Subway Cars & Lonely Hearts

thirtyfour/irl/

italics ~ elliot

bold ~ carter

tuesday september 18th 6:21 pm est

elliot threw one more goodbye over her shoulder as she walked out of marie's office, heading towards the elevator. she had no so subtly been informed by mario that carter was putting on a small performance in one of the rooms downstairs for some of his fans, and now that elliot was done for the day, she hoped to catch the end.

the elevator doors slid open with a soft ding, she scanned her company card, and then pressed the button for the 31st floor. the doors pinged again shortly after and elliot exited the elevator, trying to navigate the part of her office she had only been in a handful of times. 

eventually, she found the room, and silently slipped in and found a place to sit right near the staff door she had entered through in the back. the little section consisted of the reporter, camille, who was writing the feature on carter, one of mario's interns sitting behind his camera, probably filming for the company's youtube channel, and a few teenage girls, who elliot assumed were staff kids. 

she looked down to see the rows of chairs filled in by a scattering of parents, a few boys, but overwhelmingly by teenage girls. however, elliot paid little attention to them, her eyes flicking straight to the tiny wooden stage, to carter. 

he sat on a metal stool, an acoustic guitar perched on his knee, looking right at home on the stage. his lips quirked into a smile as he scanned all the faces looking up at him. 

"before i go, i just want to thank you all for coming out to see me today. i'm so damn lucky i get to do this for a living, and it's all thanks to you." the crowd cheered in response, yelling and clapping, and elliot was pretty sure she saw a few tears. carter waved to the crowd one more time and made a move to get up, but then he hesitated and sat down once again. the crowd was small, but they were absolutely deafening.

"you know what, you guys have been really great, so i'm going to let you in on a secret," the crowd screamed as he adjusted the strings on his guitar, "i'm going to play you an unreleased song." the room went absolutely ballistic. 

"leo's giving me major stink eye right now, so i'm sorry dude, but even i didn't know i was doing this until two seconds ago," he let out the chuckle elliot had heard so many times over the phone, and she couldn't help but smile. "i think i'm just feeling extra inspired today. it's been a really, really good day. so here it is, let me know what you think."

his fingers glided through the opening chords, and then he began to sing. 

"i feel like i've been drowning and i can finally breathe,

just a word from her makes me weak at the knees.

all these plastic people trying to get a piece of me,

but she's like a winter storm and a summer breeze.

and every time my phone pings, my heartstrings,

pull me deeper,

i need to keep her."

her heart skipped a beat at the opening lyrics. 

sure, she had heard him sing in that youtube video in her class, but hearing him live was a whole other story. his voice was smooth, yet rough. gentle, yet demanding. it was absolutely entrancing, magical even.

carter meade had a gift, and he was using it to sing about elliot bloom.