“I think he’s next,” Amy squealed.
Devon glanced over at them and noticed what she hadn’t seen before. They liked Brennan. She hadn’t paid any attention at work, but it was pretty obvious now that she was looking for it. Maybe they had heard about how she had gotten the job at Jenn’s and that was why they didn’t like her. They must think she was competition. It would explain a lot.
Well, if that was what they thought, they were wrong. After Devon had turned down Brennan, she couldn’t fathom him trying again. She had made it clear that she was off-limits. Even if he wanted to cross those lines, she wasn’t sure he would act on it again.
Ugh! She couldn’t even think about it all. It just made her head hurt.
Devon placed her palm on her forehead and tried to massage out the growing ache in her head.
“You feeling alright, Dev?”
As Devon’s head flew up in surprise, she found Garrett standing over her. “Garrett! You’re here!”
“Yeah, sorry about being so late,” he said.
She looked around, wondering where Hadley was. Was she still in the restroom? Was Devon a bad friend for not following after her? Devon hadn’t felt like it was her place to step in. Garrett and Hadley didn’t know that she had seen their argument, and they probably didn’t want her to know about it. Still, maybe she could go check on Hadley.
“Where’s Hadley?” Devon asked, knowing the answer.
If she wasn’t with him, then he had left her in the restroom.
I guess it is just going to be a guilt-ridden night, Devon thought.
Garrett took the seat Brennan had left unoccupied. “Oh, she really, really wanted to come, but she’s sick tonight. I couldn’t even drag her out of the house. Are you okay? I hope you don’t have the same thing that she has.”
Devon stared at him blankly. He was lying. He was looking her in the face, straight in the face, and lying. And he was damn good at it. She couldn’t even tell. She knew he was lying, and she couldn’t even tell that he was. He actually made her doubt what she had seen with her own two eyes earlier.
“Wha…what’s wrong with her?” Devon asked in disbelief.
“Headaches, body aches, exhaustion. She has been really moody all week, so it could just be PMS,” he said with a shrug.
PMS? He was really going to use that. Hadley had just slapped him across the face, and he was going to blame her behavior on PMS. Yeah right!
It’s more likely the amount of coc**ne she is using, Devon thought.
“That sucks,” Devon said finally.
“Yeah, she really wanted to come,” he repeated.
“I’m surprised you came out at all if she wasn’t feeling well,” Devon said accusingly. Why wasn’t he chasing after her? Why was he letting her go? Wasn’t that what was supposed to happen? She felt deluded about Garrett and Hadley’s relationship. She had wanted so badly for it to be as perfect as it looked from the outside.
“She told me to go. After all, I couldn’t do anything for her,” Garrett said. He leaned back into the chair, his ankle crossing over his knee.
“Of course,” Devon said, trying to hold back the sarcasm from her voice. “I sure hope she gets better soon.”
“Comes once a month. I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Garrett said over the applause from the last performer.
Devon rolled her eyes and looked toward the stage. Garrett wasn’t going to give any clues as to what had happened between them. She would have to ask him later, or maybe she would have to ask Hadley. Hadley had been the one who was pissed off, so she might be more likely to spill. For all the confidence that Devon and Garrett had been entrusting each other with, she wasn’t so sure he would tell her, but maybe she would ask him about it again later anyway.
Her eyes focused in on Brennan as he walked onto the stage, carrying an acoustic guitar. Her body tensed as she stared down at him. She could hear murmurs coming from the women in the audience as he plugged in his guitar, adjusted the microphone, and sat down on the chair. Everyone was noticing what Devon had just realized moments ago. He looked great up there. He had taken off the blue button-up that he had arrived in, and now, he was just wearing a fitted green T-shirt with his dark jeans.
If she didn’t know him better, she would have thought he was completely comfortable up there. But his hands twitched as he plucked at a chord, and she watched his lips move as he muttered to himself. He had an easy, lazy look to him that helped him appear more relaxed than he was. She wished she could do something to calm his nerves.
After Brennan finished his adjustments, he leaned forward toward the microphone. “Good evening. I’m Brennan Walker. A couple of you out there might have seen me up here before. I’m sure a few of you booed me off stage the first time I tried this. Thanks for coming back and giving me another shot.”
The crowd chuckled. That was a good sign. Devon found herself rooting for him.
“For those of you who are new to the open mic routine, you picked a damn good night to be in the house. I’m playing a selection of original tunes, and I hope you like them. This first one is titled ‘Headstrong.’”
Devon wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but whatever it was could never compare to this. She knew music. She had grown up around music, dated musicians, and listened to every genre imaginable. Her heart craved music. And that was exactly what she was getting tonight.
