Sweet Thing (32 page)

He leaned back, narrowed his eyes, and studied my face as he ran his thumb across my bottom lip. “Baby… I’ve missed you… I’ve missed these lips.” He kissed me sweetly without hesitation.

I literally went weak in the knees, but it didn’t matter because he was practically holding me off the ground. I tried to deepen the kiss; leaning back I hitched my leg up, pulling him toward me. His mouth stopped; he lifted me onto the counter and rested his hands on my thighs. Looking down, he took a long, deep breath and then looked up with a cocky grin. “Whoa kitten, slow down.” I looked at him with mock disappointment. He chuckled. “I have plans for you, little Mia.”

“What are you gonna do to me, Wilbur?” I whispered, touching my index finger to his lips. He wrapped his hand around my wrist and pulled it away.

“One-track mind you have,” he said, laughing.

“You started it.”

There was a long pause and his expression turned serious. “I have to know that you’re all in.”

“I am,” I said instantly.

“It’s just me, nothing else, no fame, no record deal. Maybe I’ll be a bartender forever, maybe I’ll rent a room from you for four hundred dollars.”

“Just you and your guitar?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t care, that’s all I want. I love you.”

“What did you say?” He smirked and cupped his hand behind his ear.

“I love you.”

“One more ti—”

“I love you,” I said and then socked him in the chest. “Can we go home now?”

“I’ll walk you home. I have somewhere to be.”

I scrunched my eyebrows. “Where?”

“I can’t tell you. You just have to trust me,” he said as he motioned toward the door.

“I trust you.”

“Good, let’s go.”

When we got to my apartment, he stood on the landing. I motioned for him to come in, but he just shook his head and smiled.

“Come on, Will. Come to bed?” I said, arching my eyebrows.

“You have no idea how bad I want to.”

“Then why won’t you?”

He smiled. “I told you, I have somewhere to be. If I get into bed with you now, I’ll never get out.”

“I’m okay with that.”

He leaned in and kissed me, but pulled away too soon. “I’ll come and get you tomorrow morning.” He pecked my lips again and then kissed my nose. “Dream about me, okay, sweet thing?” he said as he turned and headed down the stairs.

“Always,” I whispered, too low for him to hear.

Lying in my bed that night, I wondered if Will was an apparition. He was just too good to be true: too forgiving, too sweet, too beautiful. I remembered someone saying crazy people don’t know they’re crazy. Surely I had imagined Will that night. I was truly losing my mind, there was just no way that man would want me back after what I had done. I didn’t deserve him. My own fear of not being worthy started to cloud my mind again, but I stopped it. I remembered what I learned from Gibran on love,
to return home at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips
. So that’s what I decided to do as I dozed off, perfectly tranquil, thinking about how grateful I was to have Will in my life again. I also made a tiny request to the universe regarding the subject of my impending dream…

I woke up the next morning to the sound of my own voice as I squirmed under the glorious sensation of my dream. After thanking the universe, I opened my eyes and smiled at the sunshine coming through the window. In the shower I took my time shaving my legs and afterward I patiently dried my hair and clipped one side back. I put on a blue and white striped sundress and a brass cuff bracelet and some lip gloss. I stood at the counter and flipped through a magazine, paying little attention to what I was actually looking at. Instead my mind was on the kiss Will and I had shared in the café and in the doorway the night before. I touched my fingers to my lips and closed my eyes. What if it were all part of the dream? I went to the door and replayed what had happened. I looked at the space where I’d stood while we kissed and wondered when reality stopped and the dream started.

I jumped, startled by the sound of the buzzer. “Hello?”

“Hey, kitten, come down. I have a cab waiting.”

Yes! He was real!

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, Will swung the door open and pulled me into his arms, kissing me passionately. “I’ve been thinking about that kiss for hours. You look beautiful, as always.”

“Thank you.”

He was clean-shaven, wearing the black pinstriped suit pants, his usual belt and wallet chain, and a black T-shirt; he looked and smelled like heaven. I looked him up and down, letting my eyes pause where his pants hung so perfectly. When I got back to his eyes, I smiled sheepishly.

“What?” he said with a brazen smirk.

“Nothing… I just… I love you in black.”

“I know, I can tell.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the cab.

He gave the cabby an address in Brooklyn. “Are we going to your place?”

He just nodded and squeezed my hand. When we got across Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn, he turned to face me.

“Okay, I want you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“Close your eyes and just trust me for a while. I know that’s hard for you, but you’re just gonna have to have faith, okay?” he said, chuckling.

“I can do that now.” I closed my eyes. He took my hand and placed the digital four-track recorder in it.

“Hold this for a while and don’t open your eyes.”

“Okay.”

When the car stopped he took my hand and told me where to step. I felt us enter a building. “No peeking.”

I heard him exchange “hellos” with a few people before we went through another door and then we were in a room that had a familiar plastic, electronic smell. He told me to stand still; the room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. He stood behind me and touched my hand that held the digital recorder. “This has four tracks,” he whispered, then he took my other hand and placed it on something with dials and knobs. “This is limitless. Open your eyes.”

I looked around, quickly absorbing my surroundings. I stood in the middle of a sizable, state-of-the-art recording studio with high-tech buttons and dials everywhere. Beyond the glass I saw instruments and microphones galore along with an isolated vocal booth. The only thing I didn’t see was another soul in sight.

