V.O.I.C.E

.Chapter Six.

Chapter Six                              Carter        

We had devoured our pizza and were just finishing eating the last few crumbs from our plates when Evalyn jumped up from her seat. “We have one more thing for you mum,” she informed Joyce and then ran out of the living room, thudding up the steps as she ran to her room. I walked over to the piano and took a seat. I heard Evalyn storming back down the stairs followed by a crash, she just ran into the wall… again.

She came back into the living room and pulled a chair over beside the piano before she took her guitar out of its case. She strummed a few chords and after doing a quick tune she turned to her mum.

“We’re going to start with a perfect tune for this occasion,” Eva announced as she started the opening chords. “This is for you mom.”

And with that we started singing ‘Happy Birthday’, my father joining in not caring at all that he was nowhere near on pitch. When we finished the final chords Joyce bounced up and down in her seat, tears streaming down her face but a huge smile across her cheeks.

“Can I make a request?” She asked.

Carter and I looked at each other for a moment before we both said in unison, “sure.”

“I want to hear ‘Falling Slowly’,” she requested. It was a song that Carter had written and we had re-arranged it differently last year. We had worked together in pairs so that Evalyn would start and when she started singing I would join her on the piano.

Evalyn sat beside me on the piano bench. She tapped out the count in with her fingers against the side of her guitar and then began. I listened to her introduction waiting for my cue to join me in. The song started with a slow melody that entrapped you, almost hypnotized you. I joined in, my part, causing what I like to think was almost a trance, your mind is stuck in the music. Then Eva started to sing the lyrics, and you were trapped in the song. I added my voice only in the chorus and left her to solo the verses.  And after we finished the song, Joyce and my dad would request something else and we would play or sing for them.

An hour later when our fingers were hurting and voices were almost gone from singing, Evalyn and I went upstairs to get changed into out PJs. Evalyn left her guitar down there in case we wanted to do some more singing later. I stripped out of my shirt and stretched my back muscles, while latching my fingers around each other and pulling them backwards, all my knuckles cracking.

I was pulling off my socks and pants when I heard Evalyn scream at the top of her lungs. I rushed to see what the hell was going on. Standing on her bed, hopping up and down while rubbing her arms was Evalyn. When she saw me into the room, she stopped hopping around.

“Are you okay?” I asked, while giving her a look that had ‘you’re crazy’ written all over it.

Evelyn glared at me as she pointed to the floor and said, “A damn spider landed on my arm, I freaked and wiped it off but then it took off and now I don’t know where it is.”

I took the time while she was telling me why she was being a goof ball to realize that I had just rushed into her room while she was changing, meaning that she was only in a top and underwear. The cute short kind of underwear that hugs the right places but didn’t show off to much. And she wasn’t the only one in her underwear. She seemed to remember what she was wearing and blushed while grabbing her robe from the end of her bed where she had left it while getting changed.