Page 90 of Dirty Like Seth
He didn’t say anything to that, but he didn’t look happy. I knew he was probably thinking about all the ways this might come back on me, to bite me in theass.
“Let’s just play,” I said, turning away. “And we’ll see whathappens.”
After a moment, he joined me by the window to look out over thewater.
“Nice view,” he said, which was kinda putting it mildly. “Doesn’t make for the best acoustics…” He rapped a knuckle lightly on the glass. “But I can see why you wouldn’t want to cover it up.” Then he looked at me, like he liked the view inside the room evenmore.
“Yeah. I, uh…” I faltered under the look in those smoky eyes of his and gazed outside again. “I have a basement studio in my place in L.A., but I don’t love feeling like I’m in some dark cave while I work. This suits mebetter.”
“I can see that,” he saidsoftly.
“I just bought the house this year, since I was spending so much time up here. You know, writing the new album with the guys…” I trailedoff.
Seth saidnothing.
He turned back to the room, and I watched as he perused the equipment. It was a fully-furnished and equipped recording studio, though it lacked a drum kit. The space and the acoustics didn’t allow for that. Originally, this was the main living room of the house, but as soon as I’d moved in, I’d sacrificed it to my music. In the end, it wasn’t much of a sacrifice. Music was the core of my life; it only made sense that it filled the heart of myhome.
I watched Seth take his guitar out of its case. It was the same slightly-battered and clearly well-loved acoustic he’d brought with him to Hawaii. He looked at me as he strapped it on; I was still hovering by thewindow.
“You want me to play,” he said, and gave me a small smirk, “you might want to sit your sexy ass down. It’s gonna take awhile.”
So I sat my sexy ass down on the couch. And for a while, I just listened to Sethplay.
He played me a song that he’d written, a gorgeous ballad that he sang to me while he played. The lyrics were typical rock ballad stuff, something about being on the road and missing someone back home, then being home and missing the road, but there was something about the way Seth sang it. The way Seth played it. The little unexpected twists he threw into the lyrics, just when you thought he was going to sing something cliche and rhyming, then he didn’t. Something that kept you on edge for the next word, the next verse. That rare and heartrending something that was uniquelySeth’s.
Fuckinghell, but he was an incrediblesongwriter.
He played me another song, more up-tempo, but just as catchy, just as haunting and addictive andbittersweet.
And then he just kept playing. Andplaying…
As it turned out, once he’d cracked open that can of worms… Seth had a ton of material. Ideas. Songs and parts of songs. And his fuckingtalent… it was oozing from his fingertips. Dripping from hislyrics.
He basically had seven years’ worth of untapped material. But not one completed, recordedsong.
I wasastonished.
This was Seth Brothers. A lot of bands—great bands—would’ve taken him on. Great musicians. Producers. He could’ve put together his own band, under his own name. Woo himself probably would’ve hit the studio with Seth if Seth had ever asked himto.
“I never wrote with anyone but Dirty,” he explained as I sat here, just astounded by the sheer volume of untapped brilliance, the scope of his work. I hadn’t even touched my bass yet, or opened my mouth, other than to gape at him. “I never wroteforanyone else. Guess I’ve got kind of a backloghere…”
That was putting itmildly.
And I was nothing but grateful. Humbled, actually, that he’d chosen to share his work—his passion—with me, likethis.
Grateful, also, that there was so damn much of it. Because the more material Seth and I had to play and explore and fiddle around with, the longer we could draw this out. Here, in my home studio… this private little bubble where we were hidden away from the rest of theworld.
Just the two of us and themusic.
* * *
Several days later,Seth and I were just finishing up a long day—and half of the night—playing together in the studio, and as I watched him laying his guitar down in its case, I asked him, “How do you feel about all ofthis?”
His back was to me, but by the way he stopped moving when I asked, I knew he’d picked up on the fact that I was asking him how he felt about a lot more than the music we’d beenplaying.
That I was asking him how he felt about playing music with me… but not having sex withme.
Maybe I wanted to know if it was slowly killing him, like it was killingme.
