“Hey, Coach!” Will called out.
“What?” Alex answered over his shoulder, sounding impatient.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked significantly, indicating his mother.
Alex looked back at her, nonplussed. “Oh. Right.” He paused a moment, frowning, and then backtracked for the living room.
“What’s going on?” Holly asked Will.
“You’ll see,” he said.
Alex came back carrying a gaily if inexpertly wrapped package.
“Here,” he said without much ceremony, plunking it down on the kitchen table in front of Holly. “Something for you that Will and I picked up yesterday.”
Holly had forgotten the present that the two of them had hidden from her. She ripped open the bright paper and gasped when she saw all the CDs that spilled out.
“These are all… How did you…” She got it suddenly and smiled at her son. “You told him what to get.” She turned the smile on Alex. “And you spent way, way too much money on these. I should be mad, but…this really helps,” she said. “I mean, I know we’re not going to recreate everything we had, but this—well, this helps a lot. Thank you.”
“Anytime,” Alex said. “I mean it, Holly. You and Will lost so much, and it’s going to take a long time to put it all back together again, but if I can do anything to help, you only have to ask.”
She smiled at him a little crookedly, and he smiled back at her, the warmth she’d begun to rely on lighting up his blue eyes.
“Have dinner without me tonight,” he said again, heading to the back door. “See you later, Will. I hope you have a good day back at work, Holly.”
“Thanks,” she answered, but he was out the door and she didn’t think he’d heard her.
A little odd, but very sweet, was Alex McKenna. If someone had told her seventy-two hours ago that’s how she’d be characterizing him today, she would have laughed at them.
A few minutes later Holly was sliding one of her new CDs into the car stereo and backing out of Alex’s driveway.
She’d picked one at random and it turned out to be Van Morrison, an album she hadn’t listened to in a while. The music tugged at her, and she remembered the conversation yesterday between Alex and Will. About music being a map of your soul.
She braked at a stoplight and her fingers drummed against the steering wheel. She wasn’t sure she wanted anyone running around with a map of her soul. Definitely not Alex.
Just as she was thinking that the light turned green and the next song began. It was “Moondance,” and in the blink of an eye Holly was engulfed in an old memory.
It was prom night, and Brian, now a freshman in college, had come home to be her escort. They were still boyfriend and girlfriend, and Holly was sure she loved him, although he seemed even busier and more ambitious now that he was actually taking the pre-law classes he’d dreamed about.
Still, he had taken the time to come home for her prom. Holly appreciated the gesture even though they didn’t really have a good time. Not a bad time exactly, just not a good time. Neither of them was big on dancing. Brian would never engage in anything so frivolous, and Holly was too shy to dance in public, although she loved to bop around in her room at home.
They decided to leave early. Brian went to say his goodbyes and get their coats, while Holly went to get one more glass of punch.
She was waiting for Brian at the edge of the dance floor, gazing wistfully at all the couples—the band had just started to play Van Morrison’s “Moondance,” which was one of her favorite songs—when someone came up behind her and slid his arms around her waist.
She could tell it wasn’t Brian. There was something a little too…well, physical…in the way those arms felt against her, in the way those hands moved slowly over her hips.
“Want to dance?” a voice said softly in her ear, and Holly twisted around to see Alex McKenna standing there, his face only inches from hers, his blue eyes glinting with mischief and something else.
Holly pulled away sharply, angry at the way her body had responded before she’d known it was him.
She had caught glimpses of Alex all evening, dancing with a dozen different girls—bad girls mostly, including her friend Brenda, but a few good girls, too—all of whom had seemed only too happy to be in his company.
Holly had noticed the contrast between his partners and herself. Her dress had a high collar and big puffy sleeves, and the white satin material made it look a little like a wedding gown. The girls Alex favored tended to wear red or black, cut low in the front or the back or both, with spaghetti straps or no straps at all. Some of them had come here with dates, some alone, but all of them seemed more interested in Alex than any other guy in the room.