One Perfect Song
Trick Jefferson was, to say the least, mischievous. She loved pulling tricks on people. Not to harm or humiliate them, you understand, but to entertain them. She only played tricks on people she liked or didn't like. This was not everybody. Most people she didn't have any feeling either way about. The ones she liked were her friends, and she only played tricks on them every once in a while. The ones she didn't like she played tricks on several times a day. There were a select few, however, who were not actually her friends, but they were very…intriguing to her. Like Warren Peace.
To Hell with it. Warren Peace wasn't intriguing. He was sexy. He was damn sexy. And Trick wanted to at least once kiss the damn sexy Warren Peace, but he avoided her like the plague. BUT! She finally found a way that he couldn't avoid her. The school was hosting a gala to help raise money to pay for repairs from the Homecoming Incident, and they had several student talents performing, including the one and only Miss Levina Ann Jefferson. (She couldn't get them to list her as Trick.) Some others, like Flame Boy, were drafted as hosts or waiters. Therefore, Warren couldn't escape her insidious plot to solicit a kiss from him.
Trick gave her signature grin as she took the stage. She looked good, and she knew it. Her deep teal-colored dress had a deep V in the back and a pattern of sparkly swirls that resembled the colorful little electric sparks she often produced by snapping her fingers. She had her dark brown hair swept up into some fancy bun-like thing that her older cousin had done. Her cousin had also done her make up. Her twinkling green-ish blue eyes stood out brightly, as did her mischievously smirking Cupid's bow mouth. She took the mic and introduced the song. "My name is Trick Jefferson. I wrote this song for someone very special to me. It's called 'One Perfect Song' and I hope you enjoy it." She counted out the beat and played the intro on her keyboard before joining in with her beautiful vocals. She had a very powerful voice for someone so young. She smiled and closed her eyes as she sang, "I've been trying
Trying all night long
Just to find
Just to find one perfect song
I'm not lying
I don't know how to move along
I just want to
Sing you one perfect song."
She took a breath before belting out the chorus with such a surprising intensity. She knew she had everyone's attention, server and patron alike.
"With that
Flowing lyric
Keeps running through my mind
Perfect rhythm
Keeping perfect time
But I just can't seem to find
One perfect song
One perfect song"
She opened her eyes and scanned the audience. She made it seem like she was meeting the gaze of everyone in the audience by looking at their eyes. She was, in reality, looking for one pair of very intense, burning eyes. She masked her disappointment when she didn't see them. It was something she'd learned to do from countless nights spent watching her mother perform whilst awaiting her father's arrival. She could not, however, keep her desperate need to tell the brooding pyrokinetic how she felt out of her voice. Her emotions always had been amplified in her voice. "One song to tell
To tell you how I feel
Gets your attention
So you'll know that I am real
I just want you
I want you to know
That this song
That this song is about you,
With that
Flowing lyric
Keeps running through my mind
Perfect rhythm
Keeping perfect time
But I just can't seem to find
One perfect song
One perfect song."
She scanned the audience again, and this time she did see the piercing smoke-filled eyes. She held his smoldering charcoal gaze with her electric turquoise one. She sent him a wink, which cause everybody to turn around to see who had caught the eye of this entrancing young songbird. When they all turned back around, he sent her his most scathing glower. She replied with her most mischievous self-satisfied smirk as she poured out how she felt, now that she had his attention. Really, she didn't care if he heard the first two verses as long as he heard the third. "Words can't describe
How your smile makes me feel
Your arms are heaven
If only my dreams were real
Can't your dark eyes
See the song I see in you
Can't be defined
By the words I try to use."
She started the last chorus, filling the last few harmonic strains with every penny she'd ever tossed down a wishing well, every fallen star she'd ever begged to grant her request, every daydream where she'd found herself doodling flames on her notebook. All of that unfulfilled wishing surely added up, and would aid her in her quest to feel the burning fire of his lips on hers. Right? She closed her eyes and threw her head back, playing the long-memorized chords of her plea. The last chorus was much slower than the rest of the song, and it was the real selling point. If she didn't end it just right, it would ruin the entire song, and nobody would remember her desperate cry to the love she would never know. If she didn't finish strong, she'd lose whatever shot she ever had to get her one kiss. She dredged up every ounce of musical energy that had ever been imparted to or acquired by her and gave it her all, making everyone in the audience question if her power was indeed electricity and not something in her vocal cords. "With that
Flowing lyric
Keeps running through my mind
Perfect rhythm
Keeping perfect time
But I just can't seem to find
One perfect song
One perfect song."
She played the last two chords and took her bows. She received a standing ovation. She was extraordinarily pleased with how the performance had gone. A happy audience was almost always a good sign, but the true test was yet to come. What had Warren thought?
After she was done being a performer, she had a 15-minute break before she had to go join the wait staff and fade into the crowd. She didn't mind. She'd gotten her limelight fix, but she honestly would have traded the fix of playing for millions if she could only get her one kiss from Warren Peace. She slipped silently outside. It was snowing, and she'd forgotten her wrap inside. She didn't want to go back in any sooner than she had to, though, so she stood there in the cold, rubbing her arms to stave off the goosebumps. Why did she have only a control of electricity? Why couldn't she have been pyrokinetic or at least control heat or something? Maybe then she wouldn't be standing there freezing her ass off.
Unexpectedly, she felt something warm and heavy gently drop on her shoulders. She instinctively wrapped it tighter around herself, and she looked up to see who had so generously lent her their jacket. She was startled to see that it was the brooding pyrokinetic. She looked up at him, surprised. "Th-thank you," she said, her teeth chattering despite the coat.
He looked down at her. "You're welcome."
"So, um…what did you think of the song?"
"You sounded really good."
She smiled at him. "Thank you."
He scowled at her. "That was a dirty trick you pulled."
She shrugged. "It got your attention."
"As well as the rest of the audience's!"
"I had to get my point across somehow. You avoid me at school."
"So what makes you think that song of yours is going to change that?" he said stubbornly.
"I saw you. You were as entranced as the rest of them."
He glared at her. She sighed and looked up at him, staring into his glaring eyes. His smoldering, burning, piercing, smoke-filled charcoal eyes. A thought occurred to her.
"Why do you avoid me? What are you afraid of?"
He glared at her some more. "I'm not afraid of anything."
She raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Then why do you act like you hate me so much? The people you truly hate, they're like smoldering embers that don't burn unless you fan 'em. With me, you're a constantly growing flame, fanned every time I speak to you, and not dying."
"Real original, using the fire metaphor on a pyrokinetic."
"You're afraid you might return my feelings."
"I told you, I'm not afraid of you or any 'feelings' you say I have."
She shrugged. "If you say so."
"I'm not!" he insisted.
She looked up at him challengingly. "Oh yeah? Prove it."
"Prove it? Prove it how?"
"Kiss me. Right now."
"What?!"
"If you truly have no feelings for me, you won't have a problem kissing me because there will be no feelings there."
"That's probably the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
Trick shrugged. "If you want to prove me wrong, kiss me."
"Fine," he growled. He leaned down and kissed her gruffly. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling herself closer to his warmth, grinning against his lips. She finally had her one kiss from the damn sexy Warren Peace. He wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her. She pulled the elastic out of his hair and ran her fingers through it. He pulled away.
She looked up at him, expectantly. "Well?"
"You were right."
The End