Dissonance Page 2

  "Hey, Beethoven," he called to her, "how about we take care of the rest of your crap first?"

  She narrowed her eyes playfully at him. "First of all, it's Chopin. Secondly, I'd be glad to."

  "I know who it is, I've heard you play it enough times," he retorted.

  One of her eyebrows arched. "So, you just enjoy looking like an uncultured jackass?"

  "We can't all be as well versed as you, dear sister."

  She smirked at him. Damn that's sexy, I thought. Again, I reminded myself, hands off. She stood and flounced over to her backpack that lay discarded on the floor. I had to deliberately look away as she bent over to grab it. It took all of my fractured willpower to keep my head turned. Luckily, Eli seemed to miss the amount of self-control I had to call upon in his sister's presence.

  We all loaded back into the elevator to get the rest of her things, and I tried to get my head together on the ride down. Although I barely knew her, Charlotte was getting to me like few women ever had. If we were going to live together, I would have to nip this uncontrollable attraction in the bud. The last thing I wanted was for the one girl I couldn’t have to plow into my life with big, bright eyes and a perfect, shy smile and turn my entire world upside-down.

  For four hours, I enclosed myself in my new room to focus on unpacking. The whole apartment was a little overwhelming. My room had space for a queen-sized bed, a dresser, two bookshelves, and a large desk, with floor-space to spare. The en-suite bathroom had full vanity, and a standing shower with a stone bench and rainfall shower head. My shower in Chicago had me on the verge of a panic attack from claustrophobia every day until I moved out. But nothing compared to the living space. The open space that encompassed the living room, dining room, music space, and kitchen was alone larger than my old studio apartment.

  It’s not that the apartment was massive, but having taken the smallest place I could find for the last few years, it certainly felt that way. My small studio had been all I could afford during graduate school, since I had refused to let my student loans wait, even though they were deferred while I worked on my Master’s. Working as a teaching assistant had gotten my advanced degree covered, and allowed me to make a decent living. I had nearly gotten a full ride through college, only needing to take out a couple grand in loans to cover gaps in my scholarships for one year, so I had already very nearly paid them off. Even without that debt though, I was a little worried about affording my half of this place with just the part-time job I had lined up.

  Eli had been very evasive about the topic of rent, saying that Logan and I would have to discuss that for ourselves. At the time, I thought that he sounded ridiculous. It seemed obvious to me that I would put up half of the expenses; I just needed to know what that number was. After seeing the place, I wondered if what we needed to discuss was the fact that the apartment was outside of my financial means.

  Still, the place was quite nice. It was a big improvement on my old apartment that all of the furniture that Eli had purchased – despite my repeated protests – didn't make the room feel impossibly small. The set he purchased was perfect, all dark woods that added depth to the cream-colored room. As I was unpacking everything and putting out what accent pieces I had collected over the years, the room was really coming together into a space I could see myself being comfortable in.

  Logan came to the open doorway while I was hanging one of those accents, a framed quote from my favorite poem, on the wall. "Do you like everything? Eli was worried you wouldn't."

  I jumped at the sound of his voice. While I gathered my scattered wits, I wondered how long he had been standing there. "It's great." My voice came out unnatural, too high and too breathy.

  He stood there a moment, watching me. It made me self-conscious, so I tried to look as though I was checking how secure the frame was. He cleared his throat, and continued, "Anyway, I was going to throw something together for dinner if you want to join me."

  "Ugh...yeah. Sure," I stuttered.

  "Do you have a taste for anything?"

  "No. Whatever is fine by me."

  He nodded and then turned his attention past me to what I had been hanging. He gestured towards it. "A quote?" he inquired.

  "Yes. It's from a poem. Galeway Kinnell's 'The Still Time,'" I explained.

  Rubbing his chin and nodding absent-mindedly, he silently assessed the quote: "There is time, still time, for those who can groan to sing, for those who can sing to be healed."

  I wondered if he was lost in that intermediate stage as well, able to sing and waiting for the healing to start. Was he drawn to music because he knew it could heal? Did he understand?

  "Do you have the rest?" he asked suddenly.

  "What?"

  "The poem,” he clarified, “do you have the whole thing?"

  I moved over to the bookshelf, where a collection of Kinnell's work was lying on its side with a stack of other books, waiting to be sorted and properly shelved. Without checking the contents, I flipped to the correct page. I had read the page enough times to know it by heart. Logan accepted the open book from me and read the poem silently while the words ran through my mind. Each stanza memorized long ago.

  I discovered the poem the summer after I graduated high school. It gave me hope, hope that time and music could heal my ravaged soul. On particularly rough days, it was all that had kept me going. That was why I decided to frame those last lines, so that I could see it every day and remember why I kept moving forward. It wasn’t always enough. In fact, most days I severely doubted the promise made in those lines, but I still clutched on to that modicum of confidence I had in it.

