Page 35 of They Break Beauty

“It was easier not to open my eyes/ It was easier not to feel a thing/ Until you/ You came into my life like a hurricane/ You eased away the pain.”

Soft and delicate, yet also somehow notably powerful with a stirring and melancholic feel.

Brianna’s voice.

It pulled me out of the moment, off mission, as it rolled through me.

The way it sounded combined with Colt’s was out of this world.

The idea of the duet had begun as a farce, as a means to an end—my end. But hearing this now, there was absolutely no way it could remain purely as that.

It needed to be the real thing.

It wasn’t just the sound either.

No, it was the look on her face, the raw emotion all over her. An odd mixture of vulnerability and ferocity she was somehow able to achieve and communicate all at once.

I was abruptly snapped out of my reverie when she faltered, then stopped singing altogether, stepping back from the mic with a curse.

Colt lifted his headphones off, the corner of his mouth turning up as he told her, “You didn’t trust yourself to hit that note. You could’ve done it, you’ve got the range.”

“Maybe,” she said, pulling her headphones off too and stepping away. “Let’s take a break. I need some water.”

“Sure thing. You hungry too?”

“I could go for a snack. Do you have chocolate chip cookies?”

“Cookies, huh? Yeah, we’ve got a load to choose from. Mason’s got a thing for snacking.”

“Great,” she said, leaning against the wall and folding her arms across her chest, looking a world away from the confident, caught-in-the-passionate-moment demeanor she’d had a moment ago.

It was pretty much how she had been when he’d first walked her in there. All nervous and out of her element, on edge, even. But a little while after they’d gotten started, all of that had fallen away and she’d come out of her shell.

And in those moments I’d gotten a glimpse of that fireball I remembered.

The one who haunted my dreams.

“You all right?” Colt asked, noticing right away.

When she just gave a slight nod, he told her, “The fact you can’t read sheet music and just picked up the melody from me playing it once, then being able to run with it… it’s majorly impressive.”

“I’m good with patterns.”

“Patterns?”

“Yeah, putting bits and pieces together into a whole. Kind of like coding, programming an app and that sort of thing.”

I started. Interesting way of looking at it.

“Well, that’s fucking awesome,” he told her, brimming with excitement. He strolled across the room to her with all that swagger of his. “So, why the long face? Looking so out of sorts? You should be on a high after that performance. I know I am. Singing with you was something else, cutie.”

Cutie?

“I need to see him.”

“Lev?”

“Yes.”

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