June #2
He glanced at her mouth, noticing how full her lips were.
He’d been far more aware of that in the time since she’d moved solidly into the ‘off-limits’ category.
She’d also lost a lot of weight, which gave her cheekbones that could rival Naomi Campbell.
“I hope you’ll be able to feel that too someday. That power. It’s addictive.”
“I want to feel it.”
The right side of his mouth curved up. “It’s better than sex.”
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Well, maybe they’re equal.” Zane licked his lips. “What made you want to do this?”
Shrugging, she said, “I could never imagine myself doing anything else. From the time I was little. My mom would put on Aretha Franklin or The Beatles, and I would dance and sing until I was overheated and exhausted. I’d ask her to play my favorites over and over.
When I was three, I’d used my skipping rope as a microphone.
I’d fake plug it into the couch and belt out Elton John and Kiki Dee.
I didn’t know many of the words, but I went for it anyway. ”
Zane grinned, imagining her as a little girl, singing away into a skipping rope. He put his hands on the keyboard and played the first few chords of ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.’”
Claudia joined in and they sang a few verses, grinning and laughing through it while she pretended to hold a microphone up to her mouth. When it was over, he said, “Pure joy. That one is pure joy.”
Zane stared at her, feeling a hum of excitement. He knew they were on the edge of something huge. He didn’t know what, but just like the day when they performed for the producer who gave them their start, he knew things were about to change. Permanently.
CLAUDIA
Claudia gazed at Zane, her heart racing. “That’s the best kind of song. The pure joy kind. Or … ones filled with raw heartache. I love the extremes.”
“Me too.”
“It really is a special kind of magic, isn’t it?
The way a single stanza and a few notes can make you feel something that would take an entire novel to do.
How the perfect song lets you forget everything and lose yourself in it, even if it’s just until the last note plays.
” Her love for music surged as she spoke, waking her up despite the late hour.
“When I write, it feels like I’m taking all these big emotions and thoughts bottled up inside and releasing them. It’s cathartic.”
“I totally get that,” Zane said, glancing at her mouth. Or maybe that was her imagination… “So, show me what you’ve got, Claudia. I want to know what’s inside you.”
Claudia bit her lip, her cheeks heating up. “I have been working on something, but I’m sure it’s not worth listening to.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
Claudia released a shaky breath. “Oh, God, the stakes are way too high. It would kill me if you hate it.”
Zane stared deep into her eyes. “Why? I’m just a man. A desperate one at that.”
“You’re not just a man,” Claudia tilted her head. “You’re Zane McCreight.”
“I promise I won’t hate it.”
“You can’t promise that.”
His eyes flicked to her lips again. “Yes, I can.”
“There’s no way you can know how you’ll feel before you even hear one note of it.
” Claudia turned from him, making a slow loop around the grand piano, her fingertips gliding along the edge of the glossy black instrument.
“What if it’s awful, but you feel obligated to pretend it’s good, and the entire world hates it, and it becomes the tragic downfall of a once-great rock band? ”
“Won’t happen.”
Knowing she shouldn’t, she sat down on the stool and stared up at him. “But what if it does?”
“We’re The Vows. Nothing can take us down.”
“That’s some Titanic-level bravado.”
Zane chuckled, then his face grew serious. “How about this? I promise if it’s not for us, I’ll say so, and we’ll go back to how things are right at this very moment.”
Claudia looked up at him but said nothing. Instead, she swallowed hard, searching for the courage to share her soul with him.
Zane leaned in until he was dangerously close to her. “What if your song would’ve been the biggest hit of our lives, only you were too scared to take a chance?”
“That would be a tragedy.”
“Wouldn’t it?”
Nodding, she inched ever so slightly closer to him, and they both knew what could happen if they let it.
But then, right when she was ready to abandon all her morals, Claudia forced herself to look down at the keyboard.
She put her fingers on the keys, and began to play a slow, tortured tune that said everything she’d been feeling for two long years.
“When I look into your eyes, all I see is a future that can never be, a world where I’m finally blissfully, painfully happy…
a world where I wake up with you next to me, your arms around me, your chest bare, our bodies intertwined, our souls locked together forever…
And if I didn’t have him, and you didn’t have her, we could be everything to each other, if you didn’t have her and I didn’t have him, I’d be your sun, your moon, and your stars, I’d be the light you come home to at the end of the day, I’d be the holder of all your secrets so deep, I’d be the woman you’d love and the one that you’d keep…
If I didn’t have him, and you didn’t have her, you’d be the woods I get lost in, the ocean that fills me, the tide that brings me to shore… ”
She stopped abruptly, taking her hands off the keys and tucking them into the long sleeves of her cable-knit sweater. “That’s all I’ve got.”
Zane swallowed hard, looking dumbstruck. “That is maybe the best thing I’ve heard in years.”
