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Sing Us A Song And We'll Sing It Back To You
When he turns the radio on, “All Through The Night” by Cyndi Lauper is just trilling its way into the second verse and neither of them know it well enough to supply more than dramatic humming of some approximate of the melody catching on the chorus which is repeated enough to sink in. They’re not late but not exactly on time which is by their own design. It breaks their hearts but the decision to not be there for the formal part of their friends wedding had sprung from the simple wish not to overshadow their day by their presence.
So they have purposefully skipped the church and the pictures and will arrive just in time for the private party at a somewhat removed countryside hotel with a spacious barn furnished for one of those shabby chic weddings that are all the rage these days. They both would’ve had the option to rsvp plus one with their separate invitations but back when they’d gotten them, plus ones weren’t a thing they contented themselves with. Neither are they now. But technically, they still aren’t going there together, they are just going there together.
Scott glances over at Tessa in the passengers seat as she looks out the window at the setting sun, a flare of stray sunlight painting her black dyed hair with pigments of the soft brown and red that is more her natural colour. She’s wearing it up in a bun just messy enough to look intentional, perfect to compliment the sensible muted bordeaux dress she is wearing. She has dressed down for this, her body hugged by a timid garment designed to not stand out, and he has followed suit, pairing a pair of dark jeans with a navy dress shirt she has suggested he buy almost a year ago. They look like two people fit for the background and this is how they want it. And it’s nice that way really, and well rehearsed. They have done a lot of flying under the radar lately and since it’s always harder to do that when they’re somewhere together, they’ve put an extra effort in.
There’s some radio spots about local joints following the Cyndi Lauper song that Scott tunes out, focusing back on the road but Tessa squeals with delight when the signature piano run of “Jessie” by Joshua Kadison starts playing. He can’t help but smile. That’s the kind of cheesy old pop songs she’s really into and she knows every word and even if she won’t quite sing for real anywhere outside of his car, she does it beautifully, not missing a note or a beat. He turns the volume up slightly, just to show his encouragement of her private concert.
“Bring Mo’ and drive real fast,” she sings. “And I listen to her promise, I swear to God this time, it’s gonna last!”
“Tessa, paint your pictures,” he sings, putting her name in to be funny and she skips two words to giggle at that which is enough to make him feel accomplished. “About how it’s gonna be, by now I should know better, your dreams are never free.”
“But tell me all about our little trailer by the sea,” he lets her sing that alone and joins back in for: “Tessa, you can always sell any dream to me.” She doesn’t sing her own name but grins at him as he does.
He air-drums the bridge and turns the volume up a little higher and once again he thinks about how happy he is just being with her like that. Just the two of them, two random people in a car driving somewhere listening to the radio. Nobody driving by knows who they are, nobody’s taxing or questioning the black Sedan going a few kilometres over the speed limit, nobody cares, it’s just another car on the road. Watching a red city cruiser overtake them, he notices the woman driving bop her head in time with the Journey song that has just come on on their station and he wonders if it’s coincidence.
Tessa loves Journey, so she’s still happy. She knows the lyrics again, he doesn’t but it’s that nice song about being “still yours, faithfully” and he likes it, too. They’re hitting it hard on the old songs, which is why it’s T’s favourite station for long drives and she’s happily shimmying in her seat when “Jump” by Van Halen comes on next and for that, he’s back on board.
“Oh can’t you see me standing here, I got my back against the record machine,” he sings and takes his eyes off the road to catch hers and bang his head in time with the music, grinning like she does and just being happy that they’re together. He’s missed her these last couple of months. Even still living practically down from the hall to each other, since Stars On Ice ended, they’d been doing their own thing mostly: Him trying to decide if coaching is what he wants to be doing with the rest of his life and her putting the same single-minded focus to finishing her MBA that she had always had for skating.
It’s not too bad, they still make time for each other but it’s not every single day from dusk till dawn that they see each other and he is still trying to get into the headspace that this is healthy and normal and right for them. Some days it’s easier than on others. He’s well aware that he can’t box her in around him and so he works at his patience and composure and gives her her space whenever he thinks she needs it.
What she needs and doesn’t need from him is admittedly a little harder to anticipate and navigate these days. One of the downsides of not being professionally required to be attached at the hip to her is that he doesn’t know at least 95 percent of the thoughts in her head at all times anymore, so now he often has to guess when she wants to see him or when she wants time on her own, to study or meet people or simply do other things she doesn’t need him around for. He’s trying though. But things would be easier if there was a semblance of clarity between them about what they are these days.
