Page 68 of Just Business

The opening chords of “Hallelujah” fill the room, each note flawless. But when she begins to sing the first verse, something inside me stills. My breath hitches, and my jaw falls open.

Oh, my beautiful Penny, what have you done? You truly did give up so much for your dad and this studio.

All of her talent just sits unused, when the whole world could be hearing this right now. I slide down the door listening as she sings each verse, her voice, achingly beautiful, ringing out above the piano. Each verse builds into a perfect crescendo, and pulls back flawlessly.

And as I sit there listening, the realization slams into me with the force of a freight train.

I love this woman.

I am so gone for this woman who sees past all my mess to who I really am underneath it all, and still chooses me. Every day since we met, I’ve looked at her and thought,I can’t believe I got so lucky to be here right now with her. It’s like my soul recognized hers and said,this right here is home.

I don’t know how to tell her or when. But I know one thing for damn sure—before I leave, I have to.

When the song ends, there’s a heavy silence with something Penny keeps to herself. The sharp screech of the piano bench dragging across the floor breaks the stillness, and I scramble to my feet as her footsteps approach the door I’m currently leaning against.

“How much did you hear?” she asks, her eyes narrowing at the guilty look on my face.

“Penny, that was unlike anything I’ve ever heard,” I say, bypassing her question.

A shadow of something moves across her face and she gives a one-shouldered shrug. Turning, she heads back to the piano and I follow.

“Recording ended early today, so I’ve been working on something. I was giving my mind a break, hoping it would help to get my creative juices flowing. Wanna see?” Penny points to a piece of paper sitting on the piano bench. Words are scribbled across every line of the page, and I study them.

“Oh my god,” I say when it hits me. My eyes snap up to hers. “You’ve been writing my song.”

Penny arches a sardonic eyebrow at me, so I explain. “Not my song, obviously. I’ve been up there all day trying to piece together snatches of lyrics, but nothings working. This is why. It’s supposed to be a duet. That’s why it’s not working.”

She takes the paper, studying it. “Well, I’m no songwriter. This is a bunch of scribble scrabble that probably makes no sense. I know the mechanics of writing a song, but I’m not good with words so it feels like it’s all over the place. And putting it to a melody is driving me insane.”

“No, this is perfect. Look—” I sit down at the piano bench and she sits beside me, putting the paper up on the music easel so we can both see it. “These parts right here don’t really flow well with the regular verses, but see how easily they’d fit as a bridge?” I draw an arrow toward the bottom of the page. “They’re kinda the devil’s advocate of the song, ya know? The opposite of the rest.”

She nods, awareness lighting her face up. “Yep, you’re right. That makes perfect sense.”

“Can we work on this tonight? I have dinner from Jackson’s.” I jump up and grab the two paper bags from the diner, holding them out to her. “I’ll go grab my guitar. I really think we could knock this out tonight. You’ve already done the hard part by writing the lyrics.”

Penny looks back and forth between the paper and me, and with a small smile, she says, “Let’s do it.”

That fire I’ve seen over and over while I’ve been here is back in her eyes, and all I can think isthere she is. Every time that fire reaches her dark amber eyes, it’s like I’m turned inside out, not knowing up from down.

Once I’ve grabbed my guitar, I settle on the floor, spreading our food around us and she joins me. We eat quickly so we can get back to work on the music.

It takes a while to match the melody I’ve had in my head to her lyrics, and we rearrange a couple of parts so it makes sense for a duet, but after a couple of hours and multiple notebook pages later, we’ve got a rough draft scribbled out.

She’s reading over what we’ve written, when I reach out to lower the paper down.

“Sing it with me.” I raise my eyebrows in question as our eyes lock. “I’m not singing this with anyone but you.”

Penny worries her bottom lip, looking around the room and back at the song in her hand. “I don’t know.”

“I do. We can cut a demo tonight. It’ll probably take a few tries to get it right, so don’t get in your head about it. After we listen to it, if you hate it, we can erase it or whatever you want to do.”

The moment stretches out between us, but finally, she lifts her chin slightly and grins. “Okay. But keep your expectations low.”

“What the fuck ever.” I scoff. “Did you forget I was sitting right outside that door a few hours ago and heard everything?”

Penny doesn’t say anything, but as she rises to adjust the microphones, there’s a tiny smile on her face. I grab the music stand and set it between the two stools so we can both see the words and Penny goes to the sound booth to hit the record button.

“I’m not sure how good the quality will be without anyone working the controls, but here goes nothing,” she says when she lowers onto the stool.

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