Baby Blue Eyes

Chapter Twelve

‘Ready?’ he whispers.

I nod. ‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’

I glance up, around the room, and spot my friends shuffling through the door, attempting to find a place to sit. This place has suddenly become rather packed; Jude’s rushing around with the other waiter to get all the orders through. Willow waves at me, looking all proud, like she always does.

Then, Eddie taps his sticks together, once, twice, three times, and then I start to strum. Levi joins in, followed by Matt and Jamie, until the sound of our music swells around the room.

Closing my eyes, waiting for the slight pause before I start to sing, I realise suddenly that my mind is blank. Oh crap! This always happens! I can’t think of a single word! I can’t-

Then the pause comes, and without even thinking, my lips move to the music, and I start to sing.

People applaud. Well, thank goodness for that.

Opening my eyes, continuing to sing, I glance around the room. Imogen appears to be sat in the corner, her eyes on Levi. He’s not looking at her, all his attention focused on watching his fingers move across the guitar. Then, he closes his eyes to sing the harmony. The effort he puts into singing is mind blowing; you can see the way his eyelids crease with the high notes, a tiny mark between his eyebrows appearing.

It’s perfect. The harmony, I mean. The song appears to be working well, and everyone’s clapping along, sipping their coffee. The shop is packed, absolutely packed, and I see a huge amount of people from school there, along with some who were obviously just in the coffee shop because they wanted a coffee, rather than because they wanted to come and see us.

The song finishes, and we move on to the next one swiftly, as Matt planned, under the cover of uproarious applause. It’s very flattering to think that they all enjoy our music so much.

The rest of the show goes well. Continuing to sing various songs, the audience get behind us, and cheer loudly at every opportunity. I glance at the others, to see that they’re all smiling as much as I am.

‘This is amazing,’ Levi murmurs, as we get out the music for the next song.

‘I know,’ I reply. ’I’d forgotten how much I loved performing. You get such a rush of adrenaline.’

‘Exactly.’

Then the strumming starts again, and our voices rise and fall to the music, in unison the entire time. It’s almost as if we have some sort of connection. 

We move through songs together, and in that one moment there, I suddenly realise that I haven’t felt this happy in a very long time. Music is such a huge part of my life; I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed it. Maybe it isn’t particularly ideal to have to be sharing it with Levi, but I have to make the most of it, right?

When we finally stop, the coffee shop bursts into applause and cheering, people standing on their feet and shouting our names. I look at the others in delight, grins plastered all over our faces.

‘That,’ says Jamie, ‘was immense.’

‘Immense? Man, that’s old! You’ve got to say a word like awesome,’ Eddie tells him, giving him a shove.

‘Awesome?! I was using that word yonks ago!’

I roll my eyes at Levi, laughing at the silly boys behind us. He smiles back, opening his mouth to say something, when Imogen flings herself at him. Great. Trust Imogen bloody Cooper to burst in.

‘You were incredible!’ she tells him, wrapping her arms around his neck, squishing the guitar between them. Yeowch, that looks painful. Levi does look rather uncomfortable with the guitar digging into him, but he bravely smiles at her, letting her kiss him.