Page 18 of Love on the Tracks
“No reason.”
“You’re such a bad liar.”
“No, I’m an awesome liar, but I also happen to be a massive fan girl and you’ve overloaded my brain. I’m getting my own personal Zane Rivera concert. I have played it so cool for the past week, but you can’t blame me for losing my shit over this just a little.”
That’s actually pretty cute. But she’s right—if this is the true level of her fandom, I’ve only seen glimmers of it since I’ve met her. She’s been exceedingly chill the rest of the time, made me feel as if she liked spending time with me and not the lead singer of License to Game. I’m not quite sure how to feel about that. Has this been what’s going on in her head the whole time? She thinks regular old everyday Zane is boring, but pop star Zane is what gets her motor running? It’s half adorable and half disappointing as fuck.
Instead of getting too mired in why I might feel that way, I strum the strings and give her a dark look when she squeaks.
“I’ll be good, promise.” She draws a quick X over her heart and I roll my eyes. This will be memorable if nothing else.
I suck up my anxieties and close my eyes, hoping if I can focus on the music, I’ll forget about Rowan sitting two feet away. Unlikely.
It works well enough that I can get into the groove and can even hear some of the comments the guys would make if they were here. Teague would tell me the melody’s too complicated, Christian would tell me to give him something to do, Benji would say he thinks I’m onto something epic but it needs fine-tuning, and Nicky would say it sucks donkey balls because that’s what he always says—until he doesn’t, and that’s always when I know I’ve got something good.
Even though they aren’t here, I hear them, and I almost forget Rowan is sitting right by me until, alongside my frustrated tenor and the increasingly tense thrum of the strings, there’s a light and airy soprano. Not the kind of voice that would make someone a hit, or even stand out in a crowd, but sweet, pure, and with perfect pitch—which is more than I can say for a lot of the big names.
What she’s doing, a simple but pretty harmony, hits something in my soul. Like a cold glass of lemonade on a hot summer day, it shouldn’t be remarkable—how many glasses of lemonade have you had in a lifetime?—but there’s something about it that will remain with me for the rest of my life.
I finish out the section I’ve been playing over and over, and start to scribble. From those few bars, she’s jumpstarted something in my head, and the notes come to me. I read somewhere that a lot of writers hear voices in their heads. Well, I do too. Voices and instruments, words and beats. Though I’ve been stuck on those same repeating measures for months and I’d started wondering if I’d ever be able to hack it on my own, Rowan’s opened the floodgates.
She sits quietly while I scribble, not asking me any questions or offering any advice. When I start to play again, she sings along until I get to the new measures, and then she’s quiet; listening. Really listening, because after scribbling some more things down and getting another burst of sound pouring through my brain, I start over again and she’s memorized enough of the new things to at least hum along.
It’s like a being in a hurricane, so caught up I get in the madness, and it’s only when I look at the clock I realize we’ve been doing this for two hours. Rowan’s slumped over on her end of the couch, curled up with her eyes closed, still humming dreamily.
Not quite awake and not quite asleep, I hope she feels like this has been a dream come true. God knows that’s how I feel.
It’s fucking selfish of me, but I don’t want to stop. Not yet, not while there’s still fairy dust in the air. The song is almost done, and I think if I can get a few more runs in, it’ll click. But with another glance at Rowan, I know I can’t do it.
She’d already had a hard day when she got here, and then what did she do, rest? No, she sat here with me and helped me work through this. She had said she’d take the couch, but I’d been planning to offer her the bed. She’s got a race the day after tomorrow, and no way am I going to be the person responsible for her getting a shitty night’s sleep.
I set my guitar on the table and then kneel in front of her, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, Rowan.”
She makes a sleepy “mmph,” but otherwise I get nothing.
There’s some hair in her face, so I brush it away, noticing for the first time she’s got a sprinkling of pale freckles across her cheeks. For some reason I can’t quite explain, that small detail twists something in my stomach. She’s really beautiful. In a way I didn’t appreciate at first, or maybe in a way I took for granted.
It’s as though I’m seeing her for the first time. Yes, I’ve been attracted to her since the beginning, but she’s not just a hot body on a sled, not just a twittering fangirl. I’ve wanted her, enjoyed kissing her, but that want has turned into something deeper, and for the first time worry nags at me. On my end, I don’t have room to spare to take on any new obligations. As much fun as relationships can be, there’s a responsibility there too. Can’t imagine Rowan’s got a ton of spare time on her plate either. What’s going to happen to us at the end of these two weeks? The likely answer is nothing.
Chapter Eight
Rowan
When I wake up, it’s not on my dorm room–quality bed in my room at the village. No, the bed I’m in is A, huge, B, firm but still soft in the way really nice mattresses are, and C, not empty. Whoa.
I sit up, grabbing for the sheet even though I’m not naked. It feels like I’m wearing my track pants and a T-shirt, but no bra. How the—
Then I take a closer look at the arm I brushed with my hand. It’s muscular but not bulky, and it has a dark dusting of hair starting at the wrist, and going all the way up to a nicely sculpted shoulder and a mop of black hair. So this is what Zane Rivera looks like when he’s not posing for the cameras, or for anyone at all. Or, as I got to see him last night, lost in thought.
Listening to him compose was mind-blowing. I didn’t want to interrupt because I worried I’d ruin whatever trance he’d worked himself into, but it was incredible. And to think I might’ve had even a tiny part in that? I flop back on the bed and cover my face with one of the horde of fluffy pillows, muffling my excited squeak and trying not to kick my feet. I don’t want to wake him up.
“Is that how you sleep every night?”
Dammit. My face scrunches up and I’m super glad I still have the pillow even though it’s the original cause of my mortification. Eventually, I find it in me to remove it and drop it off the side of the bed, turning onto my side to face him.
“No. Do you lure strange women to your bed to sleep platonically beside them every night?”
He laughs and rolls onto his back, tucking his hands behind his head. “First of all, I didn’t lure you here. You invited yourself over. Second, you’re not strange. Well, you’re not a stranger at least. Third, I thought you’d be more comfortable here than on the couch, and fourth . . .”
