Page 7 of Christmas Music
“We’re here, as we always are, to put on the annual music festival. Now, you know the rules. Contestants get one song to prove their worth. One song, and one song only. We’ll do the show in one week on this very stage, and we’ll have several of our best execs here to judge. The guy or gal who wins gets a recording contract for Christmas, with Atomic itself, and all the fixings for a real live career in the music industry. Some of the winners have gone on to become bestselling artists, and I’m betting you have stuff from some of them on your phones.”
He stopped again, evidently thinking this was some clever statement, but we were on the edges of our seats now and weren’t in the mood for jokes.
Harvey cleared his throat. “Okay, well, I wish you all the best of luck. You have the week to get your song together. Remember, no plagiarizing and no having anyone else write the song for you. We want to see what you can do. We want to know that you deserve that contract. So go get ‘em, boys and girls. Get to writing, and we’ll see you again in a week.”
He walked off the stage quickly, to a stunned silence, and Dev turned to me again, eyebrows lifted.
“That seemed... anti-climactic.”
I didn’t answer. It wasn’t anti-climactic. He’d just announced the contest that might actually save my career. Sure, I needed to help my mom and dad run the ranch. I needed to figure out how we were going to pay for my dad’s medical bills. I needed to make sure they were both safe and secure.
But as long as I was in Arberry for the annual Christmas Festival, and as long as I had a shot at a recording contract...
Wild horses couldn’t have kept me away.
My eyes slid through the crowd, taking note of the other local musicians, and I wondered how many would take part. We didn’t have long to write and perfect a song—a week, if we wrote up to the last second—and a lot of people would want to do it but fail. Writing a song that quickly was no easy task. It took an ability to harness your creativity on command, find a tune that worked, and come up with lyrics that would make the listeners’ heart bleed.
It took...
My roving eyes came to a sudden stop, and then turned back to the person they’d just passed over. Small girl, straight shoulders, pert nose.
Bright red hair hanging down over her face as she wrote.
When she looked up, her eyes met mine, and flashed. Then she looked away, a blush on her cheeks and her fingers at her mouth like she was trying to keep from laughing.
Olivia Johns. The girl who’d run to Nashville and been on the edge of a recording contract herself, if the rumors were true. It looked like she was going to be entering the contest as well. And already writing notes for the song, if my guess was right. She’d been a big deal in Nashville when I was there, and I’d always wondered how she’d risen so quickly.
Not that it mattered.
I was going to win the contest and get that recording contract.
No matter how good she was.
CHAPTER4
Olivia
Ikept my eyes on the menu on the wall, reminding myself to breathe and doing my level best to stop the blush I could feel creeping over my cheeks.
The breathing I could handle. The blush was, sadly, outside of my control. It always had been. Welcome to being a redhead with the matching super-fair skin and freckles. I couldn’t go outside without getting burned, and I couldn’t hide a blush to save my life.
Particularly, it turned out, when I kept running into Connor Wheating with my eyes. And my knees. Myweaponizedknees, evidently. I reached down and felt my knees, wondering what he’d meant by that, and had to suppress a smile. Sure, they were bonier than they might have been, courtesy of my frame, which had never supported too much extra weight. It made my joints stand out and my jawline strong, my nose perkier than it should have been and my eyes too big for my face.
I had never, though, been accused of using my knees as weapons.
By the boy I’d had a crush on ever since we were in eighth grade.
I felt the blush growing fiercer at that and stared hard at the menu. Did I want another drink? Maybe. If I got one, would it take my mind off the tall, blond drink of water sitting across the way with his darkly good-looking best friend?
Doubtful.
“Getting something else to drink?” a voice asked in my ear.
I slanted a glance at Parker to find a smile spread across her face like she knew exactly what I was thinking, and stuck my tongue out at her. “I might. Don’t see how that’s a reason for a smile like that, though.”
She bumped my shoulder with hers. “Just thinking that if you’re getting another drink, you might get me another one, too. That’s all.”
Her casual tone and studied seriousness told me that another drink wasn’t what she’d been thinking about at all, and I groaned. “What? What’s with the smile?”
