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“I really don’t want to fight you about this,” I say. I don’t want to fight with her ever again.
“But you will.” It’s not a question.
“Laurel, please. Own the song even if you won’t ever do anything with it.”
Her face crumples. “It’ll be such a waste. You should release it with your band. Can Link play guitar instead of you?”
“He plays piano. At least he used to. No guitar skills.”
“Give him a tambourine or something then, but don’t bury it.”
“No.”
Laurel takes a slow, measured breath, readying herself for the next round.
I sit closer and rub her shoulders. “I don’t want to argue. Let’s not, okay? I am over the moon to see you so excited about this, but could we maybe put it in a drawer for now?”
“If we put it in a drawer, it will never come out again.”
“Please.”
“Be honest with me. If I wrote you a song all by myself, without using any of your previous work, would you accept it?”
I shake my head.
“Ugh.” Falling sideways on her back, Laurel gives me a half-hearted kick in the thigh. “Your songs have to be yours from the first note to the last, don’t they?”
“Yes.”
“What if I asked you to record a song with me, would you?”
“No.”
She exhales, frustrated. A lecture on everything that’s wrong with me is going to begin in three, two, one—
“Dinner is ready.” Vincent comes into the living room.
“We’ll be right there.” Laurel doesn’t get up, but she does find a small cushion to throw at my head. “Dummy.”
“Take your time.” Vincent shoots me an oh-boy kind of look before he leaves.
Laurel sits up and surprises me with a soft kiss on the cheek. “Okay. I’ll put it in a drawer, for when you’re ready, but only because I resent when someone pushes me into something I don’t want to do. I may not agree with your reasons for this decision, but I’m going to do my best to respect them. Still, you will have access to all files. In fact, you will download them and make a backup.” She picks up her phone and texts me the link to the cloud folder she’s using for storage. “Your phone number is the password. I will not bend on this.”
“Okay.” I give her a grateful kiss. “Thank you.”
She whispers a hoarse, “Of course,” and licks her lips, destroying whatever self-control I had. Or maybe I’ve destroyed hers first. Laurel clings to me as hard as I cling to her as our lips meet again. Her feelings manifest loud and clear through her tiny gasps for air, almost angry that she has to pause to breathe to begin with, and seize my thoughts, leaving no room for anything but the fire coursing between us. I don’t care how we got here. I just know that I don’t deserve her, and selfishly I will never tell her so.
Eventually, Laurel lets go of me, although she stays close. “How did you get this?” She traces the tip of her finger along the scar on my chin.
“High school graduation party. We all had a bit too much. There was a small fight. One of the participants thought it’d be fun to threaten me with a broken bottle.”
“He got your face?”
I try not to smirk. Don’t know if I succeed. “No. I knocked him out.” I pause here, checking her reaction.
Laurel gives me her impatient frown. “Why mention him then?” Her eyes narrow. “Because you tripped or something and cut yourself later?”
I laugh. “Spot on.”
