Living In The Shallows (UK Crush #1)

Chapter Fifty

He began picking out a melody with his index finger, a haunting, drifting, little melody that reminded me of something. It took me a minute to place it, but then it came to me; it sounded like Paul McCartney's gorgeous instrumental "Singalong Junk", but where "Singalong" turned around and came up into a major motif, Teddy's melody dove even farther in one direction, into the minor key it started in. Like "Singalong", it, too, was in three-quarter time, a waltz, which gave it a lovely, whimsical feel.

The second time through, he started singing, and I added some chords to enhance the melody and the three-quarter time.

Thought the loneliness was here to stay
Wand'ring through the loud and crowded rooms
Then the hummingbird came to my world one day
Tiny thing driving away the gloom

It went on for five more gorgeous verses, and I somehow managed to keep up without sniffing once, or letting the tears spill over, though it was one of the hardest things I'd ever done.

I played the closing chords and tried to surreptitiously wipe my eyes, using the pedal to hold the notes instead of my hands. As both his voice and the chords died away, the group gathered around the piano broke into spontaneous applause.

"Theo, you're saying that's the first time you've performed that?" Keith asked.

Teddy nodded.

"Dude, that's money right there," Keith said, clapping him on the back. "Nothing raw about that at all! None of it's written down?"

Teddy shook his head.

Keith looked at me. "How'd you know what to play, Tink?"

Warren, the keyboard player, spoke up. "She plays, Keith, classical."

Keith looked back at me. "So you heard the melody he picked out and just added the rest on your own?"

I nodded. "Well, sort of. It sounded kind of like "Singalong Junk", you know?"

"The McCartney tune, sure," he nodded.

"So I took it from there, but I kind of had to go off on my own when it didn't come back in the major key? So I sort of winged it from there, but I've had a lot of music theory, so that helped."

"Theo, sounds like you need to give your girl here a writing credit on your new song," Tyler said.

"I think you're right," Teddy said, with a gentle smile at me.

I was horrified. "Are you kidding? No way! All I did was fill in some minor and basic chords based on the notes he provided for the melody. I'm no writer. I'm no musician. I interpret what dead people have written, and that's all!" I hadn't meant for my words to come out so strident, but I felt very strongly about this. I was not a creative person, and I was not going to take credit for Teddy's work. No way.

Teddy put a comforting arm around me. "Shh, Birdie, don't take on so. How about you give a little demonstration of what you can do, hmm?" I turned to him to say no way, but he was doing that thing with his eyes again. Dammit.

"Do they even like classical music?" I hissed in his ear.

"Um, we heard that, young lady, and we all happen to love classical music," Warren called. "Do you take requests?"

I sighed. "I guess, as long as it's not too obscure and I've heard of it."

Teddy shook his head. "There's nothing she can't play. Try her."

"Okay, how about something fairly well known? The "Moonlight Sonata"?" Warren asked.

"All three movements?" I asked.