“Glad I have a good influence on you. That sparkling water is nasty.”
“Not as nasty as that dried-out dick on a stick,” he said, opening the door again.
So far, their road trip hadn’t put many miles behind them. Not any.
“Get your playlist ready while I’m inside. I already have a list on my phone that has all of my musical influences.”
“Get me another taquito while you’re in there,” she called after him as he shut the door. He gave her a thumbs-up and hurried inside.
She put a lot of thought into assembling her playlist, selecting pieces that weren’t too long or too slow. Ones she hoped he’d like. It would be nice if more people appreciated classical music. Sometimes she felt that she’d been born about three hundred years too late. But women hadn’t really been big in the music business back then. She’d probably have been burned as a witch or something equally horrific for having fast fingers.
“Did you get it figured out?” Kellen asked when he returned to the car.
“I think so,” she said.
Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven—the usual stuff. She loved them all, but there were lesser-known compositions that really made her soul sing, ones that couldn’t be readily downloaded. She’d just have to share those treasures with him when—if—he visited her in Los Angeles, where her massive classical music collection was housed. She did have a few of her favorites on CD at the beach house, but they wouldn’t do her any good on their road trip.
After mixing them both a cranberry/orange juice blend in their matching travel mugs, he tossed a PayDay candy bar into her lap.
“Another favorite of mine,” he said.
She picked it up by one end as if it had been floating in a toilet.
“What’s the point of these things?” she asked. “There’s no chocolate on them.”
“I don’t really like chocolate.”
“Blasphemy!”
He jumped at her sudden outburst, and then laughed at his startle. “Just eat your PayDay and be happy I was thinking of you.”
“I will not.” She dropped it in his lap. “I’m not wasting calories on anything not dipped in chocolate.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, reaching into the brown paper sack and pulling out a greasy, meaty, spicy-smelling taquito. “They were fresh out of chocolate-dipped taquitos.”
“Give me that.” She snatched it from his hand and scrunched the paper covering down so she could take a bite.
Grinning, he connected his phone to the car’s Bluetooth system, while she munched on her chocolate-free taquito.
“I’m not sure getting to know each other is a good idea,” she teased as she popped the last bite into her mouth. “Now that I know you don’t like chocolate, I’m not sure we can be friends.”
“And now that I know you actually eat yellow Starbursts, I’m sure you’re a space alien.”
She stuck out her tongue at him, and he flicked her nose with one finger.
“I guess I can overlook the small stuff,” she said with a shrug. “No one is perfect.”
“I like our differences,” he said. “All of them. If I didn’t, I’d date a mirror.”
“I tried that once,” she said. “I’m not a very good kisser. My lips are all hard and cold. It was like kissing a pane of glass.”
Kellen laughed. “I don’t recall kissing you being like that at all.” He leaned in to prove himself correct.
When he drew away, she was craving something a bit more satisfying than junk food.
“Are we ready?” he asked.
“I think so. We can stop halfway and get some more of those taquitos, right?” Because she’d already finished the one he’d just given her.
“Right.” He grinned. “They’re so much better than dried-out corn dogs.”
They were, but she wasn’t prepared to admit that to him.
When they entered the highway a few minutes later, she flicked through the playlist Kellen indicated on his phone. Black Sabbath, Queen, Deep Purple, Aerosmith. At least she’d heard of those bands. She still wasn’t sure what a Foo Fighter was. Or what exactly they were fighting. “Who goes first?” she asked. “Me or you?”
“Flip a coin.”
She won the coin toss and selected Chopin. “I’m playing this song at a recital next week. I think it’s next week.” She scowled as she tried to remember what day it was. She’d lost track while she’d been holed up in the beach rental with nothing but writer’s block to keep her company. Until Kellen showed up.
“It’s lovely. A bit slower than the jazz you played for me.”
“If you weren’t driving, I’d tell you to close your eyes and listen closely. Chopin is best enjoyed without any outside distractions.”
“So I’d have to close my eyes and also toss you out on the side of the road to truly appreciate this piece? Because you are my greatest distraction.”
She shook her head, her face aching from all the smiling. Apparently those smile muscles of hers didn’t typically get enough of a workout. Kellen was definitely putting them through their paces.
They fell silent for a long moment, listening to the build of the song. In her head, she was hearing different notes, though. Her own twist on the music—the way she would have changed the composition to her personal taste. She felt guilty when her thoughts warped the perfections of the classics, but it wasn’t anything she could help. She supposed it was the composer in her that made that happen. Listening to music without rewriting it into her own creation was hard for her.
“Do you like performing?” Kellen asked, drawing her from her mental composing.
“I do,” she said. “It makes me feel connected to people. Composing is a lonely venture.”
“Unless I’m there.” He leaned over and squeezed her knee.
She couldn’t argue since he happened to be right.
“One reason I think I’ll keep you despite your dislike of chocolate.”
“And do you like composing? Actually like it?”
“That’s a tough question,” she said. “It’s more a compulsion, I guess. I can’t not do it. In fact, I’m doing it in my head right now.”
“In what way?”
“When I hear a piece of music, sometimes I reinvent it in my own style. I’d really like to compose symphonies, music that will still be played hundreds of years in the future.”
She’d only ever mentioned that overreaching dream to one person—the piano teacher she’d once idolized—and he’d laughed at her. So she’d molded her dream into something more attainable—composing for Hollywood movies. She was relieved when Kellen didn’t laugh at her.
“That sounds like a fine aspiration to me.”
“It does?”
“I’d pay to hear them.”
She snorted. “You would not.”
“If you wrote a symphony, I’m sure it would give me a major boner.”
She gaped at him. He said the most guy-like things sometimes. She wasn’t sure why she found it so shocking. He was a rock star; he even looked like one. But his soul was so deep and his words often so poetic, that it was hard for her to think of him as a regular guy.
“I’ve only ever told one other person about that dream,” she said. “And he made fun of it too.”