Page 46 of Hard Rock Temptation
Micah was always the one who comforted me. When my mom yelled, I could go to him and he’d speak softly to me. When she would throw and break things, I could go to him and he’d fix up any tiny cuts or scrapes. When she told me I was worthless, he made me feel like the most powerful person in the world.
And I’d always tried to do the same for him. He’d leaned on me when his father passed away. He came to me whenever hehad doubts about his future. He looked to me when his thoughts were too scrambled and he needed to make sense of them.
“I’m always going to be here with you,” I promised him. “I’m going to be beside you forever, no matter what.”
Micah took in a shuddering breath before he spun me around and yanked me into his arms. He buried his head in my curls and inhaled deeply. He seemed to love smelling my hair. I pressed my palms into his back and rubbed with soothing motions.
I’d wanted to talk to Micah about the two of us, about whether he still had doubts about our relationship, but this wasn’t the time. For now, all I could do was support Micah the way he had always supported me.
Everything else could wait until later.
TWENTY
MICAH
My mom had given me a scare, and it had been a stressful few days, but luckily all she needed to recover was some rest. I’d planned on spending some more time with her, but she had scoffed at the suggestion.
“I don’t need you hovering,” she’d admonished as she shooed me out of the house. “You can go back to your work now.”
“That’s a first,” I’d joked. “Normally you’re the one telling me to take a break.”
But it was true that the stress of my mom’s illness was competing with the stress over our next album. The band was meeting about our song choices and I was near jittering with anxiety. The only thing keeping me from flying apart was Kay’s presence.
It wasn’t that her presence was calming. Nothing about Kay could ever be calledcalm. But there was a sort of reassurance, knowing that the person I relied on would be there next to me, just like she had promised.
“How do we want to do this?” I asked the group as we gathered in the practice studio.
We all had different processes for writing songs. Anya kept it simple and composed on piano. The ones who played multiple instruments, like Zain, could produce a fairly finished piece by himself. I liked to do a lot of the music production using software on my laptop. Until We Break had no one single process for creating music.
“Let’s hear all the demos before we share our thoughts and feedback so we don’t influence each other,” Zain suggested. “We’ll do a draw to choose the order so it’s random which song goes first.”
“I like it,” I nodded, and we got started.
I thought I knew my band members well. I thought I knew my friends,my family, well.
But it wasn’t until I heard every song in a row that I realized how much we had all changed since we were kids. It wasn’t a bad thing. It was just something of a wake up call. No one piece was exactly what I would have expected from them. We had all grown as artists, as people, and it was reflected in our work.
But that was where we had a problem.
“Anya’s song has very few lyrics,” Zain was noting. “Kind of surprising from someone people call a poet, right?”
“Sometimes you can inject more meaning into something with fewer words,” Anya replied.
“Zain, what happened to your killer guitar solo?” Finn asked.
“I never really planned on having one,” Zain shrugged. “I didn’t think it fit with the vibe of rest of the song.”
“I thought your song was awesome, Zain,” Kaylee said. “Really experimental and fresh.”
“Thanks,” Zain said smugly. “I was trying something new.”
And there it was.
“Guys…” I hated to bring down the mood, but I needed to say something. “These songs are all great. Fantastic, even. But?—“
Zain and Finn groaned.
“Why does there have to be abut?” Finn asked.
