Page 19 of Places I've Never Been

After the song, he’d take her to dinner. He’d hold her hand as they walked along the beach. Then they’d go back to his place, and she’d lay naked in his bed, and that cloud of gold hair would spill out around her all messy and sexy and utterly irresistible.

Mattie narrowed her eyes as if she sensed exactly what was going through his head.

He smiled at her, trying his best to look innocent.

She tilted her head and tapped the headphones for emphasis.

“Right.” He turned away to check on the guys. He had to get a grip. She obviously wasn’t the girl he’d put on a pedestal as a teenager. She was a woman who left broken hearts everywhere she went. He couldn’t reconcile what she seemed to be on stage with who she was here. It didn’t make sense. How could she write the songs she wrote and be this detached?

Cooper watched him with a knowing look on his face. LT smirked at him, and Flynn outright laughed.

Adam huffed out an irritated breath. “Guys, count it down.”

Flynn’s grin broadened and he nodded. “Here we go in three…two…one…”

The intro started, and Adam drifted away from his thoughts and into the rhythm of the last song he’d written with Johnny J. It was different from their usual stuff. More introspective. They weren’t the heavy-hitting teens anymore. They’d grown up, and the song reflected that.

Adam kept his back to Mattie until it was time to sing the first verse. He turned, picked up the mic, and the words took over.

You were justa little sweet thing,

so much smaller than you might seem,

When I heard the news that stopped me in my tracks.

He lethimself sink into the song until the studio disappeared.

I spentthe next few hours swearing,

at the gods above, the

News I wish I never heard

could not be right,

We had to fight.

This would not be the end.

Movement caught his eye,and he saw Mattie waving at him.

He stopped singing. It took a few more bars for the guys to stop.

“What’s wrong?” Brandon asked.

“Not sure,” Adam said.

Mattie shook her head, removed the headphones, and opened the door.

“Adam, can I talk to you for a second?” She turned and walked back out.

Adam glanced at Cooper.

Cooper shrugged. “Told you it was rough, man.”

“That’s not it,” Adam said. “I’ll be right back. Try not to act like cavemen.”

“That’s just not fair,” Flynn said. “This is the cave. We are men. That makes us…”

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