One Shots

Off-Key

The moment I heard his voice I knew I was a goner. He wasn't the most beautiful boy I'd ever met, his hair was a mess of dusty brown, his eyes murky pools of hazel, but he had dimples, and his fingers ran over the strings like an angel. Tall, and lanky, and dorky as hell, I think I was destined to fall in love with Aidan Burtin.

It was one of those evenings when adventure coursed through the air, like the blood in my veins. It bounced off the walls, whispering over and over that I needed to get out and do something, so that's what I did. I pulled on a grey hoodie, a pair of faded blue cut-offs, and climbed out my window, scaling the old oak by the side of our house right down to the ground.

The minute my bare feet met the dirt of the flower garden, and the night kissed my skin I knew something was up, something was going down tonight.

The neighbourhood I'd grown up in was one of those places where everything lined up into perfect roads, that climbed hills in roundabout lanes, but if you knew where to walk you could easily navigate your way out of it and down to the ocean. Sea-worn fishing docks, that always smelled like fish, and seaweed, and salt-water, with the grey ocean beyond them, a dark opaque surface, in the depths of the night.That's where I'd grown up. My mom taught at an elementary school in Summerside, and I think it was her way of getting away from the endless fish guts, and scales, but then she married a fisherman so that all went to waste. North Rustico had been my home for as long as I'd been alive, I went to Gulf Shore Consolidated School during the day, and in the evenings I worked in the store, selling mackerel, and salmon, and lobster to the Islands many tourists.

The salty wind tangled up my ruddy, bright, brown curls, with one hand I pushed the tangles out of my face. That's when I heard it. It wasn't coming from the beach, where I knew at least a dozen kids had built a makeshift bonfire (though technically the beach was closed, and they weren't supposed to), and were now dancing in the wreckage of today's sandcastles. The sound came from out on the wharf.

I don't play an instrument, a brief round with the violin proved that I wan't really the instrumental type, but I'd grown up surrounded by rowdy old men, who after a hard-days work lugging lobster traps, and fishing nets, pulled out their guitars, and fiddles and made sure we all had a chance to dance. I couldn't sing very well but I knew the words to every old Stompin' Tom song there was, and nobody cared if I was off-key as long as my cheeks were flushed and I was laughing. Whoever was playing out on the docks, wasn't playing any jig, or reel though, his voice could melt you like a late-august sunset, and nothing about this music was off-key. Words I didn't know drifted around the fish shops, and bakeries that lined the water.

"There's a place I go where's there's no heat, but it never gets cold and that I know for sure."

His voice sounded almost like an old accordion being broken out of its box for the first time in a few years, but it was beautiful, and my breath was catching. Maybe it was instinct, but I knew that I had no choice but to follow the sound around the buildings to its source. So barefoot I crept across the pavement.

"There's a rusted gate, and a chandelier, a flowered door, and a mattress on the floor."

The music was gaining more sure footedness now, but it was making my knees go wobbly. I paused on the other side of the street to try to find the direction it was coming from.

"She lays me down so low here under the stars."

My heart was pounding now, and I leaned up against the side of a building, a smile on my face because the music was driving its way into my soul, and I needed a moment to catch my breath. The ocean wind blew over my face, and I could feel it mix with the song to tug on my heart strings.

"And knowing it won't last just tears me a part."

With a final breath I peered around the side of the wall, and I saw him. Guitar case opened to the side, instrument grasped in his hands, sitting on the edge of the dock, rolled up jeans, feet dangling in the water. The guitar strings sweet and simple, and his voice, fuck, his voice I could admit made me swoon slightly, but it was more than that. Maybe it was just the timing, and the place, or something, but it seemed almost magic. A secret song to the sea, and the night.

"This is how it goes, this is how it goes, baby we're rolling. Just a boat on the ocean. Up in the sky, heaven so close. Taking off your clothes, taking off my clothes, give me a moment..."

The stars, and the wind, and the fact that my heart was forgetting how to beat pushed me forward. The wooden dock as known to me as the lines on the palm of my hand underneath my feet, and the boy, and his voice, as new and bright as the crescent moon above us.

"I don't care if it's stolen. Way up high, in your sweet little bungalow."

I was standing about five feet away from him now, not sure if I should move any closer. I was close enough to see the cow lick on the back of his head from where the breeze was playing with his hair, and the dimple on his face as the music ran through him. If I wanted to I could probably even begin to count the freckles on his skin, but I was too busy listening, just like it had made me move before, the song now had me rooted in place.

"She's got a temper, yeah, like a redhead, a tabby cat, and a tattoo she regrets. She's a carpenter with a book of poems. Got another side that no one really knows."

It was just him and his guitar, and his voice, and the applause of the dark water. There was a pause in the lyrics, and it was just the guitar strings, I took it as my cue to move forward, I stood basically right beside him now, but he was so intent on the music he did't notice, not even when I sat down on the dock cross-legged, did he glance up.

"Watching through the window you smile in the dark."

I smiled in the dark. The sleeves of his green button up, were pushed back, and I could see his long, wiry forearms, the muscles beneath the skin moving slightly as he played.

"Knowing we can't stay here, but you left a mark."

He glanced up at the ocean, long lashes, and hazel eyes taking in the deep blue horizon, a breath, before returning to the strings, and his fingers. I hear the change in chords and realize I remember this part, and maybe it's the tug of the song in my stomach but my mouth opens and I sing too.

"This is how it goes, this is how it goes, baby we're rolling. Just a boat on the ocean, up in the sky, heaven so close."

My voice was nothing like his, it didn't melt anyone's soul, or make anybody breathe funny, but alongside his, with the guitar, and the night wind, and everything, it sounds less like a cat clawing at violin strings, and almost beautiful.

He looked over at me, startled, as my voice broke through the waves. He stopped singing, but his fingers kept moving, but with my eyes fixed on the constellations in the distance, I kept singing.

"Taking off your clothes, taking off my clothes, give me a moment. I don't care if it's stolen. Way up high, in your sweet little bungalow."

And by some miracle I wasn't off-key. 

*  *  *  *  *  *

So usually I don't write A/N for this kind of thing, but this one deserves one. It was supposed to be the beginning of something larger, but it didn't turn out that way because I didn't have a plan. It still might go somewhere but for now it's just a one shot. 

I've added a picture of North Rustico, which is located in Prince Edward Island, and the song, which is Bungalow by Scott Helman.

Thanks

-K