Ten Days of Perfect (November Blue #1)

I stopped hearing the applause long before it ceased. My eyes blurred with tears; I begged my fingers to hold on to the notes they knew. Bo wrote music for me. Music is the original love letter, and Bo Cavanaugh was reciting his to me for all of Finnegan’s to witness. It is as public a proclamation of love as one can receive and each chord he played had a direct line to one of my heart strings.

There weren’t any lyrics, but Bo intermittently hummed a husky-sweet melody in to the microphone, as if he were trying to work out lyrics in his head. This was surely more beautiful than words could ever be. I saw my parents do this regularly when I was a child; at night after I went to bed they would stay up and just play music with each other. My dad would strum something and my mom would respond with her voice, the piano, or her own stringed instrument. I would peek at them out on the porch from my bedroom window but they never noticed; they were lost in each other the entire time. It filled my heart with such joy then, and now I could feel it first handed as it sent me through the stratosphere.

Any love I thought I had for Bo Cavanaugh before this very moment paled in comparison to what exploded through me on stage. Reckless Abandon was left in the dust, her chest heaving in the after-effects of this gesture. I thought that if this is as good as it gets, I wanted it to stay forever; if it was going to get even better than this - Heaven help me.

With one blink, tears trundled down my face; luckily we were nearing the end of the song. When I reached the last bar and stopped, Bo continued for another couple of lines. The higher melody was perfect, and he wrote it for me. When Bo finished and the crowd clapped, I could no longer hold back. I set my guitar down, grabbed his face, and sank my thanks into his lips right there on stage while the crowd yelped and whistled.

“Did you like it?” Bo whispered, grazing a tear off my cheek as I pulled myself away from the kiss.

“Bo,” I faltered through a thesaurus of gratitude, “it was absolutely perfect.”

I dabbed under my eyes and looked out to the crowd; Adrian was standing cross-armed near the door. His eyes connected briefly with mine before they fell to the floor.

“I’m going to take a little break, but I’ll be back,” Bo said before he silenced his mic and led me off stage.

Monica accosted me before we hit the bar.

“November, Jesus! That was the sexiest, sweetest, most romantic thing I’ve ever seen!” She squeezed me with all her might and I reciprocated. She was right.

“Ember,” Josh approached us cautiously with wide, round eyes. “I had no idea you could . . .” he trailed off, looking at me for approval to continue.

“Thanks.” I smiled and he relaxed.

Bo grabbed my shoulders from behind me and kissed my neck. Elation ebbed when I heard Adrian’s voice looming behind me.

“That was good, really good.” Adrian voice rang with melancholy; he could barely make eye contact with me. “I get it,” he whispered; his lips an inch from my ear.

“Yo, Spence, can I talk to you outside for a minute?” Adrian turned to Bo. ‘Spence’ is it?

“Sure, be right back babe.” Bo kissed my other ear before he headed out the door.

Once Bo was out of sight, I told Monica that he’d asked me to go to Concord with him the next morning.

“You’re going to go, right?” Expectation poured through her words.

“Of course I am, as long as you don’t mind travelling there alone. We’ll ride back together.” I tried to control my beaming excitement.

“You go. Have yourself a fantastic weekend of love, and music, and whatever the hell else it is you two perfect creatures do.” Monica put her hand on my shoulder to reinforce her point.

Josh came up behind me and handed me a beer. He was standing next to Monica, but her eyes remained focused on my face.

“Uh, Mon?” Josh cleared his throat as he tried to capture her attention.

Monica’s stance collapsed, and her shoulders slumped as she turned toward Josh. Her eyes dropped to the floor, but Josh lifted her chin with his index finger, bringing her eyes to his. They stared at each other, saying nothing with words, but their eyes spoke volumes. There’s a thousand lifetimes right there.

I don’t know if it was the complexity of the situation between Josh and Monica, my own feelings for Bo, or the raging war between where I am and where I want to be but when I watched Josh and Monica stare at each other, fresh tears begged for release.

“Guys, I love you both. Josh, I hate how shitty I’ve been to you, but Monica’s my soul-mate best friend. I’ll get out of your hair so you guys can talk.” I hugged them and headed out the back door before either of them could respond. I gave a quick glance over my shoulder and saw Josh tenderly place his arm around Monica’s shoulders as they walked to a table in the back.

I started to open the door to the deck, but stopped briefly when I noticed a heated exchange between Bo and Adrian. I could see the sides of each of their bodies; both of them retained clenched jaws, spoke through gritted teeth, and motioned wildly with their hands.

“This is going too far . . .” was all I heard from Adrian’s mouth before I started yelling.