Songbird

Nine: Colt

It was weird how easily things fell into place. One little talk, that moment of me opening up, even if it didn't seem like much to me, made all the difference. We started laughing. We started hanging out. She'd come into the bar, even without Cora, just to see me. She'd even stop by rehearsals. I still hadn't convinced her to sing with us instead of sitting on the couch observing, but I'd keep working on it. And I sure didn't mind seeing her smiling face sitting in front of me anyway.

The summer months were full of all sorts of things I could convince her to attend with me. Hell, she'd gone to Beau's first baseball game while we weren't even speaking, and she'd been to every one of the six since we started. She invited me, Beau and Mom out to Orchard for dinner and we ate and talked and laughed until well past dark. Then we sat on the porch and played all the old songs we used to. I'd honestly done whatever she wanted if it made her smile. At the risk of sounding like the Grinch, which, let's be serious, I kind of was, I could feel myself opening back up. She wasn't wrong when she said I'd been hiding. I could see that now.

The last thing I wanted to do was hide from Lennie Tyler and the more time we spent together, the more I wondered what in the hell I'd been hiding from in the first place. She was this bright light that drew me in, like I was a mosquito or something. A moth to a flame. I couldn't stay away from her. I didn't want to. I wanted to bask in that light. I wanted it to light ME up. I wanted it to warm the heart I'd once considered dead. And it was, in more ways than I even realized.

By the end of June, it was like our friendship had never ended in the first place.  And maybe it never really had. Lord knows, I had spent way too much time watching her from afar or trying to goad Cora into giving me any sort of detail of Lennie's life. I can't imagine she and Cora never spoke about me. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it wasn't that we were getting to know each other, it was that she was bringing the old me back. The me that I thought was long gone. The me that smiled more than he scowled. The me that wanted to go out, wanted to have friends. The me that wondered if maybe, just maybe, I wasn't destined to be alone for the rest of my life.

Cora and I were turning thirty-four on June thirtieth, so we decided to pack up our friends and take a road trip to the lake house our family owned. It was around a three-hour drive, but Beau was with Rachel's family in Atlanta for the next ten days, so I was more than willing to take the opportunity to get out of town. Especially because Lennie was tagging along. Well, Lennie, Leon and his wife Melody, Carter, Travis, and a couple of Cora's other friends. Tasha and Rosie, I think. I didn't really care what their names were, let's be honest. There was only one girl in that group I gave a shit about.

This wasn't Lennie's first trip out to the lake house with us. She went with us a lot when we were kids, even after she and I stopped speaking. Rachel never went, so she wouldn't be around trying to distract me, which was a blessing, considering how much I just sat around and watched my lost young love. It sounded creepy now, hell it felt creepy then at times, but it was the truth. I watched her and Cora swim in the lake or explore the woods, sometimes I'd tag along disguising it with some desire to make sure they were safe. I watched her curl up on the deck with a book or a guitar as she strummed and hummed to whatever melody was in her brain. I watched her a lot. Probably should've tried talking to her. That might've helped. But I didn't because I was a teenager shaped chicken. This trip, however, this trip would be different. I would make damn sure of that.

"What's going on with you and Travis?" I asked as I helped my sister load her belongings into my truck. I avoided eye contact to make it seem like I was less interested than I was. "I'm not blind you know."

Cora's posture went rod straight and she cleared her throat nervously. "Nothing. Nothing's going on..."

"Cora," I scolded with a chuckle. "Mom and Lennie damn near confirmed it. Plus, I can see it. If I'm gonna have to spend the whole weekend with the two of you, you should probably at least give me a heads-up, so I don't punch him for being inappropriate with my little sister."