onstage had messy, auburn hair and threadbare jeans that hung low on his hips, with holes in the knees. You could tell they weren’t jeans he bought to have that look, but that had grown that way with years of wear.
He turned his back to the crowd, fiddling with his guitar. His plain black T-shirt had the tag on the outside, which made me smile for some reason. I had no idea if he knew his shirt was on inside out. Somehow, I didn’t think he cared either way.
When he turned back around, I saw freckles dance across the bridge of his small nose, and he had this jawline that looked like it could cut glass, with a light dusting of stubble along it. He looked about my age, eighteen or nineteen, and like this everyday guy. He wasn’t someone who would stop traffic or turn heads. He simply…was, and I didn’t think he cared about that either.
The guy moved a stool to the middle of the stage, having left the guitar on a stand. His eyes slowly drifted up and landed on me. I couldn’t tell what color they were and didn’t know why I cared. Hell, I didn’t know why I was so interested in this guy in the first place, but there was something about him that felt…different.
He gave me a small, shy smile, then quickly looked away. His cheeks were a slight shade of pink they hadn’t been before.
He wrung his hands, pacing back and forth for a moment. No one was paying attention to him. Everyone drinking and laughing and talking, but I couldn’t turn away. He looked like he was going to jump out of his skin.
Finally, he walked over, grabbed the guitar, and…was that a hole in his shoe? I was pretty sure it was.
He sat on the stool, the microphone in front of it at the perfect height for him, and then he leaned in, cleared his throat, and said, “Um…hey. I’m Remington Monroe.”
No one looked at him, no one turned from their conversations or coffee to acknowledge him, making sadness for him settle in my bones.
“Um…why don’t you write with a broken pencil?” he asked, which would have caught my attention even if he didn’t already have it. “Because it’s pointless,” he continued, and I chuckled. Did he really tell that joke onstage? There were a few snickers, a few people who looked at him, but most weren’t paying him any attention. “I’m gonna play some songs I wrote for y’all tonight. I hope you like ’em.”
He had this rough, husky voice, deeper than I’d expected, though I wasn’t sure why I expected anything.
His eyes shot to me again, then quickly darted away. His fingers began to move along the guitar, and he opened his mouth and let loose this song about feeling sad and alone before watching the sun rise over the Blue Ridge Mountains and how that one thing made him feel lucky to be alive.
Jesus. Had I ever felt like that? Lucky to be alive over something as small as a sunrise?
Goose bumps skittered up my arms, the hair standing up, and my heart sped in this way I couldn’t quite work through. Something about his song, his voice, settled into me in a completely unfamiliar way. Like he was singing to me, and for me, and maybe about me even though I’d never watched the sunrise over the mountains and never in my whole life had I felt alone in the way he sang about.
Obviously it was a bit fucked because I sure as shit shouldn’t have felt like some random guy was singing for me. And yet…I couldn’t seem to pull my eyes away from him.
“I think I’m going to head out,” Todd said. “I have an early class tomorrow.” He stood, and everyone else began to stand as well, complaining about classes and homework.
“You want to go with me?” Sara asked. I forced my stare away from Remington. What she was asking was plain as day. She wasn’t the type to hide what she wanted, and I respected the hell out of her for it. An hour ago I would have jumped at the opportunity, but now, now I was fascinated by the guy singing and wanted to hear more.
“I’ll stay. I have my laptop. I’m going to get some work done.”
Sara looked shocked for a moment, then winked. “Your loss.”