Page 108 of Code Word
He nodded slowly; a flicker of uncertainty flashed across his face. “Here or back home?”
I shrugged. “Both. I dunno. I want to have both. With you.”
Now he smiled, heading to the stairs. “Okay. I’ll get my laptop.”
“Can you grab my phone too, please?” I asked. “It’s... somewhere up there, I think I plugged it in.”
I was carrying his guitar out to the patio when he came downstairs. I planted myself on the lounge chair as he dumped his laptop and our phones, his notebook, and pen.
“Thanks.”
He went for a quick swim in the ocean and came back with wet hair and droplets of water running down his skin. He was a sight to behold.
I was strumming on his guitar, and he grinned as he fell onto his chair.
I strummed out a few random notes and sang, “If you could see yourself right now, you’d know why I never want to leave. The sun kisses your skin, saltwater in your hair, the way you smile.”
He laughed. “That was terrible.”
“That,” I declared, “was a potential Grammy-winning song right there.”
He grinned and closed his eyes. “The water’s nice.”
I strummed out a few more random cords until it wasn’t random. I tapped my foot for the beat, and when he opened his eyes to watch me, I began to sing “The Reason” by Hoobastank, one of his favorite songs.
I never really grasped the lyrics until I sang them for him, but god, help me, I meant every word.
He watched me sing the whole song, his soft smile and glassy eyes telling me he understood what I was telling him.
When I strummed out the last note, he got up and planted a kiss on my lips. “I know.”
Then he took his notebook, and for a few hours, we wrote music and lyrics, we sang, we laughed, and my god, it felt good.
This was the old us—the us who loved music, who wrote songs we wanted to hear before the industry stole our voices—but it was the new us as well.
This was us, closer to thirty than I ever thought we’d get, finding our reason to sing again. Finding us again, only better. Free now from the binds that held us down—the company, the expectations, the contracts—free to be us.
The songs were raw and probably terrible, but it was a start. It was something to work with, to build from.
Something just for us.
My god, I’d missed this so much.
“Whatcha smiling about?” he asked.
“This feels good, huh?”
He grinned. “Yeah.”
“I’ve missed this. I want this for us. I don’t know what your plans are regarding music. The industry’s changed so much and we have so many options. Are we gonna sing them? Give them to other artists to sing? Start our own production company?” I shrugged. “Our possibilities are endless. We can do whatever we want now. It’s awesome and a bit scary, to be honest. But fuck it. We get to choose now.”
He blinked in surprise. “I just... I just assumed we’d sing them.”
“Okay.” I grinned at him. “Then let’s sing them. Just us, a guitar each. Totally unplugged, stripped back, no dance routines and crazy tours.”
His smile faltered a bit. “What about the guys?”
“What about them?” I asked, not sure what he meant.
