Page 107 of You Found Me
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to.” Mason opened a box and started unpacking. “You should think about signing up for the talent show. Bet you’d win.”
A second dose of adrenaline kicked her heart up another notch. “Oh no. I can’t do that,” she blurted.
“Why not?”
“I…um…” Della didn’t have a good reason ready. All she could think about was that Ward was absolutely going to kill her if he found out she’d been singing.
Never mind that his little brother had heard her.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Deflect, was all she could think.Deflect and distract.
“Were you in the show last year?” she asked.
He half shrugged. “Won the Most Likely to Try Again trophy.”
She didn’t think he’d recognized her voice. He wasn’t acting like it, anyway. “It sounds like there’s a story there. What happened?”
“What didn’t.” He turned away to put another can on the shelf. “It was supposed to be me on guitar and lead vocal, Grand on drums and backup, and Scott on keyboard, but Scott got sick, so it was just me and Grand. One of my strings broke right as we got started. Left us sounding like a demented duck with anger issues.”
She burst out laughing. “Oh…I’m sorry. That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.” He flashed her a grin. “You want to see it, there’s video all over social media. Anyway, with the new guitar you and Storm got me, I was hoping this year would be different.”
“Are the three of you going to form a band?” She moved her empty box aside and started on the next.
“Nah. Scott’s done with that kind of thing. And Grand’s too busy with the holiday production. So it’s just me doing the show. If I do.” He didn’t sound sure about it.
It made her curious. Why had he pushed through all the embarrassment last year, only to hold out now? “Are you worried about doing it solo?”
“Nah. I do a lot of karaoke. I can handle that.”
“Something’s changed, though, or you wouldn’t have said if,” she said. “What’s the holdup?”
Mason ran his hand through his hair. “I’ve been working on my own song. But I don’t think I can do it.”
“Why not?”
He was such a sweet kid. She wanted to help him, but how could she do that without blowing her cover?
Piper’s nagging voice sounded in her head.You promised to behave, DellBell.
Stupid voice, making sense like that. Della shoved it aside.
“I’m not a songwriter,” Mason said. “It was just this stupid set of lines that I wrote for English class. I tried putting them to some random chords on that new guitar and, well, it seemed okay in the garage. But it’s not ready.”
He meanthewasn’t ready.
She smiled encouragingly at him. “Let me be the judge of that.”
“Huh?” He looked startled.
“Sing it for me. No guitar.” Della waved at the empty room. “Just you and the cans.”
“Nah, you don’t want to hear this.” He threw his empty box out of the way, then opened another. “It’s just some random shi—stuff. Nothing like Shania Twain.”
“You know, she started just like you. She just played around with poems and a guitar on her back porch.”