I followed her lead, making the necessary changes to not only keep up, but to complement what she was doing. No one in the audience knew what was happening. Those few who knew this music well would likely assume we’d simply modified it, played a slightly different arrangement.
Not one of them would believe that we were improvising, that right there on that stage she was telling a story of hurt and anger and betrayal. That she was telling me just how much I’d hurt her.
Hearing her pain through the notes broke my heart.
And I could hear it. I could see it in the shifts of her posture, and in her eyes as they drifted toward me. I responded the only way I knew how, by adjusting my own music—attempting to play my apology, my longing, my love. My failure.
Finally, we brought the song to a close, and as the audience stood, applauding, cheering, she peered up at me as she continued to breathe in and out, her eyes glassy with threatening tears.
After taking a bow, being whisked off stage, and packing up our instruments, we got in the town car and made our way back to the hotel.
“You played beautifully tonight, Savannah,” I started, five minutes into our drive.
“Thank you.” She smiled and bit her lip in a way that made me want to lean across the car and kiss it. “Thanks for playing along, so to speak.” She laughed and looked out the window.
“Of course.” I shrugged, not knowing what else to say about her acknowledgement that she’d meant to take the piece in the direction she did.
She stared out the window for a few more minutes. Lights from each passing car showed me her distant eyes for the briefest of seconds, before returning my view to that of her silent silhouette. A second later she tossed her hair over her shoulder and turned so she was facing me.
“Gregory …” Savannah looked down for a moment, taking a deep breath before finding my eyes again.
“Yes?” My heart raced, my chest rising and falling more rapidly with each second that passed. Each second of her silence increased my anxiety over what she was about to say.
As she opened her mouth to speak, her phone rang loudly, causing her to jump.
“Shit,” she mumbled, glancing at the screen. I saw that it said Nathan.
“Go ahead.” I rolled my eyes and looked out the window.
“Hey Nathan, were you watch—” Savannah clipped her sentence, starting again in a much more aggravated tone. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”
Looking over at her, I watched her run a hand through her hair, leaving it perched on the back of her neck as she pressed the side of her head into the window.
“Not this shit again, Nathan. Seriously. Yes … I remember. Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot. It was nothing.” Savannah’s cheeks reddened in an instant as she looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “Get a grip. Even if there was, it’s not a shred of your business. I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.” In a huff, she ended the call and shoved her phone into her purse.
“Everything okay?” I asked, uninterested in what Nathan had to say apart from how it seemed to make her feel.
She waved her hand at me and grinned. “Just Nathan …”
Apparently that was supposed to communicate something.
Before I could respond, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
Karin.
“Excuse me,” I mumbled to Savannah, as if I could step away to take the call. I wish I could have. Really, I wish I didn’t have to answer it at all. “Hello?” I answered, clearing my throat.
“What the hell was that?” Karin’s voice was just a peg below hysterical.
“What was what?”
“On the show just now.”
“I—”
Karin cut me off. “You conveniently left out that you’d be playing with Savannah Marshall.”
“I’m failing to see what difference it makes who I played with …” I trailed off, having forgotten for a second that I was sitting right next to Savannah in the car. I glanced over at her and she quickly looked to the floor.
“If it makes no difference, why didn’t you tell me? You knew it would make a difference to me. You didn’t even tell me she was part of the damn tour!” Karin sniffed and her tears on the other side of the country brewed fresh anxiety in me.
I hadn’t told her. It was intentional and unconscious at the same time to leave Savannah’s name out of the conversation. I knew it would cause another argument with Karin, and given all we were fighting about anyway, I didn’t need to give her new material. But I grew agitated at the fact that being dishonest about Savannah said more about my feelings for her than my avoidance of a cross-country argument with my angry wife.
My wife.
“Karin, darling … ” Unconsciously I looked at Savannah as I spoke those words. I caught her swallowing hard before she looked out the window. It speared through my emotions, and I couldn’t piece together why. Until tonight we’d been anything but cordial to each other. Yet, here, in the car on the phone with my wife, I couldn’t help but care more about the woman sitting next to me than the one I’d pledged eternity to three thousand miles away.
“What, Gregory? What? Are you about to apologize for basically making out with another woman on television?”
“Excuse me?” I snapped, catching Savannah jump out of the corner of my eye.
“It was all over your faces on that stage, Gregory. Don’t lie to me about what’s going on between you two on the road.”
There it was. The accusation of an affair I’d tried to avoid since I first spotted Savannah one row back on our first day of rehearsal. The reason I’d been so cold to her for the last few weeks. I’d attempted to keep my distance from Savannah Marshall once, and it ended horribly for both of us. On this tour I knew I couldn’t keep my physical distance, so I built an emotional wall to keep out someone who was mattering to me more each day.
Someone who could ruin things for me. For my life.
Again.
Thankfully, the car pulled up to the hotel and our driver opened my door.
“Listen, Karin. My car just got back to the hotel. Once I get settled into the room I’ll call you back. I want to talk—”