Chapter 18 #2
“I wrote that song when I was twenty-eight. Midnight Ash had broken up, and I’d sold a few songs since, but nothing to really get my name moving.
I wrote it in the middle of the summer after getting high and watching one of those cheesy Christmas in July specials.
” She lets out a snort of a laugh. “Willa picked it up, and it went crazy. It was number two on the charts all December and went gold the next year.”
She smiles at me, and the shame that normally comes with it doesn’t feel as deep.
“And then what happened?”
“The next year, all anyone wanted from me was Christmas.” She nods, following what I’m saying. “I wrote four more that season.” I gesture to where the gold records sit, and she reads the titles with wide eyes.
“Oh my god, Adam! You’re kidding me! So you‘re like Christmas music royalty?” I shake my head, grimacing. “Oh, we’re not happy about that.” She reads me, taking me in, and I let out a sigh. When I explain this to someone not in the industry, it feels…silly. Insignificant.
“If it weren’t a Christmas song and had the same kind of growth, it would have made Record of the Year easily.
However, everything else since then has basically flopped or performed well enough, but nothing of true note.
Now, I receive a yearly reminder that the best work I’ve ever done was on a generic Christmas song.
A song most people hate just because it’s an earworm they can’t stop singing.
It’s gotten to the point where most people in the industry think I’m just this idiot who only writes Christmas songs.
They don’t even want to hear my other shit; they just want Christmas.
So this year, I told my agent I wouldn’t be doing any holiday music.
” I remember the conversation with Greg, the way he begged me to reconsider, but I knew if I kept going, I’d burn myself and hate writing.
“Unfortunately, he couldn’t sell a single one of my normal songs.
In past years, it was a mix of what I sold, Christmas, and normal songs.
But this year…crickets.” She steps forward and sets a hand to my cheek.
There’s none of the judgment or pity I’ve been seeing for a year, and I give her my next confession.
“It put me into the worst creative rut of my life. I haven’t been able to write at all, not in six months. ”
“Is that long?” she asks, genuinely curious. She’s so far out of the industry, she doesn’t know what the norm is. It’s so refreshing.
“Yes, that’s long, especially for me. It’s been…
painful, not writing. That’s why I moved here.
” I sigh, looking out the window. The street is coated in a thick layer of snow, as the plow still hasn’t made it our way.
“In LA, everyone looked at me with pity. In New York, it was too…busy. I thought maybe my muse needed some peace and quiet, so I found a random town on the map and moved here. Somewhere small, somewhere no one knew about me or my career.”
She gives me a soft smile. “Holly Ridge.”
“Holly Ridge.”
I return the look, remembering her coming to my door. “I thought I could escape it here, hide away from it all, spend a few months writing and find…something.”
“And did you?”
I shake my head, but then I hear it again, playing in my mind, and grin genuinely. I almost forgot, so lost in telling her my story.
“No, not until before, in the kitchen. I brought you up here not to show you who I am, but because I got inspired.”
Her eyebrow quirks. “You did?”
Suddenly, nerves fill my belly, and I press a kiss to her lips to assuage it a bit. “Yeah. Seems I may just have found my muse in Holly Ridge after all.” A blush burns on her cheeks, and I feel absolutely fucking giddy with inspiration. “I need to jot something down.”
Her eyes light up. “Music?”
“I’m not writing a recipe in here.”
She rolls those expressive eyes, pushes on my shoulder, and I feel it again—that lightness in my chest. Those chords run through my mind again, another adding to the end, and excitement rushes through me on the heels of that warmth.
“Can I stay and watch? I promise I’ll be so quiet,” she says, miming zipping her lips.
“Not planning to let you out of my sight for a while, Birdie,” I murmur, leaning down to press my lips to hers before I put my hands to her waist and lift her, placing her on the edge of my desk.
I grab a piece of blank sheet music and jot down some notes.
In the margins, I jot down words that come to me, then move to the piano and start moving my fingers across the keys.
I try not to feel self-conscious, but I find the concern is moot.
When I look up at her, she isn’t watching me—she’s leaning with her back against the wall, eyes closed like she was listening but not watching otherwise.
She must feel me looking because her eyes flutter open, a dazed look written across her face.
“Pretend I’m not even here. I’m not watching at all.” Then she pauses. “Or I can leave if you want—I promise I won’t be offended. Whatever your process is, I’ll respect it.”
I shake my head. “No, no. It’s fine. I’m just not used to having someone here when this happens.”
Her face goes soft. “Well, I’m honored to be the first.”
