Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Wilder is a hard act to follow, especially for someone like me, who learned how to play guitar late in life, from an app. I’m never going to have the innate, instinctual ability that he does. When I play, it’s basically shit, but even on my best day, it’s technical. I can’t make the guitar come alive like Wilder does, and my voice? For the love of the most feral honey badger, I’ll just leave that there.
But when Wilder slides in behind that glorious, sleek, grand piano and plays an intro, nodding at me as a cue to join him, he makes it seem easy.
My voice blends with his on the chorus and stands alone when he stops singing, but doesn’t stop playing.
It’s another miracle.
That Wilder can make me sound and feel like I know what I’m doing. Like I’m gifted. He can take something ordinary and turn it into something transcendent. We’re not recording anything yet, but even if we were, and he played it back and I sounded like a total trainwreck, the experience would still be etched into me as some of the most beautiful moments of my life.
When he asks me if I want to capture it, just for fun, I don’t turn him down. We play together again, and the second time is even better because I know what to expect. It still doesn’t sound scripted. Wilder sings every song of his like it’s the first time. You can listen to his music on a recording, and it’s the same thing, but seeing and hearing it live changes it. It brings the song to life. You can know it by heart and even play it perfectly yourself, but seeing Wilder up on stage, it’s a different experience. That’s the every time is the first time deal.
After we play, I get to stand there and watch as Wilder picks up the bass and plays it. He moves to the drums after. I know nothing about drumming other than the fact that it’s way harder than it looks. But he makes it look easy and sound perfect. Well, not perfect to any real drummer, I’m sure, but a different kind of perfection for being flawed and his.
He stands up after, like he didn’t just accomplish the craziest feat in the world, and strips off his long-sleeved shirt and the sweater vest, but sets the suspenders back in place.
Then he walks over to the middle of the room, picks up a mic, and belts out the rawest vocals.
The hair on my arms stands up. My neck too. And places I didn’t even know I had hair.
By now, he’s covered in a slick sheen of sweat. The drumming worked it up, but he was well on his way there from hammering out notes on the piano and moving around with the guitar and bass. He can’t be still when he sings. He’s fresh off his tour, doing high-energy three-hour shows two to three times a week.
Sweat glistens off his carved abs, his biceps, and his pecs and shoulders. It also runs down his forehead and temples in clear rivulets.
I officially haven’t made it to the point where I stop finding sweat attractive. On Wilder, I’m not sure it won’t ever be a thing. I’m never going to reach that proper benchmark. I could be geriatric, and I’ll still find it attractive on him.
Nothing takes me out of this perfect moment of watching Wilder create a masterpiece from something I first put into the world than thinking about my age and then thinking about his. My thoughts quickly avalanche straight into a craptastic storm. I’m over here, melting into a giant puddle of womanly goop, and that makes me different from anyone else, how? How many women has Wilder seen charmed over the years? How many women has he watched fall in love with him when he’s up on stage? How many women have run at him, screaming his name? How many would die for just a few minutes of his undivided attention? Well, that’s extreme. But like sell their souls to any and all devils? Also extreme, but probably true.
The point is, what makes me special? Why is Wilder here with me right now instead of any one of those women? There are intelligent women out there. He meets talented, rich, gorgeous, and successful women just about every day. If I hadn’t written those songs, would he even be here? Would I? Would any of this have happened, or would we just have gone our separate ways at the end of the tour?
“What’s wrong?” he asks with a frown.
I’m so up in my head that I failed to notice that Wilder stopped belting out lyrics. How long has he been observing me while I’m having my little inner meltdown slash pity party over here?