The Low Notes (2 page)

“
Good evening, I'm Nina Jordan,” she said before the keys began to send out beautiful notes.

Her sultry voice slipped out over the crowd like a silk sheet. After just the first verse of her rendition of “Save Your Love For Me,” the audience was enthralled. Especially Kevin. Her voice had the haunting sweetness of a Norah Jones but the sometimes raspy delivery of a Stevie Nicks.

The server came over to the table and quietly asked, “More wine?”

Kevin hadn't heard he was too busy watching the young songstress on stage. He could feel Lynn's eyes on him but it was as if he physically couldn't look away. He was feeling each word that flowed out of the young woman hit him like a ton of bricks. His lips were parted as he watched her in awe. Her voice proved just as stunning as her beauty. There was just something about her.

“
Kevin?” Lynn whispered.

He didn't hear her or he chose not to anyway. He only heard the forceful belts, the evocative words, and the song that seemed to be singing out only to him. Was it the way she looked? She was gorgeous, yes, but it was more than that. There was something to the way she sat at the piano, the way she looked perfectly at ease there.

“
Kevin.” Lynn raised her voice and he turned to her but his eyes were still distracted.

“
The wine?” She asked. Kevin shook his head and waved his hand off to the waiter. He let his eyes wander back to the stage. The moment her song ended, a girlish grin spread over her face at the applause she received. He felt goose bumps seeing her smile.

Taking her bow and smiling at the crowd one last time, she made her way off the stage. The older gentleman came back and continued on with a vaguely familiar Sinatra song and Kevin went back to eating his dinner. Lynn was staring at him in disbelief.

“
Wow,” Kevin muttered under his breath, glancing back at the stage like he expected to see her up there again.

“
It was nice meeting you but I think I'm gonna take off,” Lynn said icily, picking up her purse and turning to leave.

Kevin stood up, half-heartedly concerned for her reaction. “Um, are you sure? Did I do something wrong?” he asked innocently.

She pursed her lips and Kevin thought he saw her jaw clench before she opened her mouth to speak again. “I’m looking for something serious and I can spot a man who isn't. Goodnight, Kevin.”

She flipped her hair over her shoulder one last time as she turned and walked out of the restaurant. Kevin’s eyebrows were still raised in amazement. He'd never been jilted on a blind date before. He figured it was better this way but he hated to be that kind of guy. The asshole that wasted her time. Maybe the failed date would keep Jen off his back for a while. Calling the waiter over, he asked for the check.

Kevin waited patiently, nibbling on what remained of his dinner. He finished his glass of wine in one big swig. The waiter cruised by his table and placed the bill down without a word; his section was filling up quickly. Kevin wasn’t offended by the move. He just wanted to get out of there, leaving behind the uncomfortable memories.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the singer from earlier walking his way. She'd changed her clothes. Now she was in a long gray cardigan over a white tank top and dark, slim jeans. He was finishing off Lynn’s glass of wine now, settling his nerves while contemplating talking to her before she was gone. His eyes were slow and precise as they moved up her body from where she stood next to his table. She was beautiful and he just couldn't suppress the urge to want to speak to her.

“
Excuse me, miss? Nina?” he started, barely reaching out to touch her arm. She stopped and turned to him, raising her eyebrows timidly.

“
I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your performance. You’ve got an amazing voice. Really. Quite extraordinary,” he said with a slight quiver. Was it the wine going to his head? He wasn’t usually mystified by women but this one had him baffled from the moment she'd taken the stage.

She let out a breathy, bashful laugh. “Oh, um, thank you. Goodnight.”

Her voice was just a sweet spoken as it was sung and Kevin felt something in him he barely recognized. As she turned to walk toward the door, he reached out to her once more, overcome with a strange confidence.

“
What I mean to say is--I managed to botch a blind date tonight and right now I’m thinking that the only good thing I’m going to remember about this evening is that beautiful song,” Kevin finished, meeting her eyes. She smiled at him sweetly, her eyes softening. He couldn’t stop staring at her pink lips stretched across her perfect, white teeth. She came around the side of the table and took Lynn’s empty seat.

“
Sorry about your date,” she said, absently thumbing the corner of the tablecloth. Kevin was taking the moment to examine her. Her porcelain face was touched with just the slightest hint of pink. Her eyelashes were so long they nearly brushed her cheeks when she blinked.

“
Would you want to help me make up for it sometime?” he asked before pressing his lips together as if to silence himself. Kevin immediately regretted asking. He wouldn’t know what to do when she rejected him. His unforeseen bravery in the last few moments had already put his stomach in knots. He wished his mouth would stop listening to his head.

“
Maybe,” Nina replied, looking up at him, those long, dark eyelashes opening wide letting Kevin see the light gray eyes he hadn’t yet been able to get a good glimpse of.

Kevin was speechless. Her smile was lighting up the room and keeping him at a loss for words. Finally so as not to let her see him make even more of a fool of himself, he thought of a response.

“
How about coffee?” he suggested.

She bit her lip “I don’t really do coffee.”

Damn
, he thought.

“
Drinks then,” he tried again.

“
I don’t drink,” her voice trailed off into an innocuous laugh.

Jesus, don’t blow this Kevin
, he thought to himself.

“
Dinner?”

It was his last try and all he had left. When he went out for his blind date he wasn’t planning on trying to make
another
date with
another
woman at the end of the night.

“
Dinner works,” she stated and started to get up from the table when she looked down at him again, her coy grin taking him by surprise. Kevin mimicked her and stood up on his side of the table as Nina rose.

“
Great! Th-there's a nice looking place right across the street. Does tomorrow work?” he said again, damming himself for being so bold. He shoved a few twenty dollar bills into the leather book that his bill sat in.