Their professional partnership is as good as over and so beyond the maintaining of their brand and the occasional skate here and banquet there, that whole avenue is closed off, which leaves the giant cluster-fuck that is their personal relationship. Which is everything and anything at once. He’s thinking about the shapelessness of what they are as “Take My Breath Away” from the Top Gun soundtrack comes on and he almost has to laugh. Sappy song for sappy musings. Tessa’s none the wiser as they both sing along.
They’re in limbo and he keeps telling himself that that’s okay. After twenty plus years determined not to define their relationship, it’s natural that they have to take their time to figure things out. He’s in no rush. But as he glances her way, he thinks that most of the reason why he’s not very pushy about getting out of that state of blurred lines and open borders (no matter how much he wants to just know where they’re at), is because he would rather live out his days in this non-place with her than have to hear her say ‘no’ to him with the finality their current situation would hold. So he holds his breath and watches her clap along when “I Ran” starts blasting from him speakers.
“And I ran, I ran so far away,” he mouths at the steering wheel. “I couldn’t get away.”
***
Tessa loves this station as much as she hates her shoes. She already knows that after the reception and the first dance, she’ll trade the high heels for the flats she has stuffed in her overnight bag in the trunk and be the happiest girl in the crowd for it. Well, maybe a smidge less happy than the blushing bride but close enough. She’s excited to see her friends, sad to have missed the ceremony but well aware that it’s for the best this way. The last thing she would want for her wedding, if she ever did get married, would be for her guests to be preoccupied with trying to spot “celebrities” while she was saying her vows.
And so they had called ahead of time to let their friends know that they would join the festivities later and that was alright. It isn’t the biggest sacrifice that had ever been made on the account of Scott and her career. It registered as a slight sting of regret but not an uncommon one. They are different from regular people, had always been different really, so it isn’t super outrageous.
It’s all good, she tells herself and then loses her train of thought because the next song that comes on is “Eye Of The Tiger” and Scott is ecstatic beside her, drumming on the steering wheel and bouncing in his seat like a Duracell bunny. She laughs and watches him, ignoring the way her chest feels suddenly tight with something she’s loath to label. She doesn’t quite know what to do with everything she feels for him, doesn’t know how to channel or deal with it now that they don’t have their skating to work through it anymore.
With all the emotions whizzing around in her, she’s sure they’d have enough tension to get another two Gold Medals out of their skates by chemistry alone but that is hardly helping now. Now it’s just heaps of feelings with no outlet and no timeline to follow through to the end to get results. They’re on their own with this, with their future together (whatever that might be), and somehow they have gotten pretty spectacular at putting of getting a handle on that. When the Survivor song bleeds into “Every Breath You Take”, Tessa decides it’s high time for a station change and rummages through the frequencies until she hears a Country one and leaves it on.
He looks over at her with a tilted head, questioning the change of music selection and she just shrugs.
“Your turn,” she says and he understands. She likes evergreens, he likes country, so they take turns, it’s not the first time.
She doesn’t know the current one and neither does he by the looks of it but he’s bobbing his head along with the rhythm which is good enough for her. They spend the next half hour in companionable silence for the most part, exchanging just a few words about this or that reckless driver, her sore feet even while sitting and how hungry he is. It’s wonderfully normal and effortless. Being with him is like breathing and it only hitches when she wonders where they’re going and so she tries not to.
There are many things they should talk about, things they did that need addressing and there’s a pull, low in her belly that urges her not to put it off (and she wants to figure things out very much) but she finds herself chickening out time and time again. She tells herself to give him time to adjust to the changes, to find himself on his own ground outside of all they are before she pushes anything new on him which would bind him to her side once again and this time hopefully without an expiration date. A part of her knows he would never turn her down, even if just to not hurt her, out of a sense of obligation, but she needs him to know what he wants before she can even begin to tell him what she wants.
“This much for the weather tonight,” a pleasant voice says from the speakers, “It will be a wonderful summer night and if you have your sweetheart around tonight, hold them close and watch the stars with ‘em. Next up is “I Can’t Outrun You” by Thompson Square. Keep those wishes coming in, guys!”
Tessa settles in almost involuntarily as the sky gets just a shade darker and a simple piano melody preludes the vocals of a woman. The window AC is blowing air over her face softly and she listens to the lyrics because for once, she has a mind for it.
“Desert road or downtown train, it’s all the same, I can’t outrun you,” the woman sings and the man echoes the sentiment until they converge for what is obviously the chorus. “You're in my heart, you're in my mind, everywhere ahead, everywhere behind, every turn I take, you're right around the bend.”
