Shy by Thomma Lyn Grindstaff Read Free Book Online Page A

It's as though, when I'm with Frannie, I go somewhere else. An otherworld inhabited by shy, gentle creatures who are self-effacing and who don't seem to be the same species as most of those who populate this loud, pushy world, most of them screaming Look at me, look at me! and The universe revolves around me .
    Rowan has been grabbing the spotlight for herself with her amazing voice practically since before she could talk. Her mom told me that even as an infant, she sang without words. Doesn't surprise me. She loves to sing, and she loves for people to hear her. She had classical training as a child and as a teenager. Since then, she won a number of regional contests and came close to winning one of those singing star reality shows. She came back to Tennessee to gig and sing. For a while, she worked with my band as lead singer. But after a while, we had to kick her out.
    It's a long story. She was our star, my lover, and the terror of our band, and because of her issues with drugs and her wild and sometimes destructive mood swings, it was either send her packing or let her wreck everything.
    Not that we have a lot to wreck. We all love to play music, but our main thing is science. We're all science grad students who happen to have a hell of a bent for music.
    I adored Rowan for a while. And I was hotter than a nuclear reactor for her. She was incredibly fucking sexy. Something about her felt and seemed familiar, too, and it was quite a kick until I figured out that, damn, it's a behavior pattern I'm familiar with from my bipolar, drug-addicted mother. They say guys fall for women like their mothers. I guess I proved that true with Rowan.
    We shared incredible sex, incredible music, and incredible fights, and in the end, incredible misery. Rowan wore me down to a nub with her drama and trauma and her look-at-me, self-centered behavior. Even when she was on a manic high, wowing everyone with her voice and her performances, she still preened in her self-centeredness. She's still singing last I heard, after being released from the psych ward in the hospital yet again. She joined an all-guy band, and I hear she's giving them a lot more than just good lead singing. It made me angry and jealous as hell when I first heard about it, picturing those guys with her. For a while, Rowan was like my own addiction, hard to kick, but I'm okay with everything now. And since meeting Frannie, I think about Rowan less and less. Frannie is incredibly refreshing to me, and being in her presence is like a breath of fresh air. She and Rowan might as well be different species.
    I like that.
    I've been going to Frannie's practice room every day for two weeks now, and she has reached the point where she can sing her two completed songs, “Glass Ceiling” and “Invisible,” all the way through with confidence as long as I'm standing outside the door. She doesn't have Rowan's smoky, sexy, sultry torch singer voice. Instead, she has this gorgeous, lush, feminine voice that, when she really lets loose, sounds like an angel, albeit an angry angel, seeing as how in her songs, she often sings about how she feels screwed over for being shy. She's wounded, yes, but in a different way than Rowan. She's sexy in how she barely meets my eyes when I tell her how good she is. Yes, she is damn good. In her way, she's as good as Rowan, but with an adorably humble, timid attitude. I love being around her. She arouses a protective instinct in me. Much more than that, as well.
    Frannie told me she'd like to sing while I'm in the room come Monday. I'm looking forward to that more than I could ever have dreamed.
    I would like to kiss her. I think she'd like to kiss me, too. She touches my heart in a strange but wonderful way I've never before experienced. It's like she's something more than human, with her shyness and gentility. She's also luscious, gorgeous, sexy—in a completely unassuming way, with her plain blouses, blue jeans, long brown hair, and luminous eyes as