Chapter 44
Chapter forty-four
Hendrix · Now
The (After) Life Of The Party – Fall Out Boy
Axel slides across the couch and drops his head in my lap.
“Dude!” I tug the notebook out from under him. “Can’t you go annoy somebody else?”
He groans, grabs my hand, and pushes my fingers into his buzzed hair. “God forbid a guy wants to hang out with friend.”
I shake my head, tapping my pencil against his brow while my fingers dance over his scalp. He hums, a smile ghosting over his lips.
It’s weird how easily we’ve fallen back into this routine. As if no time has passed at all, Axel just let me back in, in a way the others haven’t quite yet.
“Well, since you’re here.” I hold my notebook open over his face. “What do you think about this line?”
He scans the page, tipping his chin back. His nose wrinkles. “Very melodramatic.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I hiss air through my teeth, flipping my pencil and erasing the scribbled words. “I can’t seem to figure out this bridge.”
“You ask Cole his thoughts?”
“Nu-uh. Haven’t seen him.”
Not since I slipped out of his flat last night when he fell asleep on the couch.
Pretty sure I deserve a sainthood for leaving while he was sprawled out. My instinct was to curl up in his arms, but I forced myself to go back to my own place and do some work.
My business phone has been ringing off the hook the last couple weeks, and my inbox is a mess of requests and queries. I’ve never taken so much time off since I started in the business. A week here and there but nothing more. I’ve never wanted to.
I liked being busy in the studio.
Now, the thought of stacking my client list and getting back behind the mixing desk has me feeling all the things I don’t know how to deal with.
“What if I did…” I click my tongue, clenching my eyes shut as my brain works. “Now I’m chasing echoes, forever tracing lines of the girl I lost but never left behind.”
A long minute passes in silence.
Heat crawls over my cheeks as I feel his eyes digging into me.
I’m not stupid enough to think he can’t read between the lines of my lyrics.
The thing with songwriting, while you can make things up from your mind, there’s a beauty in using real life as your base. Real stories, real emotions, they all create the best, most honest music—the music that sells because it feels.
“I like it,” he says, finally.
“Yeah?” I peek at him through cracked lashes. “Not just blowing smoke up my arse?”
“Would I ever do that?”
I give him a pointed glance.
“Point taken.” He sighs as I brush my knuckles over his forehead. “But I promise I’m not. You’ve still got it, baby girl.”
A sharp breath catches. “You think?”
“Yeah, definitely.” He smiles. “You gonna keep writing after this?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“Because you’re too good not to, Rix.”
I smirk down at him. “Why, thank you.”
“Seriously, you’re just gonna walk away from it all again? Put the guitar down and go back to mixing?”
“Truth?”
“Truth.”
“I have a career I’ve built from the ground up. Commitments I can’t just walk away from. And with writing … I’ve never done this for anybody but you guys. I wouldn’t even know the first thing about working with somebody else.”
Axel arches a brow as he glances up at me.
I nibble the end of my pencil. “It works between me and Cole, because we’re me and Cole. He knows my process, I know his. We bounce off each other. I’d even go as far as to say, creatively we’re…” Soulmates. “Incredibly, well matched.”
“Is that why you stopped writing?” he asks, quietly. “You were afraid you wouldn’t be well matched with somebody else?”
“There were many reasons I locked my guitar away, Ax.” I tap his nose with the eraser and force a smile. “Anyway, why are we talking about this? I haven’t even finished your album yet and you’re already trying to fob me off on someone else.”
“I would never.” He nestles deeper into my lap, his eyes shuttering closed. “Now, be quiet. I’m snoozing.”
“You’re the one who—”
He clamps a hand over my mouth. “Shh.”
I roll my eyes, and swat him away.
He pinches my thigh before rolling onto his side.
I prop my notebook on his head, nibbling the pencil as my mind spins with Saint's, Cole’s, and now Axel’s words.
I wish it was as simple as they seem to believe. That I can just pick up my guitar, write a song, and do it over and over again for the rest of my days.
But I have a business. A business partner. I’ve made promises to clients who are relying on me to hold up my end of the bargain. I created a world where I’d never have to write because I truly believed I never would again.
But then Cole Hayes showed up at my studio door.
“Is it any wonder people always asked if you were banging all of us?”
A smile tugs at my lips at the sound of Cole's voice.
I crane my neck to the door.
He leans in the frame, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded over his tight black T-shirt, grey joggers slung low on his hips.
My knees quiver.
He hikes a brow at my lazy perusal, a boyish grin lighting up his face.
I force my gaze downwards.
Axel snores in my lap, dribble leaking from the corner of his mouth and onto my leggings.
I chuckle. “It's my fault none of you ever understood personal space.”
“Pretty sure you used to like me all up in your space, Rixie Moore.”
“That’s rather presumptuous of you, Rock Star.”
“If you say so.” Cole’s voice is low, barely more than a whisper as he drags his eyes over me.
My fucking fanny flutters. Shallow thing she is.
I slant my gaze and slam my notebook. “Are you here to finally do some work?”
“Afraid not.” He shakes his head, smirking. “I’m just here to inform you that your presence is requested at family dinner tonight.”
“Family dinner?”
“Uh-uh. Every week do a come dine with me style thing, don’t ask." He shrugs at my quizzing stare. “Theo came up with it years ago, and it stuck. I'm hosting tonight.”
I arch a brow. “Can you even cook?”
“Absolutely not. But I order a mean take-away.”
“Hmm, well that sounds positively lovely. But no can do.”
He tilts his head. “Why?”
Besides the fact I’m not in the family anymore?
“I’m driving home tonight.”
His lips turn down, eyes training past my shoulder when he strolls into the room.
“To pick up Riley,” I rush out, not liking the frown on his face. “She's been having car troubles so it's in the garage. Plus she doesn’t really like driving anyway. And I need to get some strings for my guitar, maybe some more clothes. Probably need to talk to Tal—”
He tugs a strand of my hair. “You just had to say Riley.”
Searing heat coasts my cheeks.
He lifts Axel's legs and slides onto the couch beneath them. “You want company on the drive?”
I shake my head. “You have your dinner thing.”
“They’ll live without me for one week.” He drapes his arm over the back, his fingers grazing my shoulder.
I shiver. “I can’t ask you to cancel your plans for me.”
“You’re not asking, I’m offering.” He squeezes my neck.
My instinct is to tell him no, to force him to remain with his people.
It’s the same conversation we had a hundred times over when we were together. The argument that played on a constant loop in the last year of our relationship.
I bite my tongue until I taste blood.
“And I’m not taking no for an answer.” He grins. “I missed you today, Rixie.”
My lips twitch. “It’s only been a few hours since you’ve seen me, dude.”
“Twelve and a half, but who’s counting.” He winks and I turn to fucking goo.
“Okay,” I say. “You can come with me, if you want.”
Cole's eyes widen.
I purse my lips.
He opens his mouth.
My shoulders tremble.
“Rixie.” He twists slowly.
I suck my lower lip into my mouth.
“No.”
My stomach clenches and I slap a hand against my mouth.
“Fuck no!” He throws his hand out towards my pastel pink Beetle convertible. A choked laugh bubbles up my throat and I clamp a hand over my lips. “I’m not getting into that thing.”
A giggle spills past my lips.
He stares at me with a horrified expression. “I won’t fit.”
I wheeze.
“This isn’t funny.” He steps closer to me. “There’s no fucking way.”
“Come on, Rock Star.” I slink around him, keys swinging around my finger, as laughter explodes from me. “Live a little. Be reckless with me.”
“I hate you.”
I tug the door open and wink at him before sliding into the driver’s seat.