Page 64 of Come Back to Me

Luckily, no one sees me on the way out or I’d have to explain what the hell it is I’m doing, and I don’t really have words for that.

Sure, I want to protect Tee from any danger she might be in, but that wasn’t why I went to Callan’s bedroom.

It’s telling how he didn’t pick up on my real reason for visiting him before dinner, but I don’t linger on that. Instead, once I’m on the road, I hit Colt’s name.

No way I can wait until tomorrow to yank his head out of his ass?—

“When the fuck were you going to tell me about Dove Bay?” I demand when he picks up.

And so beginneth the lube-less reaming.

Tee

My date’s nice.

Really nice.

Hot, too.

And shit, the things she knows about Shostakovich would normally have me creaming my panties.

But my mind’s locked on the song that I began humming earlier, when Cody handed me my bags from his trunk.

“Everything okay?” Millie asks me, her voice nervous.

I know she came out last week, and I feel like shit for being so absent-minded. That’s why I rush to reassure her. “I can’t apologize enough, but my brain won’t shut off.”

Millie giggles. “It won’t?”

The giggle is cute as fuck, but not as cute as Cody’s laugh.

In the strobe lighting from the dance floor a few feet away, she looks gorgeous in a tight camisole that shows off her braless tits and toned abs. She has those pointy nubs at her shoulders, nubs that even dropping as much weight as I did in New York, I didn’t achieve. She’s even wearing a skirt—I’m a sucker for a girl in a skirt.

She’s perfect.

But she doesn’t make music appear in my head.

“No. My thoughts are noisier than usual.”

Usualbecause the orchestra sucked it out of me like an inspiration vampire.

“Why?”

How do I tell her that music isn’t a hobby for me?

It’s my lifeblood.

Except, it never pays the bills.

People seem to think of it as a hobby when there’s no money involved, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me to focus, does it?

Hell, music is one of the reasons why I can’t hold down a steady non-musician job, because where’s the fun in stacking shelves if a composition comes to me and I have to write it down?

Of course, once I write it down, then I have to tweak it. Then I have to play it. Then I have to perfect it.

Hesitantly, I explain, “I’m...” What? A genius?Okay, Ms. Bighead, tone it down.

This is probably why I like hanging out with Baby Cowboy so much.

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