Page 15 of Rocked: The Price of Dreams

Kyle stilled his strings and gaped. The fire in his eyes burned warm and deep.

I lowered my chin and blushed. “What?”

Hunter play-punched me in the arm. “What the fuck? You can write lyrics?”

I flinched sideways. “I...I don’t know...They just came to me.”

Kyle splayed his hands and praised the heavens. “That was insane and totally freaking awesome. We could write our own songs.”

I cuddled my guitar against my chest, humbled by their praise and somewhat embarrassed. “It was one verse and a clumsy chorus. Don’t get excited.”

“Do you think you could create more?” Hunter’s eyes widened.

“Maybe... I’ve never tried.” Shit. Pressure.

“Give it a go. Hold on a sec.” Kyle dashed upstairs and returned seconds later with a notebook and pen, and a mini tape recorder. “Here. Write down whatever comes into your head. Let’s do this.”

“Okay.” Butterflies jittered in my belly as I wiped my clammy palms on my shorts. “Don’t laugh.”

“Promise,” Hunter said.

But laugh we did. As we played, and came up with words and rhymes, we rolled around on the floor. Tears watered our eyes and my stomach ached. I don’t remember a time when I’d laughed so much. The lines and lyrics I jotted down were bad. Really bad. Corny and crazy.

But we kept at it.

New words. New lines. New tunes.

As the verses and choruses took form, Kyle scribbled notes and chords above each line of the lyrics. Hunter recorded our vocal takes on tape.

By the end of the following week, I typed on my laptop, deciphering the crossed-out lines, scribble, and scrawl from the notebook. The song was titled “All Wound Up.” We’d composed the music, compiled the lyrics, and mastered playing the song.

We’d done it.

As I grabbed the final printouts from the printer in Kyle’s mom’s music room, my hands shook. I handed the guys a copy each and sank onto the sofa between them.

We stared at the sheets of paper.

My stomach flipped and fluttered.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

We’d just penned our first song.

But the best thing was...there were more brewing inside my head.

Chapter 6

A few days later, we stood in a circle in the depths of Kyle’s basement, practicing covers. We were churning out “Bent” by Matchbox Twenty. Hunter and I were slaying the electric guitars—I was still nowhere near as good as he was, but I would be—while Kyle hammered out the hit on the drums. Facing each other, we took to the mics and smashed out the vocals.

Hunter owned the floor, dancing and playing up to the mic like he had an audience of thousands. Kyle and I just shook our heads and laughed.

But with every strum, a storm of savviness swelled inside me, spurring me on to challenge Hunter’s moves. I wanted to out-sing him. Taking a deep breath, I turned up the volume on my voice. I hollered out the lyrics. I stood my ground, swaying my hips, and seduced the mic as much as Hunter.

His eyes widened. But then he grinned and nodded, encouraging me to keep going. He, of course, refused to be outdone. He upped his moves and his singing.

So did Kyle. From behind the drums, his intense gaze fed my confidence. The loud, vibrant noise reverberating off the walls intoxicated me. The heightened energy in our performance sent shivers up my spine and pummeled my chest. This...was living.

With my heart pounding, sweat trickling down my face, and hair clinging to my neck, we rounded out the song. With one last bold strike on the strings, the twang hummed through the amp. Panting, I smiled at the guys. “That fucking rocked.”

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