Lex hopped onto the couch and sat between Aerie and me. “Oh you are not chicken. You’re Canary, and you’ve got a fucking Grammy.”
She pointed at Canaan. “We’re Canary, and we have three fucking Grammys, but Cane is the real talent. I just plink my little uke and sing a few little songs. This much talent in one place? It’s intimidating.”
“You know I don’t like it when you’re overly modest, babe,” Canaan said. “And we’re just jamming. Nothing to be intimidated by.”
Aerie pointed at me and then Crow. “The boys I’m used to. Myles North is like, almost as famous as Harlow, and Crow is an entity unto himself with that guitar.”
Tate, who had her cello out and was rosining her bow, grinned. “Shut up and play, Aerie. This is a once-in-a-lifetime jam session.”
Aerie glanced at Lex. “Well? You in?”
Lex eyed me. “I don’t know.”
“She’s in,” I said. “She just needs to hear something she knows.”
Lex frowned. “You’re speaking for me, now?”
I grinned, and let the melody playing become “I Need You” by Tim McGraw, a song I knew she knew and loved, having heard her hum it in the shower more than a few times.
“No,” I answered. “I just know you.”
The others picked it up immediately, Corin with the beat, Crow with the lead, me flowing around him and Canaan with the banjo making it sound kinda bluegrass. Aerie started in on the lower range of her ukulele, and Tate plucked her strings with her fingers to mimic a bass note. Which left Lex.
And the vocals.
After a moment of watching and listening, Lex closed her eyes. She sighed, a low, tight sound, not quite relief, but something more painful, fraught. As if she was giving in to something forbidden. And joined in, hesitantly at first.
We were all bound in this moment—all of us. They’d all heard the conversation we’d had about Lex and her dad, so we all knew what a big deal this was for her. She’d clearly never stopped playing, because after her initial hesitation, her fingers began to fly. Virtuosic, fluid, finding the melody for herself and putting her spin on it, soaring above in high range in counterpoint to Aerie’s lower thread.
I knew the song. Knew the words. Mind like mine, mind for music, the lyrics are just there, and that’s a song I’d heard a thousand times, a song I’d sung a million times myself—always solo, just me singing Tim’s part and always half wishing in the back of my mind and at the very bottom of my heart for someone to sing the harmony, to sing Faith’s part with me.
This was that moment.
Her voice found mine, wrapped around it. She had a surprisingly soft, quiet, smooth voice, contrasting with her loud, bold personality. She sang with her eyes closed, leaned over her ukulele and played her part without thinking, sang with depth and passion.
She wasn’t just singing, she was performing.
She just didn’t know it.
The professional in me was watching her carefully, and I knew she was not just talented. She was a once-in-a-generation talent. Raw vocal power that didn’t need to be loud to be perfect. Each note was effortlessly flawless. Not sure this makes any sense, but her voice was just liquid. Sweet as honey and strong as whiskey, yet it moved and breathed.
Her face, already beautiful, shone when she sang. Radiated pure joy as she performed with me. Her fingers flew, and the song neared its end.
Her eyes opened and met mine.
I knew the song we’d do next, and I knew it’d surprise her. I also knew she knew it—I’d heard it on her earbuds as we traveled, a song she tended to listen to regularly.
“Just Give Me A Reason” by Pink and Nate Ruess.
I plucked out the melody, and I saw her recognize it.
“Damn you,” she whispered.
“Never said I’d play fair, darlin’,” I said, grinning with an ease I didn’t feel.
This moment, playing with her, it was heavy. Beautiful, deeply meaningful…but fuckin’ heavy.
She sang, and no one else played. Just my guitar, her voice. Stripped down to the barest bones. Lexie fell into the music, dove in and swam deep. The soft quiet voice she’d used for the Tim and Faith song was replaced by a low, powerful one, not quite a belting voice but close. Strong, impassioned.
When it was my turn, I made sure my voice stayed in the backing harmony, letting her be the focus. She didn’t play either, just held the uke with her hand on the strings, palms flat on neck and bridge, head ducked, curled over herself and rocking as she found the power in her voice to let loose, to belt the lyrics as they were meant to be sung, with passion that could almost produce tears. When she got to the chorus and sang about being not broken just bent, I heard her shake, almost crack, and keep going.
Stronger for the breaking.
When the song ended, there was total silence.
“Fuck me,” I heard Bax breathe, awed.
Canaan nodded. “Music’s next great duet has been born, and we watched it happen.”
Lexie seemed to come awake; shaking off the stupor being in the zone like that can put you into. “What? What do you mean?”
Aerie leaned close to Lexie, wrapped a slender arm around Lexie’s shoulders. “You don’t realize, do you?”
“Realize…what?”
Aerie kissed Lex on the cheek. “That you just found your purpose in life.”
“My…purpose?”
I held her gaze. “How do you feel right now, Lex? Honest. No filter, no bullshit. Right now. How are you feeling? What are your emotions?”
She swallowed hard. “My hands are shaking. My whole body is shaking, like an adrenaline rush times a thousand. I…my soul is shaking. I feel…” She closed her eyes and then opened them and stared up at the endless wash of Alaskan summer stars. “I feel like I’m more alive than I’ve ever been. Like I’m finally awake.”
“You understand what that is,
