Free Unchained Melody by S.K. Munt

didn’t we? That sounded-’
    ‘You’re a goddess,’ Ryan’s lips brushed her cheeks and he hugged her so tightly against him that she could barely breathe. ‘Thank you Callie.’
    Callie heard the croak in his voice and she pulled back, grinning at him with teary eyes of her own. ‘You too?’ She asked, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.
    ‘When I sing something that moves me?’ He asked, grinning gently. ‘Every time.’ He caught her chin with the tip of one finger, and lifted her gaze to his. ‘Your voice...’ He shook his head. Tears were caught on his thick eyelashes. He shook his head and swallowed. ‘Epic.’
    She bit her lip and tilted her head to the side. ‘It was your song, not my voice that made that music beautiful.’ She hugged herself and stepped away from his arms. They always lost their shit when an original song of Ryan or Hunter’s creation went well; there was always hugging and laughing and usually, Callie hid the tears which clogged her throat. In fact, those tears were the very reason she usually shied away from singing in front of people, because they strangled her vocal chords. If the music was too beautiful, it was like her heart couldn’t stand it and her voice couldn’t translate it clearly.
    But the band-bonding, in absence of the entire band- meaning without Hunter- felt almost too intimate a thing to share with Ryan alone, like it meant something else and it was making her aware of just how alone she and her beautiful ‘buddy’ were. Ryan had always been very affectionate with her and Hunter both- always hugging Hunter or kissing Callie on the top of her hat- he’d been like that since they were kids- but now, when he pressed his lips against her skin, she felt something other than friendliness- she felt butterflies. She glanced down at her watch. ‘Well it’s only six. We’ve got ages to get that perfect-’
    But Ryan stood from his stool and slipped his guitar strap over his head, resting it on its stand, and then reached for Callie’s own. ‘It’s already perfect.’ He said, his eyes darting towards the windows. ‘I don’t want to over rehearse it.’
    Callie’s eyes widened. ‘Are you serious? No way! Ryan didn’t you notice that I was so nervous then that I didn’t actually play a chord?’
    He chuckled. ‘And yet, how did it sound?’ He propped up her guitar and then looked at her with a challenge in his eye.
    ‘Pretty good…’ she admitted.
    ‘Exactly. You were nervous as hell, and if that’s how you sound when you’re that nervous, then that’s how I need you to be next Friday night. Music isn’t something you should be comfortable with Callie; it’s something you should feel for the first time, every time.’
    Callie inhaled sharply, caught off-balance by Ryan’s poetic musings. ‘That’s deep. You know, for a guy who likes Marilyn Manson.’
    He laughed. ‘It sort of was, wasn’t it? Don’t even know where that came from…’
    ‘Well, I like it.’
    ‘You’ll like the No Doubt concert video more.’ Ryan took her hand and steered her under the arch which led into his wood-paneled living room. ‘We have some time to kill, so we might as well watch it.’
    ‘Cool.’ There was a large daybed in the centre of the room covered with brown suede cushions and Callie eased down onto it, glad she had worn her dad’s oversized Mighty Ducks jersey over her two-piece dance leotard so she wouldn’t have to worry about getting a wedgie in front of Ry. She bent her legs back, used the toes of her feet to inch off each of her supple black leather jazz shoes and then jerked the stirrups of her beige dance tights up her calves so her ankles could breathe. Comfortable at last, she cuddled a cushion to her chest and debated whether or not to yank the pins out of the bun under her hat, then decided against the effort.
    Ryan pressed the tape into the player and then hit a button on the remote pad built into the wall. The room began to darken