Tessa swallows past a lump in her throat. Scott has gone motionless beside her and she has the uncomfortable sensation that he is listening just as closely as she is. It doesn’t take more than the words to know that this is their story, like so many other love songs before, it fits them. Only that usually they’re skating or looking for songs to skate to or on parties when something comes on that makes them think of each other. And back in the days, they would have overplayed those situations of realisation with some comment about how that would be a great story to skate to but now they can’t really do that anymore.
Now, they’re confined in a car with only the words in the air and the prospect of changing the station too obvious to bode well. The second verse starts and all Tessa can do is not to wince. This is getting real a lot quicker than she had anticipated.
“I had a chance with a boy or two, but all I ever saw was you,” the woman sings and it’s like someone ripped the words out of Tessa’s soul and is singing them back to her, unprompted and unwelcome, stripping her naked before Scott who seems to have stopped breathing, staring blankly ahead at the darkening landscape and road ahead. “You’re holding my hand, kissing my face, I guess some memories never fade.”
While the chorus sets in for the second time, Scott slows the car to a halt as they come upon a red flashing warning sign at a railroad crossing. With the noise of the engine suddenly eliminated, all that’s left is the music and those lines that hit too close to home and by the third time the chorus blares through the speakers, Tessa makes herself break the tension. Her choice of how to do that is impulsive and uncontested by the logical side of her brain. It’s on instinct that she lets her hand find his on the stick, squeezing her fingers around his and turns around mindlessly to look at him. His eyes are following the lowering gates ahead down, his jaw square.
“So that’s kinda our song too, huh?” Tessa says before she can think about it being a good idea too hard.
“Tessa,” Scott says, not moving his hand an inch, his skin tight over a flexed hand that has tightened since hers had landed on it. His voice barely carries over the music but she hears the cautioning in it all the same.
“What?” She asks even though she knows exactly what he’s trying to say.
“Let’s not get into this now,” he says, again low enough to get lost over the song but she has spent enough of her life listening to him talk over noise to be tuned to his voice like a bat. He could talk to her over a thunderstorm, she’d understand every word.
“Why not?” She challenges and keeps talking when he won’t answer. “You know it’s funny how we spent hours talking about our relationship but in all those years we never talked about how we really feel about each other.”
“Come on, T,” he says and takes his hand away from under hers, moving it from the stick to grip the steering wheel like iron. His eyes are still stubbornly trained ahead, where a freight train is just starting to cross. “It’s not the time right now, is it?”
“Well, when is the time?” She asks him, trying to keep her voice light and free of the frustration seeping into her veins. “We’re gonna have to have this conversation eventually.”
Scott winces. He tries to subdue it but she sees, she feels it like it’s her own body shuddering.
“What, so you think we’ll be done by the time the train went by? That convenient for you?” He’s still not looking at her. “Just squeeze it in real quick?”
“Don’t be like that,” she tells him, an edge to her voice now that she can’t keep out. And finally he turns his face to look at her.
“I’m not like anything ,” he says. “But we’re almost there and almost late at that. I don’t want to talk about this in a car. I want to…to sit down and be able to look at you and have a bottle of wine nearby. Or whiskey.”
The last wagon of the train is speeding by when his hand catches her again and he keeps his eyes on hers when he rolls her knuckles under his fingers, squeezing softly. “Let’s just get there safe, enjoy the party and talk after. Okay?”
Tessa takes her hand away. He’s right but she doesn’t like it. “Fine,” she says and changes the station before turning towards the window and Scott starts the engine again as the crossing gates open up slowly. It’s some mindless EDM song the search lands on with nonsensical lyrics and a generic beat. Tessa supposes that’s the best thing that could’ve happened.
***
The wedding reception is wonderful. Classic and tasteful and touching and as soon as Scott helps Tessa out of the car, they fall into an unspoken agreement of honestly postponing their tension from the road until they’re back by themselves again. It’s a trained process for them. It’s what they’d done for seasons on end as teenagers, leaving whatever discord they had amongst themselves at the boards and being together on the ice as if all that ever was between them was love. Falling back into this with her now is like slipping on a second skin and it’s more effortless than it should be.
