Chapter 5 #3
“My whole family thinks the label dropped me, but… I was the one who walked away. When I heard what they’d done to my voice…
” He shook his head. “I hated it so much. Even though it was my song, I didn’t want my name attached to it.
So, I told the producer what I really thought when he asked me.
He said it didn’t matter as long as it sold, and if I wasn’t ready to go through with it, I should say so now.
” He swallowed. “So, I did. I backed out. I’ll never forget the look on everyone’s faces, but…
I couldn’t pretend this was who I was.” He pulled his phone out again.
“This here is the demo that got me into the room with them in the first place.”
He pressed play. A single electric guitar strummed the same chords we had heard earlier, poorly recorded but played with more grit.
After the short intro, the vocals came in, and the difference was like night and day.
The voice actually sounded like him. Sure, the recording was rough, but his magic still reached me.
I got goosebumps.
He turned off the song after the chorus. “It’s still a crappy song, but it at least felt like me, you know?”
“It also sounded like you, and I mean that in the best way.” Our eyes met. “I stand by what I said. You’ve got a beautiful voice.”
Silence stretched between us as we both couldn’t stop staring at each other.
“I have to admit,” he added, “after hearing your track earlier, I’m curious to hear more from you, too.”
“Say no more.” I got my phone ready and pulled out the pair of in-ear headphones I always carried in case I needed to drown out noise. I held them up to him. “Here.”
“Headphones?” As he took them, our fingers brushed, sending a jolt through my body. “Wow. We’re getting fancy.”
“First impressions matter.”
I wanted him to hear the songs properly. If he didn’t like them, I didn’t want to blame my phone’s speakers later.
He put one earpiece in and held the other out to me. “Share?”
“I know my songs inside and out, and they’re mixed for surround features, so you take both.”
“Can’t argue with that,” he replied, sliding the second earpiece in and nodding toward my phone. “I’m ready.”
I scrolled through my personal playlist until I found the track we had used for the video.
I was eager to see how Sebastian would react.
He had no idea what he was in for. The part Nicholas used came from a break two-thirds of the way in, where the tempo and style change completely.
The song actually opened with a string quartet before evolving into a danceable pop anthem with techno influences.
“Tell me if it’s too loud,” I said and pressed play.
“Volume’s perfect,” he murmured a second later, all the muscles in his face working hard not to give away that the strings had caught him off guard.
Sebastian’s eyes stayed on the ground while mine stayed on him.
I could faintly hear the strings playing in his ears.
After spending hours fine-tuning them, I knew exactly what he was hearing.
The strings climbed to a high note, then dropped like a ship riding a sudden current—and the beat kicked in.
Twenty seconds later, his right foot tapped along. His breathing synced with the rhythm, and after another fifteen seconds, his head started bobbing, too.
I sometimes cursed my hypersensitive ears, but in that moment, I was grateful.
I could exactly tell which part he was listening to.
The beat had moved through the first bridge and carried him to the second rise, marking the start of the vocals I still needed to record.
For now, I had used a guitar in their stead.
When it hit, Sebastian’s whole face lit up. “Whoa.” His eyes snapped to mine, totally mesmerized. “This is legit,” he said, a little too loudly.
As the song hit its third chorus, he closed his eyes and let his shoulders sway along. His jacket rustled, but I tuned it out the second the thing I had secretly hoped for happened: his deep, enchanting voice began humming the melody I had written.
The sound rippled through me, from my head to my toes, before settling low in my chest.
No one’s voice has ever affected me like that.
It made me want to write songs, albums, entire symphonies about him, for him, with him.
It made me want to press my ear to his chest and listen for the quiet sounds not meant for anyone who wasn’t his chosen person—the ones that I shouldn’t even imagine.
My gaze drifted lower.
His bulge had lifted slightly, though not nearly as much as mine. Because damn. Just listening to him hum turned me on in ways it absolutely shouldn’t have, making me harder than I’d been in a long time.
“Wait.” He blinked his eyes open. “This is the track from the video!”
I forced my gaze away and nodded.
When the song ended, he sat up and grinned at me. “You’re incredible,” he said, pulling the earpieces out. “This is the kind of music I’d expect to hear on the radio or in concert halls.”