Brennan’s voice wasn’t the best out there. He wasn’t a master on the guitar. He didn’t have the stage presence of the artists she had encountered at home. But he had a certain quality about him that seemed superior to all of that. It was like when she had tried to tease apart her feelings toward him, and all she had discovered was that she couldn’t. That was what his music was like. It was more an emotion than anything, like the way she felt when she got butterflies in her stomach, or when she rode a roller coaster, or when she caught the first glimpse of the horizon across the ocean. It was all and none of those things.
And maybe she was the only one in the room feeling that. But wasn’t that what made art so beautiful in the first place? She could stand in one place and experience the same thing as a hundred other people, and everyone would come out of it with something different. She felt like she was soaring, and the world was flying beneath her feet. Brennan’s smooth voice was music to her ears, and music brought her home.
When the song ended, Devon realized her eyes were closed, and she slowly opened them. As her vision adjusted to the dim lighting, she focused down on Brennan.
What are you doing to me? she wondered.
The crowd cheered, and Devon followed, clapping her hands hard.
“He’s good, right?” Garrett leaned over, so Devon could hear him.
“Yeah! Wow!” she said, wearing the biggest smile on her face since she had been in Chicago.
“You should have come to his last performance. The audience gave him a standing ovation at the end. I don’t know what it is about the guy, but everyone goes nuts for his music. Hadley even cried at the end of his last show, and he only played for like fifteen minutes,” Garrett told her.
“He’s good. I should know,” she said with a laugh. “I know music.”
“You should pitch him to the people you know,” Garrett suggested.
Devon wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know people, except for my parents.”
“I’m sure you can think of someone,” Garrett prodded. “His music made you smile brighter than you have since you got here. Anything that can put that pretty smile on your face should be playing on the radio.”
Devon blushed at his words. “Thanks,” she said, staring back down at Brennan.
She probably did know someone. Most of her contacts were with country music, and he clearly didn’t sing country. In any case, she could likely get him an in…if that was what he wanted. It would be something worth thinking about…maybe.
Before she could think about it any further, he started the next song. The next two were ones that Garrett knew from previous shows. He told her that Brennan normally added a couple originals in here and there among the covers he did. Garrett had never been to a gig where Brennan did all originals. Devon couldn’t imagine the show any other way. No one else’s music would have felt right.
As Brennan’s short set drew to a close, Devon found she didn’t want it to end. How could it be so close to being over already? It felt like he had just started.
“I want to thank you all again for coming out. This is my last song for the night, and it’s kind of personal to me. It’s about loss, pain, and silence…about how hope blossoms in the smallest of packages and in the least likely of circumstances. This one is titled ‘Moving Forward’,” he said into the microphone, his eyes seemingly finding her in the crowd.
As he played the first few chords, his eyes never strayed from her. She wasn’t even close to the stage, but he seemed to know right where she was. Amy and Hannah sighed heavily next to her.
As soon as the lyrics started flowing from his mouth, Devon could tell the song was different from the others…more personal. She hadn’t thought it possible, but this song was better suited to him than the others. He couldn’t have described the lyrics any better than in his introduction.
She felt like her heart was breaking as he sang about a loss she could understand. She felt a stabbing sensation in her body as she experienced his pain. The words made her feel like she wasn’t alone with the dreaded silence from which she suffered. And finally, she could feel her heart being stitched together. The needle wasn’t gentle, and the thread would heal the wounds in time, but there was hope that the scars would heal.
When the song came to a close, Devon felt tears welling in her eyes. The song was painful. It actually caused her physical discomfort to even hear it, but that made it even better. People who had ever willed themselves to silence needed the hope from Brennan’s song. Maybe it would help mend their hearts, too.
Brennan stood as the house came down with applause. People were on their feet. Some people were swiping at their eyes from the emotional song. But Brennan never broke eye contact with Devon, and her eyes never left his gaze until he was ushered offstage for the next performer. That poor soul.
“I don’t know how he does it,” Garrett said, nudging Devon lightly. “Look, you’re even crying. I thought we talked about this. No more crying from you.”
Devon laughed through her tears and sniffled. “Right. Right. No more crying,” she said, wiping under her eyes.
“If I had a voice like that and could play guitar, I could bag so many girls,” Garrett said with a fake dumb expression on his face, making fun of all the guys who actually talked like that.
“I’m sure he does,” Devon said, laughing softly at his joke.
If Brennan’s advances toward Devon were any indication, he was surely getting exactly who and what he wanted.
“Who? Brennan?” Garrett asked incredulously. “No way. That guy is a saint. Girls are magnets for musicians, and he manages to fend them off like a lion tamer.”