Mixtape: A Love Song Anthology Read online

  A Love Song Anthology

  Copyright

  Foreword. Copyright © 2019 by Laurelin Paige

  All I Want. Copyright © 2019 by Mara White

  Broken Hallelujah. Copyright © 2019 by Sierra Simone

  Guys My Age. Copyright © 2019 by Saffron Kent

  Kiss Me. Copyright © 2019 by Lynda Aicher

  Lush. Copyright © 2019 by Marni Mann

  Moment of Truth. Copyright © 2019 by Veronica Larsen

  Say it First. Copyright © 2019 by Nikki Sloane

  Say Yes. Copyright © 2019 by Elle Kennedy

  Think I’m in Love. Copyright © 2019 by Leslie McAdam

  Toothpaste Kisses. Copyright © 2019 by Xio Axelrod

  Wild Pitch. Copyright © 2019 by Rebecca Shea

  Your Everything. Copyright © 2019 by KL Kreig

  Cover photography. Copyright © 2019 by WANDER AGUIAR PHOTOGRAPHY

  Cover design. Copyright © 2019 by SHADY CREEK PUBLISHING

  Digital ISBN. 978-1-949409-01-7

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Laurelin Paige

  Guys My Age

  Saffron Kent

  Say it First

  Nikki Sloane

  Broken Hallelujah

  Sierra Simone

  Say Yes

  Elle Kennedy

  All I Want

  Mara White

  Toothpaste Kisses

  Xio Axelrod

  Wild Pitch

  Rebecca Shea

  Your Everything

  KL Kreig

  Think I’m in Love

  Leslie McAdam

  Moment of Truth

  Veronica Larsen

  Lush

  Marni Mann

  Kiss Me

  Lynda Aicher

  Foreword

  It was the fall of 2001. I was three years out from graduating from college with a Bachelor’s degree in Musical Theater, a degree I’d done nothing with beyond a couple of community shows. I worked for an eye doctor’s office, a job that involved sitting behind a desk all day billing insurance companies. While the work had earned me enough to buy my first condo in Denver, it was a hollow success. There were things that filled my cup—songwriting, acting—but they were fleeting. The shows always ended. The songs were unheard.

  I had very little going on socially. I was an introvert who craved deep one-on-one interactions, and I was fortunate enough to meet some amazing friends through the plays, but those sorts of relationships are more than not quick burns—deeply passionate and over by the time the next cast list was posted. The few men I’d been involved with were the same—narcissistic in nature, men looking for temporary feel-good situations. My head always knew the story going in. My heart broke over and over again anyway.

  I’d made it into the Actor’s Studio in New York for a Master’s program, but I needed a year to save money. So I postponed entrance and got a job moonlighting at a movie theater in a rich area of Denver. It was work I’d done for many years through college and a time after which made it easy. It was depressing, though, going back to a job behind the concessions stand when I’d been a manager for so long. I filled popcorn buckets and pushed the next size up alongside sixteen-year old kids who were only using the job to get spending money for designer jeans.

  Then September 11th happened, and no one felt safe or happy anymore. Customers spit on Abdul, the brown-skinned forty-year-old man who cleaned the theaters between showings. He was the hardest working employee in the place. He’d been a medical doctor in India, and, here, he cleaned up puke and picked off gum from the bottom of theater seats for less than six dollars an hour. He ate the curry-flavored foods he brought from home alone in the break room and didn’t flinch at the slew of racist comments he encountered on a daily basis.

  I watched him more than I should have. He made me wonder what things were happening to my father’s family back in Utah, where I grew up. They were all immigrants from Iran, and though they weren’t big on practicing, they were also Muslim. I’d been estranged from them for years and didn’t feel like I could reach out and ask, but I thought about them. A lot.

  It was a time of heavy melancholy. Gloom covered the country like a weighted blanket. Personally, I was sad and lonely and restless. The projectionist at work flirted with me, but he was hot and cold and made me doubt everything about myself. I was optimistic that something better lay ahead for me, for our world, but it felt like I was trudging through mud to get there. I was tired. Too tired to expend a lot of energy on hope.

  Then a new manager took over the theater.

  Within weeks, a rumor floated through the grapevine that he had a crush on me. He was annoying as a boss—too strict, too uptight—but I agreed to go on a date with him, mostly because I hoped it would make the projectionist jealous. Yeah, I was that girl.

  Thank god, I was, too.

  It was a typical first date. A movie at a sister theater—that was free since we worked for the company, and we were both dirt poor—followed by hot chocolate at Denny’s. We sat at that Denny’s for hours and talked and talked and talked. We connected on everything, and the things we didn’t we still enjoyed discussing. Both of us felt isolated and alone. Both of us were searching for that elusive “more”.

