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She poured milk into her coffee and looked around the small kitchen. Dammit. No doughnuts today. The least Zach could have done, if he was going to bring Eli full-of-himself Lawler to work with him, was replenish the doughnut supply. She opened a couple of cabinets, scrounging around to see what snacks might be lurking in their depths. She usually kept the kitchen fairly well stocked, but she had been pretty distracted with Zach lately and had forgotten to stop by the grocery store. Or even notice that supplies were running low. Apparently sex gods scrambled her brain.
That thought only made her more annoyed, and she sped up her search. The only thing she could find was a half-empty packet of Oreos. She didn’t even like Oreos, but they were going to have to do.
As she pulled the first cookie out of the package, Zach’s voice said, “Everything okay?”
She turned and saw him standing in the doorway, one brow quirked. “Why wouldn’t everything be all right?”
“Well, for a start, you look at those Oreos like you think they deserve complete obliteration.”
“Maybe I just don’t like Oreos,” she said.
“I know you don’t like Oreos, you never did. But still, it seems a little harsh to look at them as though they’ve killed a puppy.” He crossed the small room and lifted the Oreos, taking one for himself. “So, how about you tell me what’s bugging you?”
“What’s bugging me is that Eli is talking to me like I’m a gopher, not the studio manager and his bloody coproducer,” she ground out. “And you’re just letting him.”
Zach’s brows shot up. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“He just asked you to get some gear,” Zach said.
“He could have come to help me.” She pitched the Oreo toward the garbage can in the corner of the kitchen. “So could you for that matter.”
“Eli and I were talking about the songs.”
“You can talk while carrying stuff.”
He held up his hands. “Okay. Right. Sorry.” He studied her for a moment. “This is only for a couple of days. Just these two songs. Then it’s back to you and me. I’m not ditching you for him.”
Was she being that obvious? Ugh. She really needed to suck it up. “I know,” she said. “Sorry, I’m just…” She wasn’t sure what to say, because she wasn’t sure exactly why she was so annoyed.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Zach said, “but I know this time of year is crazy here. You have a lot on your plate with CloudFest coming up and Nessa and everything. I could get another engineer in to work with Eli if you don’t have enough?—”
“No.” She cut him off. “No, I want to do this.” She didn’t want any more hands on the album than was strictly necessary. She took a breath. “You’re right. It’s busy. But I’m fine.” She might be fine if it were just the two of them. Then she could jump him and work off some of this bad mood. But with Eli hanging around, there would be no jumping Zach. Not unless she was ready for everyone to know about them. And that would be just another layer of pressure she didn’t want to deal with.
“Two days,” Zach said. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder then reached out and tangled his hand briefly with hers. “Forty-eight hours. Or a bit less even. Time will fly.”
Time hadn’t flown. In fact she’d never felt two days move so slowly. It wasn’t the music. That had gone smoothly. Zach worked his magic with guitar and voice—and at least those moments hadn’t been a struggle. Eli knew what he was doing and, to her relief, what he was doing wasn’t a million miles from what she’d been doing with the other songs. One was a little more raucous, heavier, and electric, but it suited the song. The other, “Air and Breath,” fit right in with the style she’d established.
So no, the music was fine and Eli had relaxed after the first couple of hours and stopped giving orders—which had made her think that maybe he was just as nervous as she had been—and the three of them had worked seamlessly after that. The parts that made the time drag were the parts where there were three of them. Where it wasn’t just her and Zach anymore, and she couldn’t touch him whenever she wanted. They’d recorded late into the night on Thursday—late enough that Zach had invited Eli to crash at the guesthouse rather than drive back to Billy’s place, which ruined any plans she’d had for her and Zach’s time. And now it was after two a.m. on Saturday, and Zach was just walking Eli to the door while she dawdled in the studio, tidying up a little.
They’d finished recording close to midnight after so many takes of “Air and Breath,” a song about how the singer wanted a girl like oxygen that was so stupidly sexy when Zach sang it that she’d been ready to crawl out of her skin with need. Eli, instead of going home like a sensible person, had sat around as he and Zach tossed around ideas for Zach’s backing band for CloudFest and drank a couple of beers. Leah had joined in the conversation at first but then had started to reset the recording booth, hoping Eli might take the hint and leave.
It had taken two hours for him to get the idea. And now she was trying not to pace with impatience as she waited for Zach to come back in. He’d gone outside with Eli to wait for his cab almost ten minutes ago.
She’d tidied away everything that could possibly be tidied away. Well, almost everything. She’d leave Zach’s guitars for him. She opened the piano, sat down on the bench, and started playing the melody from “Air and Breath” softly, checking the sound. The studio pianos were due to be tuned next week, something she arranged maybe more often than necessary, but the sea air was hard on them. This one, her favorite, still sounded sweet, the notes ringing true under her fingers.
She caught a glimpse of headlight reflection through one of the windows and took her hands off the keys. The last thing she needed was for Zach to come in and find her playing. Playing for Faith was one thing, as was sitting down at the piano to demonstrate how she thought something might go, but her skills were just that—skills. Not the kind of talent that Zach and Faith had that turned their music into that something more that stopped people in their tracks and made them pay attention.
As Zach came back into the studio, she was closing the door to the booth behind her.
“All set?”
“I left the guitars for you,” she said. “Didn’t want to mess with your babies.”
“I trust you,” he said with an easy smile that turned into a yawn.
“Yeah, but does your insurance company?”