They cross over the threshold of the shed with his hand on the small of her back (the dress is backless, which helps distract him from whatever emotional unrest is lying ahead of them, which is fortunate) and she turns over her shoulder to smile at him before they tell their names to one of the waiters by the door waiting to seat them. They don’t know everyone at their table but people are nice and those that hadn’t expected to be at their table calm down soon enough. Thankfully, none of them ask for more than a polite rundown of the Olympics and nobody wants to snap a picture. The bride and groom do, once they actually manage to get to them through all the other congratulators, but since it’s their wedding, who are Tessa and Scott to deny them a quick picture together. He turns his phone off once they post it because he still hasn’t figured out how to mute his instagram notifications and people are going nuts about Tess and him at a wedding together.
This is exactly why he isn’t too keen about having the conversation Tessa seems obviously bent on having tonight, a fact that has his stomach sink to the bottom of his shoes. He doesn’t know what she wants to say to him, doesn’t know if she will break his heart or put it in flight but he really isn’t ready to find out. He thought he was but he isn’t. He doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want the change. He does not want to hear her tell him that the scrutiny and the attention and the pressure is too much for her and she wants her distance from him for a while. He is fine with Limbo, he can handle Limbo, he can not handle her leaving. This much is painfully clear now, even if it wasn’t before.
As the evening draws to the time where it would be acceptable for them to excuse themselves for their rooms at the adjacent hotel, Scott deliberately stays out of Tessa’s way. He watches her as she mingles and does not miss how her head snaps about time and again like she is looking for something but he keeps dodging her, slipping out of her line of sight like a thief in the night. He’s hiding like a coward but it can’t be helped. He’s not ready. The party is in full swing when the DJ starts bringing the 80s back and Scott sinks lower on the chair he has picked on the side of the dancefloor from where he can see Tess but she can’t see him and watches her as she takes the floor with one of her girlfriends whom he doesn’t know that well. He doesn’t care either if he’s honest. He only cares how Tessa’s body moves underneath that dress of hers and how she laughs and dances like the whole world is watching, ready to fall in love with her. It’s some pop song he barely knows that she sways her hips to and he gets so caught up in staring at them, he misses how she finally makes him. Once he catches on, it’s too late. She is staring right back at him, a quizzical expression on her face when a song by REO Speedwagon fills the air. Scott would laugh out loud, if it wasn’t so fucking tragic.
“I can’t fight this feeling any longer and yet I’m still afraid to let it show,” the song goes and he feels inches away from manic, hysterical laughter. It’s true they say that when you’re in love all the songs make sense but he never would’ve thought that actually ALL THE FRIGGIN’ songs make sense. It’s exhausting.
“What started out as friendship has grown stronger, I only wish I had the strength to let it show,” the lyrics continue over the cheesy guitar riff and he can’t pry his eyes off of Tessa’s. “I tell myself that I can't hold out forever. I said there is no reason for my fear. ‘Cause I feel so secure when we're together. You give my life direction, you make everything so clear.”
He feels like someone is picking the clothes off his body as he sits there, stripping him bare to the bones before what is easily the love of his life and leaving him shamefully exposed to the sound of a damned power rock balade that should make him roll his eyes instead of twist his guts.
“And even as I wander, I’m keeping you in sight, you’re the candle in the window on a cold dark winter’s night and I’m getting closer than I ever thought I might,” the singer intones as they keep studying each other. They’re a good couple of paces away but close enough to see every muscle on her face move and work to contort her features into a question mark, asking if he is listening to the song, if he is aware of the meaning, if that’s what he feels. And really, what a stupid question. The song could easily be renamed “Scott Moir’s Diary Page Four” then and there and she must know it.
“And I can’t fight this feeling anymore,” the chorus says. “I forgotten what I started fighting for.” And how true is it? That after not even half a year off the competitive ice with her, he’s forgotten why he has held all these feelings so close to his chest all those years. That there’d been sound and sensible reasons to keep them at bay. To fight them from overtaking him. Now that fight seems overdone, overdue to let end and overwhelming to keep fighting. “It’s time to bring this ship into the shore and throw away the ore forever.”
And he’s ready for that too. He’s ready to come into the shore, ready to finally admit that being with her for real, in life and in love with everything that entails, is all he wants and likely all he’ll ever want again and just deal with the consequences of that like a man. To hell with it, he thinks, the fourth glass of red wine sitting just finished on the table behind him rolling in his stomach and on his tongue as he takes a deep breath, holds her gaze and shrugs.
This is how he tells her then. How Scott Moir tells Tessa Virtue that he’s in love with her. In the repeat of the first chorus of “Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” with a shrug that says “It’s true. This is it for me. You’re it.” He ads a slight apologetic shake to his head to convey that he’s sorry and that it can’t be helped, that he tried hard not to love her but that really, she should’ve known. Should’ve known for years. He holds his breath for all of it but can’t keep it there for long because then Tessa breaks out in a laugh on the other side of the dance floor and looks at him like she understands. Then she shakes her head, mirroring him and rolls her eyes before starting to move.
