Page 136 of Hope & Harmony

The new golden voice of K-pop.

I nodded. “I want this.”

“Good,” was all he said before tugging at my shirt.

But it hadn’t been good two days later, after more moments together, when I was met with a sticky note from him on my computer that said, “Sorry, management wants us back in Seoul.”

I’d been in LA at the time with our sister label, so I had no choice but to stay, and it was good for me because TMZ, for the most part, didn’t cover them.

MINE: the biggest up-and-coming K-pop group with their gorgeous singer. I didn’t have to look, and I refused to. I stuck to celeb tabloids, and I’d kept my head down.

Until now.

Finally, I found my breath and managed to get words through my teeth. “It took me a while to see through all the bullshit and muscle, but I think I just managed. Get in the booth.”

Still shaking, I spoke up. “You’ll have the eight count before you jump into?—“

“—I got it.”

Arrogant as ever.

More beautiful than before.

Fuck.

CHAPTER 3

HILLS

I was told she’d be hard to work with and that she’d been busy post-award season. Then again, post any award season, everyone was busy. Most people had no clue that by the time November came, you were shit out of luck in the industry when it came to work, books included. It’s like everyone took a huge hiatus until February and then scrambled to get content out the minute all the film festivals were done. For musicians, it was a bit different since we were working on things behind the scenes for promo and marketing. Even having a solid plan, it was hard as hell to get ahold of people and even when you did. It was even harder to hear back from them unless it was a major deal.

Yay for execs taking a two-month-long fucking vacation while the rest of us worked our asses off and prayed they’d give us good promo for our next song, good marketing, money, placement, and time. Oh look, skiing in Sun Valley again, nice, must be nice, how’s the powder, oh and about the title song for our next mini album, I was thinking...

Yeah, good luck with that.

Basically, when I got back from the military, everything was dead, so I had one choice: go skiing with everyone else, order some chicken and beer in Seoul, or fly over to LA and lay downsome tracks that might not even make it on our album. The rest of the guys weren’t out yet, so I could at least tease a bit and promote our next album, which was set to release, get this, in two months. Most got out in two weeks.

So we had that long to record. The K-pop industry was a different breed. I’d grown up in Chicago and moved over to train with my label when I was thirteen and had no idea what I was getting into.

School, vocals, dance, testing, repeat.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for me, but I saw way too many friends burn out and leave after years of trying to get their debut with a group, and even then, some of the ones that did debut fizzled out after one album. So much was involved in the factory that was K-pop. Then again, they had the formula down because when it went right, they saw nothing but dollar signs.

I wouldn’t really call myself a social media stalker, but a friend of a friend had used one of Lyric’s songs, and I’d been following her since getting out of the military. Then I just couldn’t look away, and by the time I realized what I was doing, I was already landing at LAX and driving to the studio she worked at.

It may have been a one-night stand, but she had no idea why I ghosted her. But you can’t really walk up to the girl you walked away from after you became famous and say, oh hey, our thing wasn’t about getting some ass, and you’re super talented.

I had to prove myself.

Make sure she remembered me—remembered us most of all. I just hoped she wouldn’t be offended when I showed her everything.

The scars.

The bleeding.

The vulnerability that felt shameful in society—saying I need help, I’m sad, I’m anxious, I’m not okay—all of those words thatmade you want to scream at the world and beg for your soul to be set free—these were the things I was dealing with when I met her.

My savior.

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