We Have Till Dawn

One big spotlight was trained on the stage and showing how much we could sweat.

We were on our last session for the evening, and the families with young children had gone home. It allowed us to raise the nonexistent roof of this place, and we weren’t the only ones. Out of the approximately two hundred Solo cups in the crowd, I estimated half of them had more bourbon than hot cider.

I bobbed my head and plucked at the strings of my precious Gibson guitar, flirting with Anthony’s flawless playing on the piano, though the gospel choir behind us owned all of us. They were the ones who fueled us, the ones who made the atmosphere around us fucking crackle.

Music filled my soul.

Gideon filled my heart.

He’d shown up late because Chester had eaten something he shouldn’t and had thrown up all over Gideon’s home. The dog was feeling better now, but I had a feeling Gideon would go home fairly quickly after the show was over. Not that his worry had stopped him from buying four—that’s right, four—hot dogs from a vendor, as well as two cups of hot chocolate and a deep-fried Snickers.

I was pretty sure I’d seen him buy raffle tickets too.

Anthony and I exchanged a quick look as the song drew to its close, and we stopped playing at the same time, leaving the last few seconds for the choir and Luiz on the drums.

Fuck me, I was spent. I wiped my forehead with the sleeve of my shirt as the crowd applauded.

Last song. It’d been a hectic week, and it felt like the last two months had led up to this moment.

Nerves tightened my stomach, and I swallowed dryly.

Anthony let out a whistle, causing me to glance over at him, and he nodded at…something.

I followed his gaze over the crowd, instinctively seeking out Gideon near the western wall where he’d been standing before—and fuck me so hard and then kill me. Mamma mia, why? Just why? Why was Pop talking to him? Of all the visitors, not to mention some of Pop’s actual friends, he had to wander over to a complete stranger with whom I happened to wanna spend the rest of my life?

My father wasn’t generally an observant man. Had it been Nonna… Let’s just say there’d been a reason I hadn’t sought out Gideon in the crowd when she was still here, ’cause she could sniff out a story from a mile away.

“We have one more song for y’all,” Anthony said into the mic. “Couple weeks ago, Nicky came to me and said we had to play this one, and he wouldn’t really tell me why.”

What the fuck, dude?

I scowled back at him.

He smiled, perfectly at ease, and went on. “We’ve performed it together before, so I said shoot. It was nice to have a tune we didn’t have to rehearse, considering how little time we had.” He paused. “Yesterday we had a recital over at the Initiative, and Nicky sang with his group of students. Now listen, I’ve always told the little shit he should sing more than he does.” He got several laughs from that. I wasn’t on the same page. At fucking all. What was he playing at? “But something was different last night,” he said. “His voice was stronger. And I happen to know…because it’s what our nonna always says… We sing better when we have someone to sing for.” That motherfucker. Without another word, he sang the first line from “Stand by Me,” and I acted on autopilot.

My fingers fell over the strings, and I had no choice but to walk over to my own microphone and face the crowd.

Because for some idiotic reason, I’d asked to turn this into a duet rather than be his backup.

I joined in on the first chorus and closed my eyes. It was just better. I knew Gideon was watching and listening. That was enough. The rest of the world could fuck off, and so could my nervousness, if I was gonna be honest. Cazzo.

Thankfully, it worked. The music swept me away, and even I thought I sang better than usual. More than that, my guitar became an extension of me. We built up a crescendo, and the choir pushed us toward an edge—where Anthony and I just stopped. I drew an unsteady breath that sounded too loud, and then Luiz set us on fire with the drums. Anthony and I raised the tempo and the volume, backed off and quieted down, went up toward the edge again, then back down.

In a quiet moment, I smiled to myself and pictured Gideon’s face before me. It was the song to impress him. The very one. I plucked at the strings and improvised a technical lick, then slid my fingers along the strings and made the music wail for me in a bluesy, full-blown solo. As if my guitar had its own tortured voice.