Melodies of the Heart

Chapter Twelve

Levi

For the first time in over a week, Levi opened the Instagram app on his phone. His band had an official page on the social media platform, though it was run by an assistant at their label, not the band themselves. Still, their manager had insisted that they each put the app on their phones so they could share pictures if they wanted, but no one ever really expected them to.

Levi never had before, but he did enjoy looking at the pictures that people posted on there. He sometimes found himself lost in the highly filtered images, scrolling through his feed until the app froze and he'd give up until he thought to go through it again.

But this time he wasn't just aimlessly scrolling through images. A lot of people had taken his picture at the carnival and he was searching the hashtag of his own name, fearing the worst as he scrolled. If anyone mentioned where he was, it would be the end of hiding from his label.

By time he reached the photos of him at the carnival, he breathed a sigh of relief. There were pictures, of course there were, but at least none of them were geotagged with Pinewood Grove's location. He didn't know how he'd gotten that lucky, but he wasn't going to second guess himself too much.

Instead, he started searching for other things on the app. He wondered if Kassidy had Instagram and if so, what kind of pictures she shared on it. A quick search of her name found her easily, but he debated going through her pictures.

They're public, he told himself while he worried he was invading her privacy. There's nothing wrong with looking at her public pictures.

She didn't post often – the latest shot was from over a month ago – and most of it was baked goods from her family's bakery, but the pictures made him smile as he scrolled through them all the same.

There were shots of her playing in the snows of the winter that had passed and even some older pictures of her at the beach. Every single shot of her was natural and with the warmest smile he'd ever known.

Just looking at the casual shots made him smile back at her, but the smile soon faded. It had been nearly two days since he'd talked to her, save the occasional text, and he was starting to worry he'd pushed her too far back in that laughable haunted house.

He couldn't help himself, though. The moment his lips met hers, he wanted to have all of her. She was sweet and warm against him and he never wanted to let her go, but she'd made him do just that and he knew exactly why she'd done it.

She hadn't said it with words, but he had figured it out quickly enough. It wasn't just her fear of him leaving, a fear he couldn't fault her for, but the fact that moving too quickly wasn't her style and he respected her for that. He just couldn't help himself when he had her in his arms.

A text notification cut through his thoughts and for once, he answered it.

"Where are you?" Dean's message read. "There are pictures of you on Instagram at some fair."

"I know," Levi sent back. "I'm just taking a bit of a vacation."

"Is this about some girl?" Dean replied immediately.

"No," Levi replied, but he knew it was a lie. He wanted to get back to his roots and take some time off, but the longer he stayed in Pinewood Grove, the less he could deny that the reason he'd picked this town wasn't the scenery. It was Kassidy.

He wasn't in the mood to hash it out with Dean, not yet at least, and he knew what he really wanted to do. Kassidy would be at work, and that made it very easy for him to go and find her.