“
Meet you there. Six-thirty? But under one condition,” she said as they walked out into the warm night air together. Kevin still felt slightly buzzed from the wine and from the head rush he'd been given by Nina. He stopped and gave her a momentary look. She playfully put her hand on his arm, holding back a chuckle.

“
You’re going to have to tell me your name,” she said.

A gush of air escaped Kevin’s lips as he bashfully lowered his head and began shaking it back and forth.

“
I’m an idiot.
Kevin
the idiot. Kevin Reed,” he said, jutting out his hand to her.

She shook his hand and shrugged her shoulders before saying, “Until tomorrow, Kevin the idiot,” and she laughed at him. He laughed at himself watching stagnantly as she walked to her car. Breaking himself from the trance, he headed home.

Chapter Two

Home for Kevin was just two blocks away from The Black Jewel. He took his time on his walk feeling the summer air rush around him. Wexley Falls proved to be more interesting than he'd imagined. Especially after tonight with one ruined date exchanged for the promise of a better one. He walked inside and called out as he locked the door behind him. “Sasha! I’m home!”

She padded down the wooden stairs of the old-fashioned home. Careful with her steps, Kevin could tell she'd just woken up, her long, dark red waves swishing as she finally made it to the last step. Her eyes lit up when she saw him standing by the door and as he bent down to run his hand over her head, her tail began to wag.

“
Sasha, you’re the only woman I can count on,” he said, scratching her under the chin. Her face was speckled with white, showing her age. She wasn’t too spry these days but she was still just as sweet as the day he picked her up from the shelter, hoping she might ease his father's pain.

Kevin went into the kitchen and found a soda in the refrigerator, popped it open and took a swig before scooping some food into Sasha’s bowl. His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out to see the alert on the main screen stating Jeff had left a voicemail, probably while Kevin had been talking to Nina.

“
Heeeey Kevin, it’s Jeff. Lynn just called Jennifer. What happened bro? Call me back.” Jeff's voice sounded forced and just before the message ended, Kevin heard Jennifer in the background. “He
should
be calling Lynn to apologize for being an ass.”

Kevin rubbed his forehead in anguish and tapped the screen again.

“
Hello?”

Shit
, he thought. Jennifer.

“
Hi Jen. Can I speak with Jeff?” he asked tightly.

She scoffed before her voice sounded far away. He could hear some kind of argument, no doubt about him, but he couldn’t make out their exact words.

“
Hey man,” Jeff said, finally speaking clearly into the phone.

“
So are you sleeping on the couch tonight because of me?” Kevin asked lightheartedly.

Jeff chuckled, “No, not yet anyway. What happened dude?”

Kevin sighed, “I’m not really sure. We were having a nice dinner. Small talk, you know, first date stuff. Then this girl came out on stage and she was amazing. Maybe I stopped paying attention to Lynn for a second but either way, she got pissed and bolted. She said she could tell I didn't want anything serious.”

“
Pretty observant for her to see the
obvious
fact you don't want anything serious,” Jeff said facetiously and Kevin heard Jennifer in the background, yelling at Jeff again.

“
Anyway, I got a second date out of it,” Kevin said with a laugh.

“
Yeah?”

“
I wanted to tell the singer she was great and I ended up asking her out. I'll admit I had a little liquid courage. You should see this girl, Jeff. Amazing,” Kevin said, letting his mind wander back to seeing her up on the stage, the white light bathing her, highlighting her shiny black hair and her pink lips. Kevin snapped out of it as Jeff started talking again.

“
Well cousin, I'll live vicariously through you and your adventures dating hot chicks.”

“
We'll see. I'll talk to you later, man,” Kevin said before Jeff said goodbye and they each hung up.

His feet took him to the living room with his mind set on one thing. Scanning the built in bookshelves behind the sofa, he finally spotted it. Kevin pulled the CD from the shelf and slid the disc into the stereo. It was the first track and though it wasn't the voice he wanted to hear, it would do.

Kevin thumbed the volume knob until Nancy Wilson's
“Save Your Love For Me”
was echoing through his home. The saxophone and soft hits on the cymbals led in her powerful voice. The piano came in and it was all coming back to him. He pictured Nina upon the stage putting her own subtle spin on the standard.

It was the first time he’d ever listened to the CD but he knew it was part of his collection. Now that his father's music collection had become his own. John Reed, Kevin's father, was a complicated man, Kevin knew as much. And as close as they'd been, there was still a lot about his father that was a mystery to him but there were two things he knew for sure.

John loved Jazz. More than that, John loved a good torch singer. Etta James, Julie London, Sarah Vaughn and of course Nancy Wilson. Kevin had always been more of a rock and roll guy. He was used to his music equating women to being 'fast machines' or 'terminally pretty'. These women, these torch singers, could crack your soul open with an “ooh” or a “baby.” He remembered his dad telling him a lady who could sing like that was trouble. The good kind of trouble. Nina could sing like that, she had the same way of dragging out the notes, the words, with a sexy sigh. You could tell she was digging deep within to croon the enchanting song. Yet demurely, she sat at the piano instead of caressing the microphone in a full length gown.

Kevin leaned back against the sofa and stared at the ceiling. His head told him he wasn't in any way equipped to be the dating kind right now. But his heart, his eyes,
her eyes,
told him different.

You're just the unemployed, new guy in town with way too much baggage
, he thought. Nina would figure it out before too long and he'd be back where he started. Alone. A sigh rolled out of him as he lifted his head and stared out his front window toward the street. What if she didn't figure it out? What if, somehow, she could see past it? The thought of having someone in his life was tempting. He’d been so isolated for the past few years. It had been hell being deserted taking care of his father, living away from his only other family.