Page 9 of Next Time I Fall (Excess All Areas 2)

Yet Jase sang it. Like, really sang it. It filled the room. His vocals sending notes soaring, then grinding down into his lower register.

His eyes met hers, and she couldn’t shift away. He held her transfixed as the chorus peaked and the outro ended the song. As the reverb and hum of the final notes vibrated around the room, his gaze was still on hers. Filled with a longing she didn’t understand. Then, he winked and grinned.

As hard as she tried, she couldn’t bite back a smile at the gesture. Wasn’t that every lead singer? Singing to the woman at the front of the stage until she almost passed out from the intensity of it, to the woman who bought every song they ever recorded and told every friend she had about it?

Nope.

No way was she becoming a groupie for Jase Palmer.

No matter how exciting it might seem.

One wink didn’t make up for being a dick most of the time he’d been in the studio.

When the next song started, she could see Jase freeze up again. It was unlike the snippets of live performances she’d seen on the internet where he’d been all swagger and anger.

She closed her eyes and listened to the words he sang. Something about loving someone even though you weren’t meant to. How eventually that love became too big to contain and when you let it happen, when you let it overtake all sense of rhyme and reason, it was the only thing in the world that mattered. Consequences be damned.

But somehow, Jase wasn’t connected to the song.

She opened her eyes and noticed he wasn’t watching her anymore. He wasn’t watching anybody. Not her father, not Parker Moseley, who was sat behind her. He looked anywhere but at a human being.

Cerys made a note to speak to both Jase and her father about it later. It made no sense. It was definitely a better song. The layering of sound was more complex, leading her in one clear arc of musicality. The lyrics were heartfelt. Images filled her brain to fill the narrative of the story. Squeezing her heart at the idea that two people could be in love but be kept apart.

They listened to ten songs in total, with her father making notes. Cerys resisted the urge to look over his shoulder as she made her own.

Once they were over, Jimmy stood. “Thanks, guys. Let’s take an hour break. Get something to drink and we’ll debrief then.”

Cerys followed her father out of the room. “Jimmy, I’d love to see the process you go through now. I’ve got some thoughts too, if you’d be willing to hear them.”

Her father shook his head. “I like to do this bit on my own, while my mind is fresh. Listening to your ideas would muddy my own.”

Muddy.

As in dilute his, make them dirty.

“Can I hang out with you then, while you go through your notes?”

Her father turned before starting to speak. “No. I need my own space. I’ll see you with the band in an hour. Why don’t you see if the band need anything?” His voice trailed off as he disappeared into his office.

“It’s only been a month,” she muttered.

When she returned to the studio, Alex was about to leave. “I loved the way you brought in the glockenspiel in the fourth song. What made you pick it over a xylophone?” she asked.

Alex’s easy smile smoothed the rough edges the conversation her father had left behind. “To be honest, it was what I had set up the day we worked on that song. I tried layering in a xylophone after, but somehow the metal of the ’spiel was a touch more aggressive than the wood.”

“I love that. You know who’d love you? My best friend, Zoe. She studied percussion while I studied keyboard for our music degrees.”

“Yeah. Where did you study?”

“The Royal Northern College of Music.”

“In Manchester?” Jase asked as he joined them.

“Yep. Even lived in Fallowfield, ten minutes from where you all live.”

Surprise etched Jase’s features. “Have you been working here since then?”

“No, I went to London to study music production for two years. Then worked at a friend’s studio for a little while before coming here at the start of the year.”

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