  Soon, he was staring at my lips, and I was staring at his. The make-out session that followed in his car didn’t have me declaring I was in love, but it didn’t take many dates after that before I was ready. We were inseparable—meeting for stolen lunches, late-night hot chocolate, and movie watching. Hours were spent on the phone. It felt like I barely slept. He worked late to close up the theater, and I had to be at the eye doctor’s every morning by eight.

  But I was happy. Over-the-moon full of joy.

  One evening, determined to get a good night’s sleep but desperate to see him, I met him outside the theater after he’d closed up around one in the morning. We turned on the car radio really loud, left the doors open so we could hear, and danced alone in the parking garage.

  “This Year’s Love” by David Gray came on. Do you know the song? I encourage you to Google it now if you don’t. Listen to it. Read the lyrics. I can’t quote it due to copyright law, but I’ll give you the gist. It’s a love song that’s as woeful as it is happy. The singer recounts all the heartache from the past, the lies, the short affairs, and now he’s in the arms of someone amazing and wonderful, someone who reassures him, and he yearns, he prays, he begs for this love to last. The basic chord structure, though in a major key, is simple and repetitive, and with the six-eight time, the listener gets the feeling of being on a merry-go-round. It feels circular and ongoing, like the string of disappointments the singer speaks of. But then, when the singer speaks ab
out this year’s love, the chord progression changes, and the listener begins to think, Oh, this might be different. Maybe there’s hope here.

  This song spilled out of the speakers, enveloped us in our dance, and It. Was. Me.

  It was everything I’d been feeling—the tumult, the brokenness, the longing. The merry-go-round of heartache. The hope.

  Was that the story David Gray had intended to write? A story of a lonely, lost, half-brown girl in the aftermath of the country’s greatest terrorist attack, trying to find something deep and lasting with her movie theater boss? Is that what the song is about?

  It could be.

  It could be.

  That’s the thing about a good song—they tell a story, but they’re just vignettes. They don’t have all the details. They hit on universal emotions, specific enough that they can feel like they came from a page out of your soul’s diary, but sparse enough that they can also be someone else’s story.

  About a million years ago, someone once asked me what I thought “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” by Billy Joel was about. Well, duh. It’s about a piano player (maybe a waiter) at an Italian restaurant remarking on all the different customers there for dinner that night. The song changes tempo and melody as it tells of a table where the couple dining is young and in love and another table where the couple has been together for a long time. A table where the couple is fighting. A table where the couple is on the verge of breaking up.

  But my friend said, “For me, it’s about me and my ex. All the ‘scenes’ are different times in our relationship.”

  Was that the song Billy Joel was trying to write? The one for my friend? Or did he intend the one that I’d imagined? Or something else entirely?

  It could be any of those. Or all of those. It could be about a thousand other people’s stories. It could be about you. It could be about a different you when you listen ten years later. It’s the reason songs were the first stories I ever wrote, the reason I’m so in love with that format of storytelling—because they can be so many different tales at once.

  That’s what this Mixtape Anthology is all about—stories that could be. Each author included has taken a song that speaks to her and created a scenario around it or inspired by it. You might know the songs. These stories might not be what you imagine when you hear the songs, but I bet you’ll hear the influence the music and lyrics had on the author. Tiffanie DeBartolo’s forward in God-Shaped Hole tells how Jeff Buckley’s album, Grace, was the inspiration to her debut novel. She recalls the first time she heard it, how it transformed her and moved her like no other collection of music. She played it on repeat when she wrote the book. Pieces of that album are sprinkled throughout God-Shaped Hole, including Buckley’s famous version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. That song fits that book so completely. It also completely fits Sierra Simone’s story in this anthology, also based on that song.

  What story does that song really tell? Tiffanie DeBartolo’s or Sierra Simone’s?

  Both of them.

  And your Hallelujah story.

  And mine.

  A year and a half after that night with my boss in the parking garage, we played This Year’s Love as our first dance at our wedding. My mother said she thought the song was perfect because it was about two people saying their love—this year’s love—was going to last forever.

  Is that really the story David Gray meant to tell with his song?

  It could be.

  — Laurelin Paige

  New York Times Bestselling Author

  www.laurelinpaige.com/

  Guys My Age

  Saffron A. Kent

  “Guys My Age” – Hey Violet

  CHAPTER ONE

  Fallon

  Fifteen years ago, I asked a boy to marry me.

  I was three and he was seventeen. Apparently, that’s a big age difference. I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t know he was older or what it meant even if he was.

  All I knew was this boy gave me the best piggyback rides and brought me candies all the time. He played with me, read me stories, taught me to climb trees and ride my bike. He was always the one to wipe away my tears.

  When I told him I was going to marry him and that my wedding dress would be made out of all my favorite Harry Potter quotes, he laughed. Then, he kissed my forehead and told me I’d feel differently when I grew up. I told him I wouldn’t. And I think we bet on it — I don’t remember that part well.

