Page 177 of Love Felt Like This

Every syllable.

I don’t know what to say.

I give another weak smile because I’m not sure I’m capable of a brighter one right now. And without a response, I pull Nana into a hug.

Momma and Dad walk over and we all say goodbyes without another word of Griffin, Ava, or his tour. And eventually I walk around to the passenger seat, open the door, and shut myself inside. In the empty car’s silence, I inhale a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Dang it.

I drove Griffin to the airport two weeks ago, and the car still smells like him.

I hate this.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The Piano Guy

Griffin

I’m stuck in the studio despite knowing Beverly is somewhere in LA. It’s a unique type of torture because even if she were one block away, there isn’t a damn thing I can do to see her.

Today is her pitch day. The very few short texts say everything she isn’t. I received a blurry picture of Bernie Bird, followed by: It’s go time.

She did it.

She finished all the scripts.

But there’s also no way she isn’t freaking out this morning.

“Hey, Griff?” a voice scratches from the speaker above us. Through the wide glass separating the sound board from the recording booth, Jimmy leans over the shoulder of a bored sound engineer. “It’s a bit…”

“Intense,” Poe answers for him. “Griff, you gotta chill, man.”

I follow his gaze down to my fingertips.

Christ.

I’m gripping the neck of my guitar like it’s the only thing grounding me to this earth. Maybe it is.

“Let’s try that again,” Dom says from the drum set behind me.

The intercom cuts in once more. Jimmy grumbles, “We’ve tried it twenty-six times. But sure, what’s twenty-seven?”

Royce strums a stiff chord on his bass.

“One more,” he adds in.

Jimmy doesn’t press the button again, so we can’t hear his frustrated groan, but he’s visibly clawing at his hair.

It’s the second week of recording, and we’ve been at this one song all morning. My notebook lies open on the floor in an array of tabbed pages, ripped tendrils of notebook scraps, and scribbled lines. The song has been giving us trouble because the composition is all wrong. The notes I wrote aren’t meant for guitars or drums. It’s written for piano. And on-the-spot translation has been aggressively stressful.

Dom rises from his drum set. “You know what? I could use a break.” His sticks rattle when he sets them on the snare, making his way to the booth door without asking permission.

Behind the glass, Jimmy throws his hands in the air with an open-mouthed but inaudible noise that I can only imagine sounds like a werewolf transforming under a full moon. Jimmy slams his finger back down on the intercom button. “Sure thing, guys,” he says, with faux sweetness. “Take five.”

Dom opens the door and leaves.

I exchange a look with Poe, then Royce.