Falling Under by Jasinda Wilder

Author:Jasinda Wilder
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

NINE: Germinating Seeds

Oz

Kylie asked me to get tested, so I did, and came back clean. I sat in the waiting room of her doctor’s office while she got birth control, and then we went together to buy protection. It felt odd, and strangely comforting, to do all that together. As if we were making decisions together, not merely thinking about the moment but looking at the future. As if we’re planning for a future together. The idea gives me hope.

She’s eighteen now. I spent her birthday at her parents’ house, eating cake, hanging out, laughing, having fun. All the things I’ve never done on my own birthdays. I gave her a book of sheet music of some of the popular country songs. She loved it.

So now she’s eighteen, we’re both tested and protected, and there’s nothing left but the right moment. I’m thinking she deserves better for our first time together—to be somewhere other than in my nasty room on my mattress on the floor. I’ve never been into romantic gestures, but I want to do something. The only problem is, romantic gestures cost money I don’t really have.

All that happened a few days ago, and it’s been tense and difficult since then. The doctor was very clear that we couldn’t do anything until the pills had had time to get into her system, and waiting, waiting, waiting has been so hard, so impossible. We have to pull ourselves back from the edge, pull our heated fiery need back, reel in the messy drowning kisses before we get carried away and lose ourselves in each other and forget why we have to wait. We try to distract ourselves with studying for tests and finishing assignments, but it’s hard. We get lost in a delirious fervor, lose ourselves in the silence of my room, kisses stolen in her car, on my bike in a parking lot far from anywhere. A week of hungry looks, and ravenous hands, and roaming trembling bodies.

To distract ourselves, we study together, and we play music. We write songs, we learn covers, we learn how to play together, how to read each other musically, what we can do well and what we can’t. She’s teaching me to read music, which is easier than I thought it would be. And now, now finally we’re clear to do what we want.

We’re in her car, cruising through Friday late afternoon traffic, heading downtown. Kylie has a list of honky-tonks and bars she wants us to audition at. We’ve spent the last few days practicing some original tunes and a few covers. The first place is a dark sports bar off the strip. Kylie arranged the audition last week, so the manager is expecting us. He shakes our hands, introduces himself as Dan, and points at the stage. It’s a one-step-up platform in the corner of the bar, our backs to the windows facing the street. There’s a battered, scratched tan upright piano on one wall, and a couple of stools, mic stands.

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