Page 25 of Lyric & the Heartbeats

“You’re a perfectionist, aren’t you?” he asked with narrowed eyes.

She nodded.

“You’re going to hate tour,” he said.

Lyric could feel the blood leave her face. “Uh…”

He burst out into chuckles and strummed an awkward chord. “Nothing on tour is perfect. It’s messy and scattered and the whole thing is like an extended adrenaline rush. So don’t stress about having a perfect performance. Just have fun.”

Having fun is having everything go to plan.

But she didn’t say that out loud. What she settled on was, “Well, we can do our damned best to get it right in here at least, right?”

This time the chord he strummed was on key. “That we can.”

“Had enough coffee?” she inquired, nodding to his empty mug. “We can get started.”

Nohen’s brows knotted together as he glanced around the empty room. “No one’s here yet.”

“Not true. We’re here,” she countered. “The others will get here when they get here. Why don’t we get a head start?”

“Oh! Why didn’t you say something? I’m sitting there blabbing about perfection when we could have been practicing!” he said, sitting up straight and lifting the strap of the acoustic over his head.

She couldn’t help but chuckle. “What’s the rush? You’re the one that said not to worry about perfection.”

“I know what I said,” he grumbled as he walked over to the guitars and their many stands. Out reached one hand before it hovered in the air. Nohen drifted his palm back and forth between a mint green and a rose pink fender, apparently unable to decide which one he wanted to play. Finally, he wrapped slim fingers around the neck of the pink one.

Dressed in skinny pants, a pair of ankle boots, and a casual gray button-up that was only buttoned two-thirds the way up his chest, the rose pink guitar looked like a weapon in his hands.

This one’s dangerous, she decided.

He caressed the body of it lovingly, careful not to leave fingerprints over the shiny surface. But it wouldn’t stay pristine for very long.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t ease some of your fear,” he continued. Lyric had to focus to remember what the hell he was referring to, but finally, she nodded. “You’re gonna do great,” he said.

He turned a soft smile her way before bending to grab the cable and plugging it into the guitar with a clink of metal and a hiss of electricity. It wasn’t until he strummed his fingers over the strings, sending a screech of notes through the amps, that Lyric realized she’d been doing nothing but staring at him for a long moment.

“Right,” she said, and opened her bottle of water. She took a swig before walking over to the sound system. Once her playlist was uploaded, she took her phone and walked over to the mic stand, flicking it on with her nail.

Before they really began, she did a few voice warm-ups and purposely avoided Nohen’s gaze as she exercised her vocal cords.

One she was a little more awake, she glanced over her shoulder at Nohen. He was smiling, staring right at her, and she met his bright gold gaze with a shy smile. Once he offered a nod, she hit play on one of the many versions of the opening song.

This version included drums, synth, and bass, but the guitar was turned down. None of the multiple versions included vocals.

She counted in with her fingers on her side, tapping them into her right thigh.

Nohen chimed in four beats before she did, and she could tell right away she wasn’t the only perfectionist. He’d clearly been studying the music Andi had sent him.

Since it was still early in the morning, her voice was still a little rusty, even after warm-ups. But as she sang and Nohen played, adding that electric current into the music, she wanted to see his face.

She wrapped one hand around the mic stand and one around the mic itself before spinning in place. Coming face-to-face with Nohen, she smiled at the concentration pinching his features. His eyes were closed as he played, his lips thinned into a single line as his fingers danced over the strings.

It took him a moment to open his eyes, and once he found her facing him, a smile curled his lips.

The song reached the end, and as the rest of the instruments in the music trailed off, her voice was the last thing to keep ringing. Nohen’s eyes flicked over her shoulder before returning, and his smile grew.

Nerves tightened her stomach again as the note rang out, and she finally let the last note trail off.