what just happened.’
I tried to divert the compliment back to him, but he wasn’t having it.
‘No, no, Charlie Taylor. I can play, yes, but you have star quality. You’re on a totally different level and I don’t say that lightly. You’re amazing.’
My bottom lip quivered, and I pushed my hair behind my ears.
‘You really think so?’
‘I really know so,’ he said, holding my gaze. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at all this attention from someone so gorgeous and talented who seemed to be so much in awe of me.
Matthew had always been known as the creative one in our family. He was the colourful one who wanted to sing in a band as well as study to be an architect, so he was the one we all looked up to, cheering him on along the way. I was going to be a teacher and any musical notions I had were brushed under the carpet when we were growing up. It just wasn’t how my family saw me. Matthew was the cool, talented one, Emily was the middle child, the quiet, sensible one who obeyed all the rules, and I was the quirky, hippy dippy baby, the rebellious clever kid, and the one with brains to burn whose way with words would be best suited to a classroom where others would benefit from my wisdom. I just dressed a little funny and sometimes found myself in hot water, but that could all be fixed. Or so my parents hoped.
‘I’ve never properly sung these songs for anyone before,’ I confessed to Tom. It was dropping dark now outside, so I walked past him and pulled the curtains closed.
He gently took my hand on the way back.
‘You have magic, I mean it,’ he whispered. ‘Please believe me, Charlie. You can’t ignore what happened just now.’
We stood there, frozen in the moment. I could barely catch my breath.
‘I think I’m going to get you into trouble,’ I told him.
His eyes widened. ‘I think so too,’ he said.
‘With the band, I mean!’ I retorted quickly. ‘I mean, I hope I don’t get you into trouble with the band. Sounds like the others are here now.’
Our hands parted and he rubbed his forehead, which told me he’d been thinking of a totally different kind of trouble.
‘Yeah, yeah, the band. That’s what you meant,’ he said, then looked at the ceiling and blew out a long breath.
That accent of his was a killer and could get me into trouble any day, I thought. I closed my eyes for a second. I wanted him to reach out and touch me again, to tell me that he didn’t care if he got into trouble. He said I had magic. He said I was amazing. He said so many things I’d never been told before and I wanted to pause this moment so that we didn’t have to just leave it at this.
I wanted more of Tom Farley and when I opened my eyes I could see from the pain in his face that he wanted more of me, too.
‘I suppose I should make a move,’ he said, but his eyes told me he didn’t want to go. I didn’t want him to go either.
Now that we’d stopped singing, I could hear the rest of the band members chatting in the kitchen. Matthew was going to kill me. Not only had I taken up so much of Tom’s time and attention, but I’d also taken over the living room with our unplanned mini concert which was totally stealing his thunder.
Tom whispered to me.
‘Look, Charlie, between you and me,’ he said. ‘I know some people who aren’t a million miles away right now who would die to have just an ounce of the talent you have. You can’t just hide these songs away or ignore this gift you have. You must send your songs out to some record companies. Believe me, you’d be signed up in seconds.’
Record companies? I’d never even thought of doing such a thing, yet I felt a wave of imagination flood my mind. I laughed out loud at the idea.
‘You mean, do this for a living?’ I asked him. ‘Write songs? As a job?’
I laughed again, but he nodded as if it was just as simple as that.
‘As a career,’ he emphasized. ‘Long term. Go to London, Charlie! Go to New York City or somewhere else in the States like Texas or Nashville. They’d eat you up out there, I just know it. Music and lyrics are in your blood, I’m telling you. I have total faith in you. Your songs are totally mesmerizing. You are mesmerizing.’
The room spun a bit and I felt a hot flush overcome me as I imagined little old me in a big city, far away from Ireland and all that I’d known all my life. In my mind, for just a second, I saw myself sitting at a big window seat in a new city, looking out on a mix of sunshine and flashes of colour and sounds I’d never seen or heard before. The very thought made me both dizzy and excited. A rush filled me from head to toe as I imagined someone singing my songs, my actual words to a packed auditorium with a drummer like Tom Farley thumping out the beat and—
‘OK, meeting time!’ announced Matthew, bursting my bubble entirely with his bellowing voice as he returned into the living room. ‘And someone called Lexi is here?’
His voice drew my eyes in the direction of the door where I saw the most beautiful, exotic creature – small, pale, oriental and gothic – and Tom’s eyes diverted briefly from mine for the first time since he’d got here.
My afternoon of heaven was just about to turn into an evening of hell as reality punched me right in the heart.
‘Honey!’ said Lexi in a raspy, posh Dublin accent. ‘Sorry I’m late, babe, but I couldn’t find this house for ages! You should have told me it was the one with the letter box hanging off … Students!’
She made a face that on anyone else would have looked very unattractive, but she still managed to look like a supermodel compared to me, who looked like I was chewing a wasp at the shock of her arrival. My mouth dropped open as she breezed right past me, then wrapped her arms around Tom and kissed him full on the mouth in front of us, giving me just enough time to quickly pick up my guitar and make my swift exit before my brother, complete with smug face, could say ‘I told you so.’
‘Charlie!’ Tom called after me, pushing his girlfriend off his face as gently as he could.
I tried not to look at them again and, when I did, regretted it instantly as I saw her whisper into his ear, almost eating it at the same time. She threw her black, shiny bobbed hair back, showing off a tattoo of Asian text on her long, slender neck, and I touched my own neck which felt boring and bare in comparison.
‘My name’s Charlotte,’ I said to him, hearing my voice quiver. ‘Not Charlie!’ He caught my eye and I felt my lip wobble, then stomped upstairs with my guitar in my hand, my stupid lyrics in my head, my pride trailing on the floor and tears bursting from my eyes.
‘Write a song about it, sister!’ I heard Matthew shout to me when they all finally left after what seemed like hours later. ‘And don’t worry, Charlotte. Everyone who meets Tom Farley falls in love with him. In fact, I might even love him a little bit myself.’
‘Oh, give it a rest, Matthew!’ I shouted, kicking my bedroom door closed.
If he was trying to make me feel better, it wasn’t working. I’d fallen for Tom, hook, line