“I’m not nearly that good,” I muttered, lowering my head. “It’s also missing vocals. I tried recording a demo myself, but it was awful. My voice is garbage.”
“You don’t have to downplay it. Even without vocals, this is gold. If my music had sounded anything like that, I might’ve kept singing.” He scooted closer, already eyeing my phone. “You’ve got more files on there, haven’t you? Can I be shameless and ask to hear another one?”
He crossed his legs, his knee brushing against mine, and leaned in so we could look at the screen together. His breath tickled my hand as I scrolled through the list, searching for something that could live up to the last track.
And then, for no clear reason, he leaned into me.
There was no more space left between us.
I had tried not to read too much into the little things before, but this wasn’t subtle. He was enjoying this. And I wasn’t about to pull away, either.
For the next half hour, I played him song after song.
The more he heard, the more animated he became.
Every time, he hummed along, making it nearly impossible for me to think straight.
With him now also sitting so close, I could hear everything: the steady rhythm of his breathing, the subtle shifts when a beat surprised him, the quiet swipe of his tongue across his lips just before he started humming again.
During the fourth song, I lost all restraint and stared blatantly at him as he shook his head to the beat. The glow of my phone lit his face in the dark, casting soft shadows that highlighted his features. He was so lost in the music that he didn’t even notice me watching for half a minute.
But when he finally did, I couldn’t force myself to look away again.
My eyes dropped to his lips.
All I could think about were things that could—and probably should—never happen: what it would sound like if he sang one of my songs for real, what it would be like if he lived here and we could talk for days and weeks, not just hours, and worst of all, what his lips tasted like.
He pulled out the left earpiece and chuckled. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Your stare says a lot more than nothing.”
“I’m just flattered to hear you hum along.”
The smile faded as he furrowed his brows. “Humming?”
“You didn’t notice?”
“I was?” He laughed it off. “See what your music does to me? It took me so far out of my head I didn’t even notice what I was doing.
” He winked, and my heart skipped a beat.
“You’re amazing, you know that? It actually makes me reconsider my vow never to sing again. Maybe I’ll make an exception for you.”
My pulse quickened. “Don’t mess with me.”
“I’m not! I’m seriously thinking about it. As long as you don’t tell anyone, I guess there’d be no harm.”
“You’re kidding!”
“I can be an asshole,” he said, “but I don’t joke about other people’s talent and dreams.” He looked at me a few seconds longer, then threw his head back and groaned. “Oh fuck it. If you want it, my voice is yours.”
“You’re kidding!” I repeated, unable to believe it. My whole body tingled.
“I’m not!” He shot back, matching my volume. “I want to know what these songs sound like with vocals, too. It just has to wait until I’m home and have the apartment to myself. Because anything I record will be for your ears only. If you’re okay with that, we have a deal.”
“I could kiss you… just for considering that.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.
His head snapped forward as he processed what I had said. Then a grin spread across his lips, his teeth catching the glow of my phone screen. “Kiss me, huh?”
“Oh, uh.” Damn. Stupid mouth. “I meant it as a figure of speech.”
“Sure.” He nodded, exaggerated and teasing. “You know…that’s too bad. I actually wouldn’t have said no to a kiss from you.”
“Well, now you’re joking.” He had to be.
My heart raced. He was still so close we were practically snuggling.
“Actually, I’m not.” He licked over his lips, pulling them in briefly. His nose wrinkled as he inhaled deeply. “But it’s a bad idea, isn’t it?”
I swallowed and stretched my legs out in front of me. “So bad,” I whispered, yet still turned fully toward him.
Our eyes locked.
The cocky grin that had adorned his face until now faded, replaced by a more serious look.
His lips parted.
His right hand crept forward and tapped my thigh.
We both looked down at it.
“Maybe…” he said softly, his voice low enough to make me shiver. “Maybe I don’t care how bad an idea it is.” His hand settled against my thigh. “What about you?”
I closed my eyes.
The loud, rapid drumming of my heartbeat was so overwhelming, I had to shut out the world to survive it.
Was my heart racing because he agreed to sing my song—or because he just asked to kiss me?
“Maybe,” I whispered back. “Maybe I don’t care either.”