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"That song deserves one." I stand without an ounce of regret. I meant every word. I enter the main studio.
Adam scoots off the stool, placing the guitar on the stand next to it. "Good. Because I wrote it for you."
"Me?" I pause. "I thought…"
"You asked for something different." He runs a nervous hand through his hair and avoids my gaze. He's wearing a rumbled faded t-shirt and worn shorts. Not his usual, put-together self. "I'm sorry about last night.” He lowers his chin and whispers, "not really."
His lyrics ricochet in my head. Sorry isn't a word I'll ever use for feeling the way I do about you. He avoids my gaze, and I can't decipher the meaning behind his words. Is it annoyance or something else?
Did he say he wrote the song for me or about me? I shake the cobwebs from my head and give him attitude. "Me neither." I don't apologize for the dressing down I gave him after the bumper carts. "Now, stop trying to change the subject. The song. Tell me about it."
I hop on the stool and reach for his hand, pulling him close. I won't let him fade into the background. Not with something as important as this.
"What do you want to know?"
I squeeze his hand forcing him to look at me. My breath hitches when I realize how close I've pulled him. He's standing between my legs on the stool, our faces mere inches away. A spark shoots up my leg when he rests his hands on my thigh. It's quickly become one of my most favorite things. That and fingernail scratches across the back of his neck. Whenever I'm within two feet of him, some part of me needs to be touching him.
There are so many questions I want to ask him, but with his hands resting on my legs and looking into my eyes like this, none of them have to do with music. I decide to start in a safe place. "What's the title?"
"I'll Never Apologize."
It's a bold statement from a man who's spent most of his musical career apologizing for the behavior of his brother. "Apologize for what?"
Half his mouth tilts into a smirk. "Dangerous question."
"I've got a dozen more," I tease him, surprised at how much I'm enjoying this version of Adam. Maybe the dressing down and the icy stares have woken him from the perpetual slumber he walks. "But let's start with this one."
He turns the wattage up on his midnight-blue eyes, electrifying my entire body. "It's a song. It's open to interpretation. I wrote it for you. Take it for what it is and make it yours." He clears up my confusion. Not about me. For me. Either way, I remain impressed. He's only been here two days. A day ago, all he had was an incomplete melody.
"When?"
"Last night."
"Last night?" I hear the shock in my voice. After the carnival games, we hit a boardwalk bar and hung out until one in the morning. That was seven hours ago.
His brows quirk up, "Inspiration hit around three this morning. You kind of leave a vivid impression."
He couldn't sleep—thinking about me? I try not to read too much into it; musicians are a strange lot. Dax once heard a drum barrel fall off the back of a truck and pounded on a coffee shop table for an hour, trying to incorporate the sound into a drumbeat.
"Do I give off the impression that I never apologize? For anything?" These aren't the questions I want to ask him, but it's early, and I'll need a much stronger drink in my hand to ask him what my heart really wants to ask.
"I think…" His index finger strokes a trail down my thigh, stopping at the top of my knee. "I think I'd need to get to know you much better to answer that question."
"That sounds like a non-answer to me." I grab his index finger and give it a playful squeeze. "It's just the two of us. Let down your guard."
"And let you in?" He completes the words I didn't.
His question surprises me only in the fact that he calls me out on it. "Would that be the worst thing in the world?"
"Another dangerous question." He nibbles on his lower lip. "You've already got me up in the middle of the night, consuming my every thought. What do you think happens next?"
I release his finger. This conversation has pivoted in a direction I didn't see coming. Warning bells fire up in my head. Half of me wants to continue what we started on the mini-golf course yesterday, while the other half urges me to keep it light and slow. "We'd get to know each other better," I offer the only answer I allow myself at this time. The only one I can.
"Friends." He spits the word out as if it carries a disease. His feet take a half step back, taking with him the heat. "I wrote the song for you, Ariel. It's intimate. And it's different from anything you've done before. It's yours for the taking." He taps the music stand, the pages pinned to the metal frame by magnets. "Anything you want is within your grasp."
He takes a position next to the music stand as if offering me a choice. Him or his music.
I don't apologize for my actions. I reach past the man and snatch the sheets of paper with a song that may have a future. I ignore the disappointed look in his eyes as I hold the papers in my lap. I pin him with a look that challenges him to make the next move.
