grayson at any possible point during the day now—but the massive bouquet he carried was. Carl snuck from tree shadow to tree shadow, following sneakily up the hill, past the outcrop where Carl had tumbled, to a craggy sprawling tree amongst long grass. At this tree, Grayson knelt and laid out his flowers. He bowed his head, and Carl swallowed thickly. Suddenly, the framed photo on the bench and the unusual free space in Grayson’s calendar made sense.
Carl stayed a few shadows behind and bowed his head too. He waited in silent respect for a few minutes, before slinking away quietly.
“Stay,” Grayson called. “I know you’re there.”
Carl shrank back to the sap-seeping tree trunk and waited guiltily while Grayson swiped his eyes with his sleeve, squared his shoulders, and approached.
“I’m sorry,” Carl said.
“For following me? Or for”—Grayson glanced heavily towards the gnarly tree and the bouquet, and Carl’s chest banged about painfully. He hauled Grayson into a hug and held him tight, as tight as Grayson had held him two nights before. Grayson didn’t resist. He sagged into the hold, chest heaving rapidly as he struggled against a sob. Carl rubbed circles over his back, and kept rubbing them even when Grayson’s warm breaths against Carl’s neck had evened.
Grayson withdrew from the hug and pulled himself tight, together, in control—almost. His body might seem proud and straight, but eyes were the windows to the soul, and Grayson’s were devastated.
“Do you want . . . space?” Carl asked quietly.
Grayson shook his head and his voice cracked. “Sit with me for a bit.”
They sank to the base of a tree and stared towards the gnarly one and the bouquet. “This was her favourite spot to bring me to play when I was a kid.”
Carl tensed. Was Grayson accepting his offer to purge his secrets? He swallowed a fluttery feeling and murmured, “All the way up here?”
“I had a lot of energy. The hill helped get rid of some of it.”
“Clever.”
“She was. Back then, we were so close.”
Carl faced Grayson’s sigh and felt a sympathetic one of his own bubble in his chest.
“Then I grew up. Moved away. Met someone. Mum kept asking me to drive down and visit, and I barely did. Then one day she called asking for help with a wasp nest in her back garden. I didn’t really want to make a long trip to do it and offered to pay for her to get someone to come, but she refused. She tried getting rid of it herself and fell from the ladder.” Grayson’s face crunched towards a sob and his voice thickened. “She died before I could get to the hospital.”