Page 23 of Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit
They hadn’t fallen at all.
I’d completely overreacted to the idea that Lila might get hurt. Jumped straight into hero mode without giving it three thoughts, and run to protect her, at the expense of my own body. And judging from the looks on everyone’s faces, they’d all seen me do it.
Terrific.
11
LILA
The words weren’t coming out right.
I wrinkled my nose and scratched out yet another line of lyrics, frustrated beyond belief. I never had trouble with lyrics. They were my thing. Sure, I could write music with the best of them. I’d never had any trouble coming up with a tune and making it dance to my needs. But lyrics were something altogether different. Those were like magic for me. I’d have a thought that needed something—some line or emotion—and that something would just appear in my head, like someone else had written it and sent it right into my brain. The words would come flowing out like I’d always known what they were and just had to reach out and grab them to make a song. The hard part had always been deciding which tune to fit them into.
But right now, I couldn’t write anything. I couldn’t come up with good emotion, or words that fit together the way they should. Everything I wrote felt like I was back in the sixth grade trying to compose my first love song when I didn’t even know how being in love felt.
Something was wrong.
I pushed back from the table and pulled my guitar into my lap. Maybe if I worked on some music instead, the language part of my brain would free itself up.
I strummed the strings and closed my eyes, letting myself sink into the chords that had been my home for years, and started plucking out a tune. It wasn’t complicated and it definitely wasn’t original—it belonged to Olivia, actually—but as I played, I felt the music work its way into my blood, and then into my imagination. And I was able to start thinking in what I’d labeled ‘lyrics language.’ I started seeing the world and everything in it in music and lyrics rather than just visions. Everything became note-colored.
The emotions, and the words that described them, started coming back.
There it was, I thought, relief flowing through me. There was the piece of me that understood this sort of thing. I hadn’t seen her in days—not since we’d started following this tour—and I’d been worried that she’d decided to fuck off and take a break when I needed her most. And the more I’d struggled with lyrics, the more I’d worried. She’d never disappeared on me before, and I hadn’t known how to call her back.
Until now.
I sighed and felt a smile growing on my mouth, both relieved and entranced by the ideas that flowed through my brain. New notes and combinations. Lines I’d never thought of before. A bridge for a song that didn’t yet exist.
“What are you doing?”
My eyes snapped open, the spell broken, and I looked up to see someone standing in front of me. Not just any someone, either. The someone I was pretending to date—and who had been studiously avoiding me for the most part, except for when some handy photographer was around.
“What areyoudoing?” I asked.
He dropped into the seat across from me and sighed. “Can’t sleep.”
Then he took in my guitar, the half-eaten blueberry pie in front of me, and the sheet of paper next to that. His eyes traveled over my body, and I remembered—belatedly—that I was dressed in my pajamas. Plaid pajama pants and a T-shirt that was at least a size too small.
Things I almost never let anyone else see.
I felt the flush start at my chest and rise rapidly up my neck and into my face, and I watched as he watched me blush.
Which just made the blush even worse.
God damn him and those stupid, brooding eyes of his. I was sitting here trying to write music and he, what, thought he’d come in and stare at me like he wanted to eat me up? After teasing me for days with walks that lasted ten minutes and always included someone else? Kisses that someone else was watching?
Words that brushed against me and burrowed under my skin, but obviously didn’t mean anything to him?
Where the fuck did he get off?
“What do you want?” I asked, injecting as much ice into my voice as I could manage. “There aren’t any photographers in here to take pictures of us, you know. It’s just you and me.”
He leaned forward on his elbows, let his eyes rake up and down my body once more, and whispered, “That’s what you think, sunshine girl. But you never know where the reporters might turn up.”
He reached out, grabbed my fork, and took a bite of my blueberry pie.
“That’s mine,” I said quietly.
