Without a Hitch(92)

The thirty-second snippet stops, and I press the button to play it again. It doesn’t last long enough for me to get it out of my system. Why is the damn song so short? Glancing at the time, I call Angie.

It’s just after two p.m. here—hopefully, she’s still in the office.

“You’re alive,” she answers with a grin in her voice. I’m sure she was expecting me to check in multiple times a day, but it never even crossed my mind with Tilly here.

“How do I get a song on my phone?” I bark. The irony of calling my sixty-year-old assistant for help with technology is not lost on me, but I’m not thinking clearly.

“A song?”

“Yes, Angie. A song. How do I get it to play music? Is there an app or something?” I hear her shuffling papers in the background before it’s replaced with silence. “Angie? Do you know or not?”

“My brother—”

“Jesus Christ, Nono. What are you doing in my office?”

“Visiting Kitty. But I’m here to help. My brother, who is notoriously music-adverse, wants music on his phone?”

“Yes,” I all but growl.

“Any song in particular?” She’s having far too much fun with this.

“Yes.”

“Well, you have to tell me so I can help you.”

“Just tell me how to get it, and I’ll do it myself.”

“No can do, big bro! That’s not how it works. What song? I’ll forward you a playlist.” Is she fucking with me? She probably is. Perhaps I should have Googled it.

“‘Things You Do For Love,’” I mutter tersely, but the words don’t carry across the phone because she laughs.

“What song, Banny?”

“This isn’t funny, Nono.” My spine tingles, and my eyes ache with the beginning of a headache. “I said, ‘Things You Do for Love.’”

“By Thomas Rhett?” If Nova were here, I swear her eyes would be the size of basketballs.

“Yes.”

“That’s a country song.”

“I’m not sure why that matters, but okay?”

“Have you listened to it, Banny? It’s kind of…happy? And about love.”

To my ultimate shock and horror, I belt out the chorus but my voice cracks on the last note.

“What happened?” my mother asks, panic and fear flooding the phone lines.

“Where’s Tilly?” Nova asks. There’s an abnormal amount of static on the line, and I picture Nova wresting the phone away from my mother’s ear.

“Put it on speaker,” my mother demands in the background. Only my mother can use a hysterical tone and still command a room.

“Lochness? Are you okay?”

No. “Yes. Can you help me with this or not?”

“I mean, yeah. There should be a bright red button on your iPhone with a white musical note in the center. Just open that and type in the artist’s name or song title, and you’ll get an entire list. But Loch, where is Tilly? I’m sure she can—”

“Tilly went home. She’ll be here for the gala on Saturday. Give Mum a kiss for me.” I hang up before they can say anything else and collapse like my body has been beaten by the King’s Army.

Then I search for the musical note.

Lightning bursts in the sky just before the clouds erupt, and God unleashes his fury like he’s crying too. Ducking for cover, I run into the house. I’m completely soaked in just the few steps it takes, so I head straight for the bathroom.

It smells like lilacs in here. She’s everywhere. I slink down to rest against the edge of the tub and stare at my phone. I long to call her. To hear her voice. To know she’s okay. But I can’t. Instead, I press play on Thomas Rhett and, for once, allow the sadness to overwhelm me.

“DO YOU CARE?” I belt out at the top of my lungs. At some point in the last three days, I’ve consumed every song Tilly has ever mentioned, an unnamed number of beers, and as many Skittles as my body can handle. My brain is apparently a sponge for Tilly knowledge because it easily recalls every single fucking word the woman has ever said to me. Including song titles.

So now, as I lie in the empty tub, accompanied by my last remaining package of Skittles, I sing The Cranberries. Tilly was right about them too. This fucking Irish lass has me crying harder than I’ve ever cried in my life. And I’m not even that upset about it.

I swing my hands like I’m a conductor and drunkenly know without a doubt that I’ve missed my calling. “I should have been a maestro.” Imagining myself in front of an audience has me laughing until my stomach cramps. How did I not know how funny I am?

I lift my phone when a new song comes on—“I Can’t Be With You”—and turn the volume up as loud as it will go. I’m cramming a handful of Skittles into my gullet when the bathroom door swings open and Nova walks through.

“Nono!” I sing. “Do you feel this song?”

“What the hell happened here?” she asks with wide eyes as she scans the room. I shrug like a fifteen-year-old but don’t follow her line of sight. I know what she’ll see. I’ve dragged it all into the bathroom at some point because I like the way Tilly’s music sounds in this room. There’s a pizza box from this morning. Or maybe it was last night? More than a few beer cans and at least thirty Skittles wrappers because the butler could only find the snack-sized packs.