Page 41 of Composed
“Don’t thank me yet, dude.” I sigh. “I’ve got no idea what I’m doing anymore.”
I hear his slow breath, and I can imagine him brushing a thumb over his lip in thought.
“What’s the last song you wrote?” he asks. “Anything I’d know?”
I choke down the bitter laugh crawling up my throat.
I should tell him the truth—that my answer is the same as his.
But telling him that means admitting to him that he wasn’t the only thing I walked away from that day at the skatepark. And I’m not ready to do that.
I don’t know that I ever will be.
“No, nothing you’d know,” I tell him instead. I roll my head, gaze zeroing in on the sparkling moon. “You realise this is gonna be hard, right? I don’t know who you are anymore. I don’t know who Reckless Abandon is. How am I meant to write for strangers?”
He hums, the sound curling around me and buzzing through my veins, before his voice turns teasing. “Maybe it’s time for some re-introductions, then.”
Chapter fourteen
Hendrix • Now
Memory – Sugarcult
Rileystrollsintomybedroom as I try to cram my favourite black and white striped pyjamas into my already packed-to-the-brim holdall.
“Hey, I was just gonna ask if you want to go get Tony’s…” She trails off, her gaze flicking around the room. “What are you doing?”
I give up on the pyjamas and toss them onto the bed. Twisting the volume on my speaker, M Shadow’s voice becomes little more than a whisper caressing my ears. “Packing.”
“Your whole wardrobe?”
I glance between the pile of clothes littering the floor, the empty hangers in my wardrobe, and the bursting suitcase on my bed.
I grimace. “So it seems.”
“Why?” she asks.
Because what does one wear to go face their ex-boyfriend and his band?
I swipe up my glass of water and down half of it. “I’m going to London for the weekend.”
“Work?”
“Yes.” My nose crinkles. “No.” I twist a ring on my finger. “Maybe. I’m going to hang out with Cole and the band?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“I don’t know,” I say, because I’m not actually sure what I’m doing.
It’s business, but there’s no work planned. It’s not business because we haven’t set any parameters and Cole floated the idea as new introductions rather than a professional meeting.
Can it be business with strangers you once shared your life with?
“Okay, then.” She hops up onto my dresser, her legs swinging back and forth. “Talk me through it, and we can figure it out together.”
“I agreed to write music with Cole.Forhim, maybe? I’m not a hundred percent sure what we really agreed on. It was like four o’clock in the morning, I was tired, he’d just woken up. It was like a tentative, let's maybe do something?"
She nods. “That’s a lot to unpack. Let’s start with the writing thing. You don’t write music.”