It’s like in a cheesy movie what happens next and he’s not sure if it’s the moment, the scenery or the fucking cheesy song but she walks to him as if in slow motion and the whole world zooms in on her frame, leaving the rest in a blur of irrelevance until suddenly she’s right in front of him and holding out her hand for him to take. He just stares at her stupidly for a second.
“Well, are you gonna dance with me or not?” She asks and wiggles her hand a little further toward his face. He takes her hand on autopilot, because that’s what he does. It’s what he’s always done.
He follows her to the center of the floor, mingling with the dancing couples there and she easily takes the lead while he sees his life flash before his eyes. He has no idea what is happening. He just goes along with her movements and when she puts her arms around his shoulders and starts swaying, he goes along with that too. Thinking or analyzing the situation as would probably be best is impossible in the face of her vanilla perfume clouding his senses and with her cheek pressed against his, the warmth of it familiar and exhilarating at the same time.
It could be years that they dance like this and when it ends, he is only dimly aware of the song having been on in the first place, let alone the rest of the world still existing, but it does end eventually. He probably still wouldn’t have known without Tessa whispering in his ear, though. “Let’s get out of here,” she says and he follows her.
He follows her for the entire round of goodbye’s and See-you-tomorrow’s and over to his car to carry their bags and past the hotel reception, up the stairs and to her room (he’s booked his own but he doesn’t even know where it is). He’d follow her anywhere.
Except to the bathroom, where she excuses herself to while he unloads the suitcases from his grip and then waits around by her bed a little forlornly, unsure of it’s okay to sit down or of if she wants to do this somewhere else or whatever is going on in the first place. When she comes back, she has undone her hair, kicked off her shoes and takes his hand when she sits down on the bed. So sitting it is. Scott can’t breathe. He feels ridiculous for it to have come this far, that he would ever be in this state of mind around her but like so many things, it can’t be helped.
“I’m sorry I went off on you in the car,” Scott says, because that’s the one thing he’s sure he wants to get out there before whatever happens next happens.
“It’s fine,” she says. “Don’t worry about it. You had a point.”
“Okay,” he tells her. “Thanks.”
Then silence. And her hand in his. And if anyone would remind him of his age then and there, he wouldn’t believe it himself. He feels thirteen, thirteen and anxious and nervous. And so in love with her it’s a little bit scary.
“So.” She says.
“So,” he parrots because he has no idea how to have this conversation. Everything is fuzzy now.
“So...that song,” Tessa trudges on, steadfast as always. “Is that what it’s like for you?”
“I think you know,” he replies.
“I think I’d like to hear you say it,” she says and he guesses it’s a reasonable demand.
“It’s like all the songs for me,” he says because it’s the truth. “Every sappy love song I hear, I think of you. I always think of you.”
Tessa smiles her small unreadable smile and he panics just a little. “But I get it if that’s not what you want from me. I know you hate the questions and the outside pressure but I can't help it, I can't help how I feel. And I think if you gave this a chance, we could make sure that we can figure things out on our own...so yeah. That's what it's like for me, what it's always been like, really. I guess I was always just hoping and waiting for you to come around.”
She smiles and then chuckles and it’s the most confused, the most discouraged and the most hopeful he’s ever felt. Is this funny to her? It's not to him, it's the opposite of funny, he's possibly having a heart attack.
“Yeah, you know what I was doing meanwhile?” She asks him as the hand that had held his hand wanders up his arm until it rests on his shoulder and he has to lean in to focus on hearing her past the rush of blood to his head. “I was waiting for you.”
That takes a long moment to compute. Everything is a blur. And too loud in his chest and his head, much, much too loud.
“So...this is it?” He breathes eventually, not quite trusting his voice and barely daring to use any brighter words than these as if to not scare her away after all.
“For me it is,” she says, without pomp or circus and the world stops.
“For me too,” he says.
Woah. There's no air now.
They smile at each other then, mindlessly, dimly, like nothing else ever mattered or will matter again. A man and a woman on a bed in a hotel at a friend’s wedding together. It’s romantic. And for now, that’s all they needed to talk about. For the rest, they’ll talk with their eyes and hands and kisses. Yes, kisses, that sounds amazing. That's more than enough for tonight.
And all the complicated stuff, they’ll sort out after breakfast.