  In fact, I shouldn’t remember any of it; I was three for God’s sake. But somehow, I do.

  I remember everything about him. I remember growing up with him by my side. I remember him living a few streets over and coming to dinner at our house most nights with his sister. I remember my dad and my mom loving him as their own son. I remember my mom saying she’s never seen a friendship like this, like ours. A boy of seventeen being best friends with a three-year-old girl.

  Most of all, I remember him always making me happy. Or at the very least, making my sadness not so sad. Because not being sad has always been very difficult for me.

  But I’m not going to think about it right now. I’m not going to think about how hard things are or how different I am from everyone else. Because he’s here.

  Dean.

  My best friend and the love of my life.

  From the top of the stairs that lead up to my college dorm, I notice him standing across the cement pathway.

  He’s waiting for me.

  Over our last phone call, we’d agreed to meet here at 9 A.M. sharp and he’s early. Like always. Dean loves to be early. He loves to go the extra mile. He’s very much like my dad in that way. Always working, always trying to prove himself.

  Anyway, I’m never early but today I am.

  Because I’m excited. I’ve been excited about this morning for days now. Besides, I haven’t seen him in weeks and I don’t want to waste even a single second of our time together.

  Dean hasn’t seen me yet. His head is bent over his cellphone and his fingers are flying on the keypad, and I imagine him typing up high-level, lawyerly things. He is one of the best prosecutors in L.A. That means he never has time to see me. All we ever do is talk on the phone, and that’s it.

  But finally, he’s here. So again, I’m not gonna think about how much it hurts knowing that my best friend, the man I’m in love with, doesn’t have time for me.

  “Dean!” I call out his name, grinning.

  His head snaps up from his phone and his eyes settle on me. Dark and gorgeous, just like his hair.

  I begin panting, pulling huge amounts of air into my lungs that suddenly feel starved under his gaze. Dean takes me in, his eyes boring into mine, then sliding over my face so thoroughly. Slowly and rapidly, both at the same time. Like, he needs to make sure that I’m really here.

  A few moments later, his lips pull up at the side and the lines bracketing his mouth deepen. My breath hitches as his smile comes into view. The smile that I see in my dreams.

  He doesn’t stop there, though. He opens his arms, his thick, corded arms, and I feel a jolt in my chest. An onslaught of memories that fill every corner of my body, leaving space for nothing else but him. Not even air.

  I’ll wait for you, Tiny. Right outside the school gates, he’d tell me, when I threw tantrums about going to school. Mingling with people, studying, lessons. All these things that might come naturally to other people have always been hard for me. Dean was the only one who could get me to go.

  I’d ask him teary-eyed, Promise?

  Yes.

  Will you also hug me? Like, really tight? Like, when I get sad and I don’t know why.

  He’d smile and his eyes would go all liquidy and soft. Yeah, I will. I’ll hug you for as long as you want.

  He always kept his promise. He’d wait for me just outside the school gates, and as soon as he saw me, he’d kneel on the ground and open his arms for me so I had a place to run to.

  That
’s what I do now, too.

  I rush down the steps, and like always, I run to him.

  But the heel of my sandal twists on something — knowing me, I’d say it could be a crack in the ground — and instead of going straight into Dean’s arms, I’m flailing my arms so I don’t faceplant on the ground.

  I don’t. Faceplant, that is.

  Because someone saves me. That someone steps into my space, grabs hold of my waist and my arm so I collide with his massive chest instead of with the ground.

  I’m so thankful and generally, so happy in this moment I don’t have it in me to be embarrassed. Gulping in air, I look up at Dean.

  “T—Thank you,” I breathe out.

  He smirks. “You’ve still got two left feet, Tiny.”

  I shake my head at him. “It could happen to anyone.”

  “No. Not really. Only you.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “Sure, it was.”

  “That thing from the ground came out of nowhere.”

  “Sure, it did.”

  His smirk is still in place, and I can’t decide if I want to smack it off his face or kiss it. I settle on narrowing my eyes. “You know, I don’t wanna fight with you today. So, you’re in luck. Or I would’ve kicked your ass for pointing out my coordination flaws.”

  Dean chuckles and strangely, it vibrates through my own chest. “Lucky me.”

  I take a moment to absorb him, absorb his nearness. He’s warm and strong. So solid. Dreams of him pale in comparison to the reality of him. In my dreams, I can’t smell his citrusy scent or touch the softness of his t-shirt. Or notice the nuances of his brown eyes.

  “Hey, Dean,” I whisper.

  “Hey, Tiny,” he whispers back.

  I love it when he calls me that — Tiny. It makes me feel cherished. It makes me believe that I really am tiny. That I don’t have massive issues for which I take a pill every day.