Page 61 of Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit
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I spread two pads of paper out on the table in front of me, moved the two guitars I’d brought with me closer, and then reached out and unscrewed the bottle of whiskey I ordered from Room Service.
Yes, it was only noon and therefore a little bit early for a bottle of whiskey. But I’d always done my best writing with a little bit of alcohol, and today I needed good writing. I’d been miserable for a week. We had a free day, and I had no commitments. As far as I could see, it was the perfect time to sit in my hotel room and get some writing done. This had always been my happy place, and I could definitely use a little bit of happy right now.
Writing was my escape, and the best use for my emotions. No matter what I was feeling, if I could get it down into words on a piece of paper, it cleared it out of my head and made the voices easier to handle. It didn’t always quiet them completely, but it made them a little less obnoxious. A little less hurtful.
That also sounded good right now, because my subconscious was doing its level best to kill me, and I needed to shut it the fuck up before it succeeded.
I poured a glass of whiskey and exhaled, trying to clear my head and get into the right space for writing. The words were all there—as were the notes—but I had to get into a specific place for it all to come together. Block out all the noise, focus inward, forget about whatever was going on outside this hotel room…
A loud knock sounded at the door, jarring me right out of the headspace I’d been so carefully cultivating, and I glared at the thing like it had just insulted my mother.
Wait, strike that. It had just insulted my band. Or my friends. Or Lila.
“What?” I shouted. Had I put the Do Not Disturb placard on the doorknob? I thought I had, but now I couldn’t remember. If I had, why the fuck was anyone knocking? I’d clearly labeled the door as belonging to someone who did not want to be disturbed.
“Rivers!” a voice shouted back. “I know you’re in there. Open up!”
I ground my teeth. Right. I probably had put that placard on there, but Matt Lawson was both too stubborn and too stupid to pay attention to things like that. He’d probably seen it and then intentionally ignored it. Because as far as he was concerned, everyone should always be happy to see him. Even when they wanted to be alone.
“Go away, Matt!” I shouted back. “I’m writing!”
“No, you’re not! If you were, you wouldn’t have answered me!”
Dammit. He was right, but I hated that he knew me that well.
I stood up and stomped toward the door, half angry and half amused because it was mostly impossible to actually stay angry at a guy who was always so happy. And so oblivious. I threw open the door doing my best to scowl, though, because if nothing else, Matt needed to learn to pay attention to signs that said people didn’t want to be disturbed.
“What?” I snapped.
Then I saw who was standing behind him.
Matt gave me a sly and entirely too-proud-of-himself smile. “Oh, nothing. Just figured you’d be in here moping around and thinking about writing. And I remembered that you always do your best writing with a partner.”
He stepped aside to reveal Lila Potter looking awfully country in a jean skirt and cowboy boots, her top white and flowy. She cocked one perfect eyebrow at me and then lookedpast me into the room. Moments later she was brushing past me and strolling in like she’d been invited. She sat down, poured herself a glass of whiskey, and grabbed one of the guitars.
When she glanced up again, she looked like she had every right to be there.
“So,” she said. “What are we writing?”
32
LILA
“Ithink…” I said, jotting something down, then scratching it out and jotting down something else. “I think if we use something like this, it works better.”
Rivers strummed out the line of notes he’d just created and hummed, then sang the words I’d written. They weren’t a lot different from what we’d had before, but I’d changed them to a different order, and it felt right.
“You’re right,” he murmured. “They sit in the music better that way. But what if…” He reached out and scratched out one word, replacing it with something else, then played the line again. When he turned his smile on me, it was beautiful. Almost cherubic. “That’s it,” he murmured. “That’s it right there.”
I returned a gentle smile of my own. “You’re right. Now we just have to get the bridge done.”
“And we’ll have a whole song,” he finished, glancing down at the paper.
I looked down as well and frowned at what we’d written. It was another love song, there was no doubt about that, but it was sort disguised with anger and hurt and heartbreak. Lots of darkness with some love shining through. The hope of love,I corrected myself. The story of a boy and a girl who had known each other for ages and had lived through the worst pain possible but had come out the other side and managed to find each other again.
A couple that had separated and thought they’d lost each other. Cut off contact. Found other ways to live. Pretended to forget the other existed. Only to come back together in the end like they’d somehow planned it that way, although neither had thought it was possible. It was a story of young love and mistakes, miscommunications and betrayals, and the loss that came about when you didn’t appreciate what you had. It was a story of growing because you were forced to and learning how to stand on your own two feet when the person who had been your foundation was suddenly gone.
