Page 28 of Sounds Like Love

I shrieked, throwing my arm wide as I swung around to hit whoever had snuck up behind me—

And remembered the voice in my head.

“You!” I accused, my heart beating a mile a minute. I leaned against the wall, dizzy with the sudden rush of adrenaline. “Don’tdothat!”

“Sorry, I just—I keep hearing that song.”

“What song?”

He hummed the melody that I’d just heard, too, and my stomach twisted.

Of course. It must be coming from his head, and now it was in mine.“I can’t get it out of my head no matter what I do. What’s it from?”

“Wait—so it’s not coming from you?”He sounded confused.“I thought you’d know.”

Well, that complicated things. “I’ve never heard it before in my life,” I admitted. “Well, I don’tthinkso anyway, but I don’t even know the entire song. Just that part.”

“Me, too,”he replied troubledly.“It’s an earworm.”

“Great. So not only do I haveyouin my head,” I said, climbing the stool and pinning the Bushels to the wall, “but also a melody to a song neither of us knows.”

“I’m not sure which is worse.”

“You, probably.” I sighed then, and climbed back down again, inspecting my handiwork. “Maybe I can start singing ‘The Song That Doesn’t End’—that always kills my earworms. Maybe it’ll expel you, too.”

“I’ll just raise you ‘99 Bottles’ and we’ll see who leaves first.”

“Wow, those are fighting words,” I warned, and left for the theater again. I still had to prep the bar, stock the bathrooms, disassociate into the distance … “I have a brother—I’m a master at ignoring annoying people.”

“That sounds like a challenge.”

“Only if you like losing.”

He barked a laugh.“I decided to play music for a living. I live for disappointment.”

I cocked my head. A musician? That explained his earlier curiosity about whether I was one.

“Not a fan of musicians?”he asked hesitantly, having heard my worried thought.

“Sorry, no. It’s not that. It’s just …”

An image flickered in my head: Sebastian Fell’s smarmy smirk. The way he leaned against the railing toward me. The condescending note in his voice as he asked if he’d be my muse.

Turns out, I didn’t even have to think up a lie when I said, “I had a bad experience with a musician.”

“A bad date?”

Sebastian Fell’s kiss came to mind. The softness of it. The way it felt so different from the man who spoke to me a few moments later. “Something like that,” I admitted. “He didn’t seem to really respect me.”

“He sounds like an ass.”

I felt my ears go red. “That’s nice of you.”

“I only say it because it’s true,”he replied.

“Thank you, then.” I grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator under the bar top and headed for the loading dock in the back, pulling up the aluminum door, and stepping out into the late afternoon. It was strange how comfortable I was getting with talking to the guy in my head—and howeasyit was. Almost like I could tell him anything, and he wouldn’t judge. Maybe that was just because he wasn’t really here, and anonymity made secrets easier to tell. Though, with all the thoughts he’d heard from me, my head had been mostly silent for the better half of the day. “Hey, how come I can’t hear you more?”

“You can’t?”He seemed surprised.“I guess I just don’t have a lot going on. Your mind seems … busy, to say the least.”

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