Page 116 of Spark

“I can only imagine how stressful that must have been, every time I brought it up.”

“It was fun, too. Sometimes. But mostly stressful.”

She laughs. “Why not just write a song called ‘Spank’ and give it to me? Problem solved.”

“I tried. But you know me. I don’t write lyrics the way you and Savage do. I don’t even know how I wrote ‘Spark,’ in the first place. It came to me in a trance, and, unfortunately, it turned out that trance was a one-off.”

Ruby giggles. “I’d love to read a song called ‘Spank,’ written by you.”

“Yeah, no shit, Ruby. You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

She laughs again. “Sorry.”

“Trust me, anything I might have written to try to satisfy your curiosity would have been a major let-down for you. So, why show you something anti-climactic, you know?”

“Literally.”

“That’s the same joke I made to Savage.”

She rolls her eyes. “You told Savage about all this?”

“I had to tell him. I was going crazy. Plus, I needed his advice about what to do.”

“You neededSavage’sadvice?”

“That’s how desperate I was.”

We both laugh.

“So, that’s what all those furtive looks at our songwriting session were all about, huh?”

I nod. “When that motherfucker brought up ‘Spank’ as a song idea, I seriously wanted to murder him.”

“Savage could have written a song called ‘Spank’ for you in fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah, he offered.”

“Ew. I was joking, Kendrick.”

“Don’t worry, I told him no. I said that would be gross—likehimseducing you intomybed.”

She makes a gross-out face. “What’s wrong with that man?”

I chuckle. “He was only trying to be helpful. I mean, you can’t deny his version of ‘Spank’ would have been smoking hot and extremely effective.”

“Who does he think he is? Cyrano de Bergerac?”

“Who’s that?”

Giggling, Ruby explains it to me, and I have to admit it’s a perfect reference.

“See, that’s why you’re so much better at lyrics than me. I’m a former football player who bangs on his drums for a living. But you know all these obscure literary references and shit.”

Ruby bursts out laughing. “Babe, Cyrano De Bergerac isn’t obscure. Modern movies steal from it all the time.”

“See? I don’t even know that. You’re still the smartest person I know.” Smiling, I run a fingertip across the curves of her breast and nipple. “I have a confession to make. The first week you were staying here, I took off my shirt a thousand times more than I ever would have if I’d been alone in a pathetic ploy to get you to notice me and think of me in a sexual way. I don’t really work out shirtless.”

Ruby screams with laughter. “You wanted me to notice you?”

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