Page 81 of Places I've Never Been

LT grimaced. “Nah. Malika had to go back to the main island. She slings drinks at a bar there every other week.”

“He meant with the bass line, jackass.” Brandon kicked LT’s foot.

“Oh…yeah. I was bored.” LT grinned and shrugged. “Think it’s pretty solid up to the break, but let’s play it through.”

“Okay, let me show you what we came up with last night,” Mattie said. She joined Adam in the middle of the room. “Brandon, can you play the opening for me?”

“Sure.” Brandon played the part of the song they’d already worked out.

It was the intro and lead-in to what normally would have been the first verse, but she wanted to play a little with it.

“Let’s try something new,” she said when he finished. “Let’s flip it and hit the hook first.”

She sang out the hook with the new lines she’d been inspired to write the night before.

It’s not over, life’s not done.

When one thing ends, another’s begun.

The future’s still…an open door.

She turnedto face Adam so she could look into his eyes while she sang the new lines.

The moon is behind us, the stars set to guide us

So take the next step, and make what comes next

Better than before.

There’s more…to…life.

The music stoppedafter she sang the last word. Mattie smiled at Adam. He stared back, his crooked grin lighting his eyes in a way that made her blood rush a little faster. For a heartbeat or two, they were the only people in the room.

Flynn coughed. LT strummed a chord.

“Hey, Mattie, can you two stop doing that?” Brandon asked. “You’re looking at him like he’s a juicy piece of steak, and I don’t need that image of my brother in my head.”

Adam glared at Brandon.

Cooper picked up the melody on his guitar. “So you’re saying hook first, like this.”

Flynn bobbed his head up and down, then brought the beat in. Brandon added the keyboards, and by the time they’d run through it three times, LT had the backup instrumentals fleshed out.

Mattie kicked in harmony and let Adam take over the melody. He made it his own, adding runs and thrills that sent a shiver down her spine. When he sank into a song, he really put his whole soul into it.

The concentration on his face and the softness in his eyes pinched her heart. She knew he was picturing his dad in front of him as he sang the words. From what Adam had said, they had a complicated relationship, but he clearly loved his dad very much. There was a desperation behind the message she didn’t quite understand. She’d have to ask him about it sometime.

She rejected that idea almost immediately. Two weeks from now, they’d go their separate ways, and whatever his relationship with his father was wouldn’t be any of her business.

That thought made her a little sad, but she brushed it away to focus on the work in front of her.

When Adam finished the last line, the melody trailed off, leaving only the beat, which Flynn ended with a crash of cymbals.

“I like it. It’s got flash,” Flynn said. “We should speed it up.”

“Yeah, it’s a victory dance,” Brandon said. He played a few of the notes with a peppy bop.

“This reminds me of when we graduated,” LT said. “That whole what-are-we-going-to-do-next vibe.”

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