All I Needed To Know [8]

Le Huitième Chapitre (8)

“Who?” Beth asked me the next day on our way outside after classes were over. My phone had just rung, and when I told her who it was, she had drawn a blank.

“Travis Dupont. Really tall, brown hair, always has a guitar-”

“Ohhh!” She cut me off. “That guy! Oh, he’s cute! And you’re seriously hanging out with him later?” As annoyed as I was, I couldn’t help but giggle a little at Beth’s over-excitement.

“It’s for our project, Beth,” I told her, pushing the green button on my keypad, lifting my cell to my ear and generically uttering “Hello?”

“Jolie,” Travis’s voice rung through the phone. “The park? How soon can you meet me?” I couldn’t control the goose bumps I got from the way he said my name.

“Um, I’m on my way right now, I guess,” I stammered.

“Okay, I will see you soon, find me… I will be waiting for you.”

I nodded, but after realizing he couldn’t see me, muttered “Bye” awkwardly and snapped my phone shut.

Beth pouted at me. “You are ‘on your way’? Right now?” she whined.

I shrugged. “I guess so. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow, or call you later or whatever.”

She smiled slyly. “Call me later and tell me everything,” she whispered excitedly with her hand on my shoulder before sprinting toward a group of painters. I sighed, shaking my head and laughing to myself. I liked Beth- she reminded me of an excitable ten-year-old girl, minus the annoying immaturity, which was refreshing. She was easy to get along with and we were quickly becoming friends, meeting up every chance we got- before class, during lunch, after classes were out- the past two days. We had even swapped numbers and agreed to meet up somewhere one night, but we had many chances ahead to do that.

I felt my heart accelerating as I found Travis in the park exactly as I had the first time I saw him… sitting alone on a bench, completely absorbed in his music, except this time it was a different melody. I was almost afraid to approach him, to break him from his artistic trance and spend his time instead on me.

Before I even had to say anything, he looked up and smiled, meeting my eyes. “Jolie, hello,” he greeted warmly. “I was just working on my project about you.”

Heat rose to my cheeks. “You were?” I asked quietly.

“Sit down.” I obeyed, anxiously waiting for him to play what he had so far, but instead he pulled the strap over his head and set his guitar in the grass beside him. For a second he just stared at me, grey eyes twinkling, ends of his mouth curled into a slight smile… my heart fluttered gently. I rested back against the bench and sighed.

“So, I was thinking that for my picture I could get you sitting over there,”- I pointed to a different bench, one closer to the Eiffel Tower- “So I could maybe like, sit in the flowers or something real quick to get a nice angle.” My hands began fumbling through my bag, searching for the camera inside. When I began to lift it out Travis’s hand stopped mine, sending a shock of almost static electricity through my hand and up my veins. I looked up at his soft face, both of us leaving our hands exactly as they were.

“Slow down, Jolie,” he chuckled without humor. “We have plenty of time for the project. Not until next week is it due.”

“We’re here to work, aren’t we?”

His eyes widened a little as if he’d said something he hadn’t meant to. No, that was impossible, wasn’t it? He had plenty of time to think through what he was saying, what with the language barrier, and it wasn’t like he was distracted by anything that would throw him off… was he?

Travis snapped his hand back, leaning stiffly against the back of the wooden bench. “Well, I just fig-figured that, ah, if we are to, ah, be working together… we should… know each other better. That is all.” I giggled as he tried to speak quickly as his cheeks tinted scarlet.

“Okay,” I shrugged, ignoring my racing heartbeat. Neither of us said anything. I gazed at his dark hair, the way it fell just over his ears, and his eyelashes that were aimed at the ground as he looked down. Suddenly, he looked up, his eyes meeting mine. I shot my head down in reflex, my long hair whipping around and falling over my face. More stillness, the tension in the air so thick you could cut it with a knife.

“So I know you don’t want to do the project right now,” I began, breaking the silence, “but I was just wondering if you could play for me… whatever you were playing before I showed up.” I censored out the fact that I’d assumed it was his song inspired by me. How arrogant would that have sounded?

“Actually,” he responded sheepishly while picking up his guitar and scooping his neck through the strap, “it was my song for… the project. About you.” I looked into his smiling eyes again as he gazed back down at me.

“I’d really like to hear it,” I prompted.

“It is not finished… I just began…” he warned.

“Play.”

Travis took a deep breath before placing his fingers on the frets. He began the song, which was more beautiful than I had even expected. It was nothing complex, just a simple run of chords and a few notes here and there, but the way they blended together was magic. The tempo was relaxed, the beat steady… before I knew it, he was done. When the song was finished, Travis kept his head hung down, tapping the shiny wood of his guitar nervously. My silence, triggered by pure astonishment, must have insulted him somehow. “I only started it. No words, very short-”

“It was great,” I interrupted, placing my hand on his shoulder. What an understatement. His head perked up and he smiled.

“Thank you.” Then he sank again, fumbling quietly with notes on his guitar. “Jolie… I am very glad you were able to meet me. Today.” I noticed his hands were shaking, and as I raised mine without thinking to hold them still, I realized my own were, too.

It was quiet again, but this time it was more… comfortable, as if both of us had settled into each other’s company. He took my hand in one of his, then began to tenderly massage his thumb into my palm. The shaking stopped, but my breaths grew shallow. “Better?” he asked.

I smiled and nodded. “Much.” He turned my hand over in his, squeezing it once before letting it drop into my lap. I turned my head to see his other hand, which was quietly strumming the strings on his guitar. One of my index fingers slowly stroked the side of it. He seemed to pick up the hint.

I closed my eyes, listening as Travis’s music began to surround me once more.