“Did you rent this out for us?” I asked tentatively. He just shook his head and then pulled me toward another door that had a rectangular window in it. I peered through the window into the adjacent room, which could easily accommodate a full symphony orchestra. I spotted two Steinway grand pianos, timpani drums, and a xylophone in the corner along with dozens of chairs and music stands. He appraised me, waiting for a response, but I just stood there dumbfounded. That’s when I glanced over at a desk with a pad of paper that was embossed with the name
Alchemy Sound Studios.
My eyes shot open at the realization.

“This is yours? How?”

“Well, it was many nights in the storage closet, cheap rent thanks to you, slinging a whole lotta cocktails at the Montosh, writing and producing credit on a number-one song, and some great referrals from Frank.” He paused for me to say something, but I couldn’t speak. “We’re booked for six months solid. We have some big names that Live Wire is sending our way.”

“Our way?”

He pointed to the larger room. “For you… to score, for film. “

I just stood there, mouth gaping. He gestured around the room. “This is my passion, to be part of the process for others in a place like this. I’ll still make my own music because I love doing it, but this… this is my dream, Mia… And my hope… is that it’s your dream, too.”

I reached out to him, my hands shaking, legs trembling. He smiled and laughed lightly as he pulled me into his arms.

“You okay, baby?”

“Yeah, more than okay.” I thought about all the mystery throughout the last year. Will spending days away from the apartment, working on websites with Tyler, the master plan Frank referred to, it was all part of the dream and I was included in that and it was all coming true.

“So will you do this with me, Mia?” he said, looking hopeful.

“Yes,” I breathed.

“And will you play music with me every day?”

“Yes.”

He got down on one knee, popped open a ring box and said, “For the rest of your life?”

I sucked in a breath and stared at the gorgeous antique ring, the oval-shaped pink diamond glimmered in the overhead light. I knelt down to his level, cupped his face and said, “Yes.Yes.Yes,” between kisses. I had never been so sure of anything in my life.

We stayed there kissing for a long time until he finally broke the embrace and slipped the ring on my finger.

“Thank you, it’s beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful.”

I kissed him until we were breathless. “Take me to bed.”

He held my face and then leaned back to look into my eyes. “You’re in luck, it’s right upstairs. I bought the loft above this place.” And then he wiggled his eyebrows.

“I guess we’re Brooklynites now?”

His look went from surprise to pure elation. “So you’ll live with me… here?”

“Of course, I want to be wherever you are. I want to do this with you. It
is
my dream, all of it.”

“Baby, that means more to me than you will ever know,” he said and then proceeded to trail kisses up my neck.

“So, are you gonna show me your place or what?”

“Our place.”

“Show me our place.”

He led me through the sound studio to the lobby where I met Maryse and Bret. Maryse was the spunky office manager and blogger extraordinaire. Will said she was responsible for getting quite a few of the bookings. Bret was the percussion virtuoso who had been playing with Will at the bars and would certainly become a key player at the studio. Will said that Tyler and Jenny were going to run the website and Sheil and Martha would both be part of the artistic team from time to time when they weren’t busy at Kell’s.

We practically jogged up the stairs to the loft. “There’s one more girl you need to meet. She’s actually a partner, or more like a silent partner.” He opened the door and there sat the sweetest, tiniest yellow lab puppy. Her head cocked to one side as I knelt down in front of her.

Will crouched beside me. “Mia, meet June.” My eyes darted to his, both of us smiled serenely and simultaneously said, “After June Carter Cash.”

I picked her up. “Ahh, I love her.”

“I love you.”

I put June down and cupped Will’s face. “I love you, too,” I said between laying kisses on his lips, nose, and cheeks. “Wilbur, I want to have like a million of your babies.”

He looked happier than I had ever seen him. “Really? Should we start now?”

“Definitely.”

And then he led me to our room where we stayed for hours, maybe days, just tangled in each other.

Something So Sweet
By Mia Kelly
Been looking for a way to get home,
it seems there’s no directions left for me.
I’ll follow the trail on my own,
and hope that something sets me free.
The darkness falls fast without warning,
just left with my soul to captain me.
But there’s someone waiting for me in the morning,
pulling me into the light so I can see.
He knows my face in the darkness,
he knows my hopes, my reverie.
But he’s waiting for me to find him,
so that I can set him free.
So I let go and let him in.
Everything dissipates into feeling,
we allow our souls to meet.
We’re the static in the chaos,
the one thing… the something so sweet.
Epilogue

It was a perfect day in the city. I went to breakfast with my husband and two beautiful boys and then I spent the afternoon browsing the streets of SoHo. I was sitting on a little wooden bench outside the Earth Room when I saw them. He was animatedly telling her a story, his hands flailing about as she gazed at him with a boundless love in her eyes. They walked hand in hand up the opposite side of the street. He was wearing a black hoody and jeans, his wallet chain jingling. She wore a gray baby-doll dress and a purple scarf. As they got closer, I noticed one of her hands was resting on top of a very swollen belly. The vision of the two of them together like that filled me with an unreasonable amount of joy.

They stopped to look into a store window. He stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her plump belly as he nestled his face in her neck. She was a far cry from the feeble, frail girl in the park last spring. She looked healthy, blissful, almost seraphic. He appeared to have the neurotic charm of a person whose feelings get the same clout as their thoughts, which is exactly how I knew it was him.

As they crossed the street toward me, I spotted the look of recognition on her face. She turned and asked him to wait before running up to me, arms open with a huge smile on her face.

“Hey, Lauren, how are you?”