  When Logan finished reading, he was nodding again. His face was impossible to read. I wasn't sure if he was still considering the poem because it spoke to him as well, or if he was just being polite and could not have cared less about it. I thought that, as a musician, he had to get it, but I knew that stemmed from my twisted sense of what being a musician meant. In my mind, anyone who could give their life to art had to understand the need for time, that need to eventually find that fulfillment that the poem promised. Weren’t we all just singing into the void with the dream of feeling complete? But, logically, I'd always known that that wasn't the reality. I knew that most people just saw music as something fun and diverting, a past time, not as salvation. I wasn’t sure what type Logan was, but the foolishly optimistic part of me was holding on to prospect that, if he was as talented as Eli let on, he was a believer, too.

  Finally, he began to thumb through the pages. “Would you mind if I borrow this?”

  Maybe he really did understand. “Go ahead.”

  He fingered a few of the florescent tabs that marked certain pages. “Favorites of yours?”

  “Yes. Or one’s I thought warranted closer reading. It’s the English student in me, I guess.”

  He looked up at me momentarily. I couldn’t quite assess his expression, but it almost seemed as though he thought I was a complicated puzzle. It made me very uncomfortable. Or perhaps he just made me uncomfortable.

  I took him in again. He stood at least a foot above me, and there was no use denying that he was attractive. Between his structured jaw, his light chestnut hair, his lean build, and his tattoos, he certainly had a lot going for him. What stood out most though, were those eyes. Looking again, they were just as astounding as the first time. Light blue, with just a hint of green, and almost unnaturally luminous. It was as though his irises were perfectly cut aquamarine, each facet catching the light and reflecting it back. The intensity of it forced me to look away first.

  Luckily, he switched gears and spared us the awkward silence that my perusal had created. “I’ll go see what I can throw together for dinner.” He started to walk out of the room and then paused to look back at me. “Anything?” he asked again.

  “Anything,” I replied. He flashed me a quick grin and exited.

  There was no denying that he was hot. And he was a musician. Yes, a wanna-be rock star, I remembered. I tri
ed to suppress the crazy ideas that had started to form about my new roommate. There was no situation where a more, shall I say, “intimate” relationship with Logan was a good idea. Even beside the fact that he was my roommate, I recalled what Eli had told me in the car when we arrived: “he has some growing up to do... it’s mostly his messy love life.” I didn’t need messy. I had messy all on my own.

  Per Logan's request, I left the relative safety of my new room to join him for dinner. Though admittedly, I had no idea how I was going to eat with him when he made me so damn nervous. He was still shuffling around in the cabinets when I came down the hall. Without turning to face me, he started talking.

  "So, we have less in here than I thought. How does Chinese sound? I know a good place. My treat."

  I shrugged. "Sure. Chinese works."

  He fished a take-out menu from one of the drawers and handed it to me. I had just finished telling Logan my order when my phone started trilling out "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train, my ringtone for Alex.

  She barely waited for me to answer. "You're here! I'm sorry I wasn't there to move you in. Work, you know?" In her typical fashion, she didn’t wait for me to respond. "We have to go out tonight. I already told Eli. We'll get you at nine. Tell Logan he is more than welcome to come, too."

  Knowing better than to argue with Alex about going out, I just asked, "What should I wear?"

  "Something sexy. It's been too long since we've been able to go out together."

  Luckily, she was only on the phone and couldn't see my eyes roll. I resisted the urge to mention that I never used to party with her all that willingly. I always went with her because she was persistent or because I wanted to keep an eye on her. I just agreed to do as she wanted, knowing picking my battles was key with Alexandra Baker.

  Logan was watching me when I hung up the phone. "That would be Alex. She wants to go out tonight."

  "Where?"

  "I don't know. She said we were clubbing. They'll be here at nine, if you want to go." I couldn't explain why, but going to a club with Logan made me nervous. A dangerous, but enticing, proposition. What if he wanted to dance with me? What if he completely ignored my existence?

  "Why not?" He shrugged. "I guess I should go get our food then, so you have time if you want to get ready."

  I looked down at my phone. 6:20PM. "I definitely have enough time to get ready. I just can’t do the whole primping-for-hours thing. But, I am pretty hungry."

  He grinned in response like he approved of my sentiment about skipping on hours of ridiculous preening in order to spend time on food. To say his grin was heart stopping would not do it justice. It made him nearly irresistible, and I had the impression that he used that to his advantage frequently enough. Already sensing that in him made it just possible for me to resist.

  Logan and I decided to get comfortable for our meal in the living room instead of at the rather formal dinner table. I sat on the floor with my legs tucked to my side, leaning against the bottom of a plush chair, while he took the couch. His iPod sat on a dock by the T.V., serenading us while we ate.

  I caught Logan watching me as I chewed. My knowledge of his perusal did nothing to faze him. "How are you so good with those things?" he asked, indicating the chopsticks in my hand.

  "You can't use chopsticks?"

  "I can, but only for bigger things. Meat. Sushi. Not for rice."

  I shrugged. "Years of practice, I guess. I didn't have much time to focus on cooking in grad school. I would get Chinese pretty frequently, since I usually got two meals out of one order."