Her heart pounded, and she shook her head. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is, Claud. It’s… a perfect song. Raw heartache. We should turn it into a duet and add it to the album.”
She lifted her hands to her mouth and let out a sound that was part sob and part scream. “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “It’s our lead single. Do you have the lyrics written down somewhere?”
“Yes.” She jumped up and ran over to her purse, grabbing her notebook and rushing back to him. Sitting down, she flipped through the pages until she found it. Then she placed it on the music stand.
Zane scrunched his eyes to see the words. “I’m going to write it out for myself. My old man eyes can’t read your tiny writing.”
Claudia laughed and sat next to him while he transcribed her words onto a yellow pad in his big, loopy printing.
She felt as if she were watching the whole thing from outside herself.
This was it. This was the moment when all her dreams were about to come true.
When he finished, he replaced her book with the pad, then said, “Here, I’ve marked whose stanzas are whose.
” He grinned at her. “Okay, let’s take it from the top. ”
She started to play, and soon he joined in, mirroring her chords in a lower octave.
The sound of the music coming from the piano was rich and full and perfect, and she wished they had a sound engineer to record it.
She wished her mom could be there to witness it.
Her daughter, now lean and pretty, was also a brilliant artist about to get her due.
Their voices rang out, tangling up together like lovers in the sheets.
They smiled at each other when they reached the final round of the chorus, and she knew by the look in his eyes that part of him wanted her.
Not all of him. She could never have all of him. But she could have this.
When the last note played, they sat, arms pressed together, both panting a little as if they’d just made love. Claudia grinned at him. “Wow, that was…”
“That’s what it feels like to write a hit.”
Pride swelled in her chest. “You really think it’s a hit?”
“There’s no question about it,” he said.
“Oh, wow.” Tears filled Claudia’s eyes, and her voice cracked when she spoke. “This is everything I’ve dreamed of my whole life.”
“Just wait, Claud. Wait ‘til you hear thirty thousand people singing it back to you. It’s the greatest drug there is.”
Without thinking about it, Claudia wrapped her arms around Zane and hugged him tight, whispering, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. It’s yours.”
She let him go and stared at him, her entire body humming with an excitement she’d never known before. She longed to kiss him, hold him, rip off his clothes and act on her feelings.
Zane looked down at her as if she were the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. Then he said, “Listen, Claud, there’s one tiny problem with using your song.” He squinted at her. “The label won’t use it if it’s not mine.”
Her heart sank, and she narrowed her eyes while she tried to understand what he was telling her. “I don’t get it. What does that mean?”
“It means we have to pretend I wrote it. It’s either that, or it’ll get buried. I wish it wasn’t the way it is, but that’s the deal we have with them. It sucks though.”
Her mind raced back to the day of her audition, when Mike said Zane was the only one allowed to write for the band.
She didn’t have enough experience to understand how these things worked, only that it felt wrong to give up her rights without even asking someone else for advice.
But who could she trust? The only people in the business that she knew were all part of the band.
Zane’s gaze grew desperate. “Don’t let them bury your song. We’ll always know the truth. Even if no one else does. It’ll still be yours.”
She nodded, knowing she either agreed to it now or she’d be choosing to let her dream die on the vine. “Okay.”
“Good girl,” Zane said, tucking a lock of her chestnut brown hair behind her ear.
“What the fuck is this shit?” Mike stood at the door to the studio, his arms folded, a scowl on his face.
Panic overtook Claudia, and she jumped up, her brain scrambling for something to say that would placate her boyfriend.
But she didn’t have to say anything because Zane gave him a breezy smile. “We finally got a hit song. Claud was just helping me work out the kinks.”
“Oh, really? Cause it looks a lot like my best friend and my girlfriend cozying up together the second they’re left alone.”
Shooting off the bench, Zane waved a dismissive hand at Mike. “I’m happily married and you’re an insecure idiot. We were working. That’s it.”
“I know what I saw.” Mike crossed the room in three quick strides, and the two men stood face-to-face, looking as if they were about to fight.
Claudia hurried over to them, grabbing Mike’s hand. “Honestly, Mike, there’s no need to go all Neanderthal. Zane’s telling the truth.”
Mike shook off her hand, his hard gaze never leaving Zane’s. “That’s not what it looked like to me.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Claudia snapped. “He’s married to a freaking model, and even if he wasn’t, he could get any woman he wants. You actually think he’d break up his marriage for me?”
Mike glared at her. “I can get any woman I want too, you know. I’ve slept with plenty of models.”
“I’m sure you have,” Claudia answered, sounding very much like a preschool teacher soothing a whiny child. “Now, let’s go home. We’re all exhausted.” She took his hand again and led him toward the door, grabbing her purse off the coat rack. “Good night, Zane. Say hi to your beautiful wife for me.”
“Hey, Claudia,” Zane said, stopping them both in their tracks. With a slow smile, he added, “We’ve got our first single.”