PLAYING AUTUMN
by Mina V. Esguerra
Genre: New Adult, Contemporary
Haley Reese is going back home to Houston and she's dreading this trip. She volunteers as a mentor to young musicians at an annual festival, and the longer she's been doing it, the more she feels like a fraud. It's been years since the web videos that made her sort-of famous first came out, and she hasn't done anything else to pursue the career in music she's always wanted. Things start looking up when she shares a plane ride with Oliver Cabrera, music prodigy, rock star, and the reason why she picked up an instrument in the first place.Oliver Cabrera hasn't called any place "home" since he started touring professionally in his teens, but Houston is as close to it as any. He's also nearly broke, his career just about over. When he gets the invitation to mentor at the Breathe Music Festival again, he decides, what the hell, he should finally show up. He meets Haley, Hot Piano Girl herself, and finds her own fear of failure might be easier to fix than his own.
EXCERPT
Two people in an airport on a Thursday. That was all Haley Reese expected this to be.
She recognized Oliver Cabrera right away (duh), and immediately her brain and other vital systems threatened to shut down. Why—how—what—when—huh—
It took her about twenty seconds, a personal record, to reassemble herself, and remember that she wasn't thirteen years old anymore. She was twenty-two, an adult, an accomplished musician herself, and was absolutely not going to squee at the sight of the guy who used to star in most of her teenage dreams and daytime fantasies.
Good job, Haley. This was bound to happen, one day. Which fantasy was this?
Ah yes. She had one daydream, conjured up during a torturous three-hour wait at the dentist's office when she was in junior high, involving Oliver Cabrera showing up—and being told by the mean dentist's assistant that he had to wait too, like everyone else, never mind if his tooth hurt like he had a jackhammer to his gums. No problem, Oliver would say, smiling through the pain, because he was cool like that. And then he would sit next to her.
She would be cool, too. Really cool. He wouldn’t even be able to tell that she was probably in the top ten of his biggest fans. Her calm exterior wouldn’t betray the posters she had up in her room, the recordings of all his performances (in multiple copies), the subscriptions to all the major newsletters, fan groups, and forums. She was just another girl with a toothache, like him. No big.
When Haley first came up with that, she had no idea that she was going to be leaving home to take a job in Tampa, didn't know that she would be spending any amount of time at TPA, didn't realize that this very airport was where her path and his would finally cross. She thought that magical moment would happen in New York City, where he lived and where she would make a musical pilgrimage to, one day. The next most likely location would have been Houston, his hometown and hers, maybe at a wedding of a friend they apparently had in common.
She did not expect Tampa. She was not prepared for this.
Their eyes met. She didn’t expect that shade of brown, lighter than every photo of him had ever let on. He paused for a moment, cocked his head to one side, and smiled. She gave him a tiny nod and lifted her magazine up, focusing on it, pretending to be really interested in the headlines. Something about a food security breakthrough. How we shouldn’t forget about malaria, or was it mining.
He took a seat on the same row as hers, keeping a vacant one between them. The way normal people traveling alone did, when they were hanging out by the boarding gate. (When she was thirteen, she didn't know this either.)
Hmm, Haley thought, absorbing her peripheral view of him. He's a regular guy. He doesn't look like the kid on my computer wallpaper anymore.
No, he actually looked hotter.
Because Oliver grew up in the public eye, Haley was witness to several phases of his looks. The first one was the scrawny, twelve-year-old Oliver, with the stringy dark hair, the intense look in his eye, the violin in his hand. She first set her eyes on that guy when she was ten years old, watching him on that talent show week after week, like everyone else.
***
“This is headed to Bush International, right?” Oliver asked her, and it wasn't happening in her head. It was happening right then and there. Haley opened her mouth but no sound came out.
“What?” he said.
“Yes,” she squeaked. “I mean, yes. Houston. This is it.”
“It says Fort Lauderdale.”
“I know, but that's a glitch. They assured me that we're going to Houston.”
He looked toward the screen that clearly did not say that, and shrugged. “So we're just going to have to trust all these people right?”
“I don't think they're trying to play a trick on us.”
“I don't know. But suddenly I want to check out Fort Lauderdale.”
Small talk. By Oliver Cabrera. If there was anything that was going to get her to stop worrying about her possible unemployment, this was it. “You should, maybe. It's not bad.” Stay cool. That’s it. Good job, Reese. You can be witty another time. Don’t embarrass yourself.
“Is this a thing? Load people in a vehicle and take them somewhere else? Surprise tourism? Is that how they do it these days?”
He’s still talking to me. Seriously, Haley was running out of non-idiotic things to say. Her daydreams ended before this point, and were never this detailed. “What you're suggesting,” Haley said, “is like kidnapping. Or really bad service.”
Oliver's laugh was short and melodramatic, and she blushed a little because she interpreted it as flirty. It was probably not flirty at all, if an objective party were to judge it.
“They tell me I have a problem with my imagination,” he told her.
She was all out of prepped lines. The real Haley would actually have to talk to him now. She cleared her throat and went on with it. “Because you use it? Don't believe them. How else do you survive a flight delay?”
“With conversation,” Oliver answered.
About the Author:
Mina V. Esguerra writes contemporary romance and young adult novellas. She has a bachelor's degree in Communication and a master's degree in Development Communication, put to good use in her work as trainer and content management consultant. Mina lives in Metro Manila, Philippines, with her husband and daughter.
She finds inspiration in the lives and experiences of other people, so the answer to "Is this story based on you?" is always, always "No."
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