  We ate quietly for a while after that. I could not shake the feeling that the whole situation was somehow awkward. Logan, however, seemed perfectly at ease. By the time he spoke, I was so tense that I half-jumped. He had the grace to pretend not to notice.

  "Tell me about yourself." When I didn't respond, he looked at me expectantly. "I don't really know much about you, besides things Eli has told me."

  "What has Eli told you?" I tried to sound nonchalant, even though the prospect made me incredibly anxious.

  "Mostly praising your grades, your thesis, things like that. I have heard quite a few stories from when you guys were little. Also, he told me that you were the one that introduced him to Alex."

  Silently relaxing, I thought about his question. "There isn't much to tell, really. I'm from Chicago, but you know that already. I majored in English and Music Performance. I just got my Master's Degree in English. That's pretty much it."

  “Did you study an instrument or voice?”

  “I did vocal as my distinction, but I also took the classes for piano.”

  "You have a lyrical voice." His statement was the sort that might have grated me if it came from someone else. I’ve never been one much for compliments, but the way he said it was so genuine, so matter-of-fact, that I could tell he meant it. It was obvious he had enough game to talk me up if he wanted to, but he wasn't. We were building something else. Something like a friendship. He complimented me without a motive, so far as I could tell, and it was easily one of the best compliments I had ever received.

  I cleared my throat to try to hide the blush creeping into my cheeks and the uncharacteristic nervous giggle that I could feel building inside. "Thank you." I took another bite of food, attempting to look nonplussed. "What about you?"

  "I grew up here. Went to school for business." Something on my face betrayed my surprise, and he paused. "Yeah, not exactly my choice, though I can’t say I regret it. Now I work for my father's company by day while trying to figure out what I want to do with my music by night."

  "Your father's company?”

  "Yeah, he's the reason for the degree. He started Westfield Realty Group himself, and he’s always wanted to pass it down. I probably would have skipped college all together if he hadn’t encouraged both my brother and I to be prepared to take over when he retires. I was never really into the idea, but it was sort of my fallback if music didn’t work out, so I got the degree."

  "You have a brother?"

  "Yupp. Caleb. We have nothing like what you and Eli have. Caleb and I aren’t all that close anymore. He’s the extremely competitive type. In sports, in school, in everything. He always had to be number one. I didn’t have the same sort of drive, particularly in high school, so we have always had some issue understanding each other. I guess it boils down to the fact that I ended up being like our mom, where as he might just be our father incarnate.”

  "Why is that?" It seemed odd that someone so... masculine would get along better with his mother.

  "Why do I think I favor my mother?” he clarified, and I nodded in response. “She's an artist. A painter. She understands the blinding passion. If I could have been more interested in success than music, I would have. Gladly. My mom understands that. She always encouraged me to pursue music to any degree I wanted to, whereas I could tell my dad always wanted me to focus on something more important."

  Unsure what to say, I just nodded.

  "Don’t get me wrong, my dad’s a great guy. He just had different priorities than I did."

  “Had?” I questioned.

  Logan shrugged. “I’m not so sure where my priorities are at anymore.”

  Quiet descended over the room again. I found myself wondering more about his father’s realty group, what sort of work Logan did there, what he meant when he by that comment about his priorities, but I didn’t ask. The last thing I wanted was for him to pry into my life, so I wouldn’t do it to him, either.

  Eventually, Logan broke the silence again. "So Eli said you already have a job here?"

  "Yes. It's a bookstore that specializes in rare books. The couple that owns it saw my resumé and offered me a job after a Skype interview." I was excited to start my new job, to have something interesting and diverting to keep me busy.

  "Probably not every day that they get someone with a Master's," he said.

  "Maybe not, but I’m not sure enough about anything to commit to something more long te
rm. Right now, I just need a job that pays the rent for a while."

  He looked a bit uncomfortable, but spoke after a moment anyway, "Don't worry about rent."

  To say I was dumbfounded would be putting it lightly. "What?"

  "I've got this place taken care of."

  Obviously, it cost as much as I expected, and he knew I couldn't afford it. "I can't let you do that. I have to at least help pay for it," I insisted.

  “There’s no rent. I… own it. Well, the company owns the building, so I don’t have to pay.”

  "Oh.” I had no idea what to say. As much as I appreciated it, especially since I was sure I would need a second job to pay rent and my remaining student loans, he easily could have charged me rent anyway. “I don’t want to be a free loader. I can at least help with the expenses.”

  "Don't worry about it, seriously," he repeated. “I have it covered.”

  As uncomfortable as it made me, his tone brokered no argument. If he was someone else, maybe I would have found my wits and argued further, but something about him had them scattered like dandelion seeds in the wind. He completely disarmed me without even trying, I couldn’t remember ever being as unnerved by someone I had just met. Having him as my roommate seemed even more intimidating now.

  After nearly an hour of discussing music preferences, prompted by my humming along to Chris Cornell’s “Preaching the End of the World,” I felt a lot of my anxiety leaving. Logan and I, it seemed, agreed about almost everything, but what surprised me most was that he even shared my affinity for classical music.

  “You like classical?” I asked, not disguising my shock.