Page 48 of Score
Shit.
“Nah. Sorry. Nothing.” I try to clear my head of the scene with Verity. “You guys wanna take it from verse one?”
They all look at me strangely.
“Verse one’s already in the can,” Bret reminds me. “We’re on verse three.”
“Right.” I nod and force my focus back to the session. “That’s what I meant. Let’s get verse three done.”
My phone lights up. I have it on silent and should really ignore it, but I can’t help but wonder… half hope… that it’s Verity offering some explanation for tonight. Petra’s contact appearing onscreen is the last thing I expect. I want to abandon the soundboard and answer immediately, but I’ve pushed it enough with this group. No doubt they’ll mention all theshit from tonight to the studio manager. The last thing I need in my final semester is to get fired. By my estimate, we’ll be here for another twenty minutes. I’ll call her back as soon as we break.
“Great job, guys,” I tell them once we wrap.
“You were the best, as always,” Bret says, the last of the musicians to finish packing up.
“Sorry for the, uh… distractions.”
“Girl that pretty can distract me anytime.” He winks and smiles without a trace of the annoyance from before.
“Yeah, she’s something else,” I sigh. “But she’s worth it.”
“She the one?” Bret’s brows lift. I’ve known him longer than the rest of his band, and he’s never seen me with the same girl twice.
“Yeah. I think she is, but don’t tell her,” I say dryly. “She might run a mile in the other direction.”
“It’s like that? Most guys I know are the ones runnin’.”
“Believe me, I usually am, but this one…” I shake my head, bemused by the depth of my own feelings. “We haven’t been together long, so I just don’t want to scare her off or jinx it, ya feel me?”
“Had me a girl like that. Faster she would run, the harder I’d chase.”
“How’d it turn out?”
“I married her,” he says with a cocky grin. “But it took longer to catch her than I thought it would. The wild ones take some time. Gotta let them come to it on their own.”
“Verity’s not a wild one.” I frown and shoot him an uncomfortable glance. “Today wasn’t… typical. She’s usually morereserved… I guess would be the word?”
“You like her better that way?”
“I like her any way I can get her,” I admit.
As odd as her behavior has been lately, the soul-deep connection I felt to her from the beginning hasn’t waned.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and Petra’s contact flashes on my screen again. I forgot all about ignoring her call earlier.
“Oh, ’scuse me, Bret. Gotta take this.”
We fist-pound and I answer the call as he exits.
“Petra, what’s up?”
“Nigga, I been trying to get ahold of you.”
“Sorry. I was in a session all night.”
“You need to get down here. Verity… she’s acting really strange. Something ain’t right.”
As soon as I hear Verity’s name, my feet start moving, even though I don’t know where they’re taking me yet.