And the last, I want to say, but I stuff it down.
Instead, I stand, moving across the room to kiss her once more, quickly and hard, before sitting back at my piano and jotting some notes.
Then I move my hands back to the keys, testing them out and making a few adjustments.
I move like this, feeling more like myself than I have in some time, before the inspiration fades sometime later.
I sit back, grinning at the paper victoriously before I turn to glance over my shoulder.
Wren is watching me with wide eyes and rapt attention.
“Wow,” she whispers, eyes wide.
“Hmm?” I ask, standing, then moving to put away my paper, notes scribbled in margins, and lyrics for a potential bridge in a corner. It’s not a song—far from it—but it’s…something. More than I’ve had in some time, too.
“That was magic,” she whispers. I shake my head, then laugh at her awed face. “I’m serious, Adam. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“It’s really nothing. I didn’t even finish the chorus.”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “I can’t even play the recorder, much less a piano. You could have pretended to do things for the last ten minutes, and I would still be impressed.”
“You can’t play?”
She shakes her head. “And don’t even think about asking me to sing. It’s not pretty. I can craft, and I can bake, and I can manage a classroom like nobody’s business, but music will never be something I’m good at.”
“Piano isn’t a talent, it’s a skill.” She stares at me, disbelieving. “I’m serious.” That same skepticism is on her face, and I can’t help but grin at her. It seems contagious when I’m around her. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
She looks at me skeptically, but I’m moving, grabbing her, then moving once more.
I situate her between my legs on the bench, then place her fingers on the keys, layering my hands over hers.
I show her slowly how to play “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and she giggles when she hits the wrong key.
We stay like that for a long time before it sounds normal.
I keep moving her hands beneath mine, showing her different songs, but eventually, her hands move out from under mine, then move up, hooking around my neck as she leans into my chest.
“Play something for me,” she whispers.
I press a kiss to her temple, then mess around, moving from a few bits of song to song before settling on something I haven’t played in years.
“All Lit Up.”
As I do, I remember the joy I felt when I wrote it and when I heard Willa in the studio recording it.
Not because I ever really loved Christmas, but because I knew people did.
I knew people felt this genuine, all-consuming joy that came with the holiday, something I faked just enough until I captured it in this song.
I remember when I was finishing it up, thinking it could be something decent. Never did I think it would be what it became, and I surely never thought that I would hate it one day.
Though with Wren against my chest, humming the tune off-key as I play, I don’t know if I hate it nearly as much as I once did.
How could I, when this new memory will now be attached to it?
Eventually, the notes fade and the song ends, and I move, wrapping my arms around her.
“Oh my god, I’m going to have to wrangle you into some events next time I need someone to play music for us.” My gut drops, and I turn away, but she reaches up, gripping my chin and turning it back to her. “Hey, I’m joking. You know that, right?”
I stare at her, noticing the honesty on her face, and then I relax just a bit.
She shifts, moving until we’re face-to-face, and I can see how sincere she is, knowing in my gut that she’s right.
She was joking, but I have a feeling that if I want to be with Wren, I need to address this sooner rather than later.
“Yeah,” I say, then push a strand of hair behind her ear, unable to stop myself from leaning down and pressing my lips to her cheek.
“I just…I like being here, not having anyone know who I am. It’s nice not having that over my head.
People treat me…normal here. I kind of want to keep that as long as I can.
” I bite my lip, feeling stupid but needing to confess all the same.
“Well, your secret will be yours for however long you want to keep it.” There’s honestly in her eyes, and I brush hair back from her face.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you or even the town.
It’s just that I’ve been in this industry for so long, I’ve seen people get used in ways you wouldn’t believe.
People they thought were friends, lovers, family—fame and money get in people’s heads and fuck things up.
I don’t know the last time I was somewhere where I met people who I knew to my bones didn’t have an ulterior motive.
It’s been nice being here and knowing that no one I meet here wants something from me.
” I smile then, pressing my lips to hers again.
“Except you, of course. You definitely have an ulterior motive to get on my good side.”
Her eyes go wide with panic. “What? I don’t have ulterior motives! I swear, I didn’t know—”
I let out a laugh, feeling a sense of lightness.
“I mean the Christmas lights, baby,” I say softly.
“Oh.” A blush burns over her cheeks. “Yeah, I definitely want you to do that.”
“I’m going to need a lot more convincing on that.”
A wicked gleam flashes in her eyes, lips tipping up. “I think I can work on that.”
And while she doesn’t convince me to make it so you can see my house from space, we have a fuck of a good time trying.