Page 46 of Just Wait

She didn’t just craft them.

She nailed the entire energy I was trying to convey.

“When The Time Comes,” is what I wrote on the flight back to Florida after my dad had his heart attack.

Benji called and told me to get my ass back home because they’d filled Drew’s spot. The label wanted us practicing to ensure we would mesh well, but I was terrified my dad would have a setback and die while I wasn’t around.

Lumen took the emotions and fine-tuned them into something that isn’t specific. Each listener will hear what they want to hear, applying it to what’s going on in their life.

That’s the key to writing music that hits the audience right in the soul.

I’m not jealous.

I’m baffled.

Are we that in sync?

Or is she truly that talented?

“Do you like it?” she asks, letting Kincaid’s Telecaster hang from the strap around her neck.

Under normal circumstances, he’d kick my ass if he saw me letting anyone play his baby. If he witnessed what I just did, he’d be too shocked to knock me out.

“I kept your chord progressions, intro, and verse. I just added the little bit we talked about to the lyrics,” she says, moving to pull off Kincaid’s guitar.

She’s a dirty little liar.

She tweaked everything I gave her…

For the better.

I’m not even mad.

I think that sensation in my gut might be awe.

If this is what she can create in an hour, what could she compose in a month?

“No, don’t take it off,” I say, shaking my head. “I want you to show me what you did.” She’s only a few feet away, and I move behind her.

I curl around her back, making sure I’ve got a view of her hands.

Lumen peeks at me over her shoulder.

“If you lean back, it’ll be easier for me to see what you’re doing,” I lie.

I can see fine, but I want her touching me. She leans her shoulders back against my chest, and it does give me a better view.

Her hands are small compared to mine, but she plays with no trouble. She definitely changed up some of what I had noted for the song.

It sounds better than what I had, and my stomach flip-flops with a weird feeling as she hums.

When she starts singing, my jaw falls.

There’s no reason she’s not signed to her own contract. They’d want her to work with a vocal coach to help with the things she hasn’t been trained in, but she could fill her own venues.

That’s not me looking at her with rose-colored glasses, either. She needs to learn diaphragm support and how to control her tones, but she’s got killer pipes, and it doesn’t even sound like she’s pushing her range.

She runs through everything she created, and I don’t even think I can take cowriting credit at this point.