Page 112 of Dirty Like Seth
Elle immediately stopped playing her bass and whirled on Dylan, who was sprawled on the couch. He’d been listening to the two of us lay down some guitar work. “You told him?” shedemanded.
“Hey,” Zane said, feigning offense as he tossed his leather vest aside. “What kind of welcome is that? You know, usually when I walk into a recording studio, people are pretty happy to seeme.”
Dylan just shrugged. “Didn’t know this was a private session,” he said to Elle, and the two of them exchanged a brief, wordless argument that ended in Elle giving up a pissysigh.
“Bring me up to speed, kids,” Zane said casually, stretching out on the couch next to Dylan. “I wanna hearit.”
Elle looked helplessly at me, and I shrugged. This really wasn’t my call. I did not wanna do or say anything to cause problems between Elle andZane.
So I kept my mouth shut as she turned to the window and told Cody, “Go ahead.” Then she slid off her bass and resigned herself to flopping on the othercouch.
I set down my guitar and sat next to her, Zane’s blue eyes glued to me as I didit.
Cody played back what we’d just recorded; it was the best song we had so far. Elle and I had laid in some temp vocals, but clearly the song could use a stronger lead. We still weren’t sure what direction we were gonna take the vocals, but I felt kinda embarrassed listening to them with Zane in the room. Elle had a gorgeous voice, but we really hadn’t committed to what we were doingyet.
When the song was done, Zane said, “You have some lyrics writtendown?”
I had them, in my phone. But Elle liked to write everything out, longhand, in a bunch of little pink notebooks she kept in one of her guitar cases. She pulled one of them out now and flipped through, then handed it tohim.
Zane looked it over. He seemed to be processing what he’d just heard, tapping out a rhythm on his knee with hisknuckles.
Then he got to hisfeet.
“Let me give this a go,” he said. And no one was exactly gonna stop him as he stepped up to themic.
I sat back and listened as Cody played the song back, without vocals, and Zane gave his voice to oursong.
As he sang, I got serious tingles down my spine. And a fucking lump in mythroat.
Several times he stopped, and cued Cody to stop and start again. He sang it differently than we had, more aggressively—and way fuckingbetter.
After several takes, he stopped. He stood there, looking at the words on the page of Elle’s notebook. Then he turned and looked atus.
I could barely process the enormity of this moment. Zane Traynor, singing one of my new songsagain.
I had no idea if anyone in the room really knew what this meant tome.
Zane was Dirty’s frontman, and as much as they might all butt heads with him at times, I knew the band would never agree to anything he was dead set against. But Zane had never been dead set against me. I was pretty sure of that by now. I knew he’d loved me like a brother, once; he’d told me so, many times. He’d brought me into the band, always had my back. He was the last to turn on me when things went south, and the first to welcome me back,too.
Truly, it mattered to me—a fuck of a lot—what Zane thought about all of this. What he thought aboutme.
His ice-blue eyes cut to mine. “Who wrote thisshit?”
“Seth,” Ellesaid.
“It’s fucking good,” Zanesaid.
“Thanks, man,” I managed to say. I was incredibly thankful; even if I never got to play with Zane again, this moment was vindication of asort.
Joanie appeared in the control booth, whispered something to Cody, and Cody informed us through his mic, “Maggie’soutside.”
And my heart beat a little harder; it was already poundingferociously.
How much worse, or better, was this gonnaget?
“Let her in,” Zanesaid.
I looked at Elle. Her gray eyes met mine; she looked like her heart was pounding, too. Her hand nudged against mine on the couch between us, and I slid my pinkie finger overhers.
