Our Song (6 page)

Chapter 9

That third rule really threw me off-guard. At first, I just stared at him in disbelief.

And there was King Douchebag, showing his royally misinformed self. Why would he assume I’d think his lyrics were about
me
?

Once I made it past the point of speechlessness, I finally managed to say, “Trust me, I won’t. You shouldn’t fool yourself into thinking any of my lyrics will be about
you
, either.”

“Oh, believe me…the idea that
you
would write songs about someone else has never crossed my mind.” The amusement swirled around in his eyes as he spoke the words.

I looked away from him, trying to hide my annoyance. It was clear he was making a jab about my last album. Part of me wanted to yell at him and another part of me wanted to punch him in the face, but staying civil and, ultimately, just letting it go won out.

I reminded myself that arguing over
anything
would accomplish nothing. I couldn’t piss him off so much that he wouldn’t want to work with me. I just needed to brush every little obnoxious comment he made off my shoulders and be the bigger person.

“Good. Now that we’re both clear on that, let’s get to work,” I finally said.

He leaned back on the sofa. “I guess we need to figure out what our first song should be about.”

A girl who wants to punch a douchebag in the face? That was an issue I felt a real emotional connection to at the moment.

I bit down on my lip. “Well, I guess that, ultimately, almost all songs are love songs.”

“So, you want to write a love song with me?” Colton stared at me with an amused look in his eyes. “Why, Viola Pierce, we haven’t even had our first date yet, and you already want to skip ahead to our break up song.”

“Not all love songs are break up songs,” I pointed out.

“When
you’re
writing them, they are.”

I tried really hard to keep my glare to myself. I was pretty sure he’d gotten the tail end of it anyway.

I sighed. “I didn’t say it had to be about
us
. Writing a love song with
you
, of all people, isn’t exactly on my bucket list. But we want a song that will actually
sell
and it’s not like we can write a song about Kermit the Frog and have people actually like it.”

“
I’d
like it.”

I snorted. “Because you’d be writing it.”

“I bet there’s someone out there, somewhere, just dying to hear a love song about Kermit and Miss Piggy.”

“Okay. Well, Chinese food then. No one would want to hear a song about Chinese food.”

“Hey, don’t brush that idea off. It worked for the band that did that song about the Chinese chicken. And I
do
love me some Chinese food.” He strummed his guitar, nodding to himself. “I can work with it.”

I sighed. “Are you
always
this difficult to work with?”

“
Me?
” He raised his eyebrows. “Here I am approving every idea you fling my way and you call
me
the difficult one?”

“Do you really think Sesame Street would make a good love song or are you just being agreeable to get out of here ASAP?”

“Okay Princess, what’s
your
idea of a good love song?”

I thought about it for a moment. “Kiss the Girl.”

He nodded. “I get it. The little crab has a sexy voice. I’d do him.”

I hoped he
had
crabs.

Wait, nevermind. Because then
I’d
have crabs. Ew.

“That wasn’t the point of the song. Sebastian wasn’t trying to get with Ariel.” Why was I getting so frustrated about a Disney movie? Ugh, he really brought out the argumentative side of me.

He shrugged. “It’s all about interpretation.”

“Well, your interpretation is wrong.”

His blue eyes gleamed with amusement. “And let me guess.
Your
interpretation would be right?”

“Yes, because it’s
everyone
else’s interpretation, too. You’re the only weird one who would see it that way.”

He shrugged. “Maybe we just watched a different movie.”

“I hope you won’t apply that logic to our songwriting. Our fans will get a disaster love song.”

“Well, there’s a solution to that.”

“What?” I asked with raised eyebrows.

“We could just fall in love and then write our breakup song.” He shrugged. Then a smile spread across his face. “Just kidding. You’d twist it around and make everything my fault.”

This time, I didn’t even bother to hold back the dagger eyes. “I’ve never done that to anyone.”

“Mmhmm,” he murmured. “Anyway, we’re getting off topic.”

I wanted to grill him about what he was talking about, but I didn’t. I let him continue.

“We need to find
something about love that we can both agree on,” he said. He paused for a moment with a thoughtful look in his eyes. “Why did your last relationship end?”

“I don’t actually know,” I admitted.

His eyebrows knitted together in surprise. “Really? It’s not because he went to jail?”

“Jail?” I narrowed my eyes at him. Did he know something about Jake that
I
didn’t know?

“Well, yeah. He killed you… except, I assume he didn’t succeed, since you’re sitting right in front of me. But he apparently tried to kill you and that’s why you wish a thousand deaths upon him.” He shook his head. “Poor guy. Sounds pretty fucking painful, if you ask me.”

The anger was boiling over now, and I was beginning to understand why everyone thought Colton King was a douchebag. He
was
.

“For your information, he disappeared without any explanation.” Saying it aloud for the very first time put into perspective what a douchebag Jake really was. Clearly, I had an emotional connection to
multiple
douchebags. Maybe D-Bag should’ve been the title of one of our songs.

“Wow. You got ghosted.” Colton stared at me a moment longer, clearly still surprised. “I’m sorry. That actually sucks.” Then he added, “No wonder you have so much song material from it.”

I glared at him. “Why did
your
last relationship end?”

“The better question would be why it
didn’t
end,” he said with a laugh. “She had some serious issues.”

For wanting to date him, I’d have to agree. “
She
did, huh?”

He laughed. “Serious trust issues, just to be clear. I would be on tour and she would just call and text me all day long asking where I was or what I was doing or who I was with. I just couldn’t handle it. I’d rather be alone than have someone who needs to be in constant contact with me.”

“I know that feeling all too well. I hate the clingy types.” On second thought, I realized
I
was the clingy type. I’d sent Jake a text message every day since we’d broken up. I knew it was a pretty obnoxious habit of mine, but I hadn’t been able to help myself. I was just crazy like that.

Well, not really. I didn’t act that way with everyone I’d broken up with. Jake just
made
me crazy.

At that moment, an idea hit me. “Actually, I think we might be able to work with this!”

“Yeah?” He eyed me curiously, waiting for me to tell him my idea.

“Why don’t we write a song about someone’s phone being blown up?” I suggested.

He considered it for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah… yeah, I think I like this idea. I have more than enough personal experience to put into it.”

We had experience from both angles, but I wasn’t about to confess to that.

He scanned the room. “Do you have something we can write it on?”

I grabbed my songbook, relieved that I’d burned everything that had been written in it already. The last thing I needed was for him to find
more
songs I’d secretly written about Jake. I was sure he already thought I was pathetic enough as it was.

Grabbing a pen from my desk, I handed them both to Colton.

“Do you write lyrics or melodies first?” he asked, opening the book to a blank page.

“It all depends. Whichever comes first,” I replied with a shrug. Like I said, I had a writing process that was entirely my own. It was nearly impossible to explain it to anyone else.

“Well, it’s easier for me to write a melody first. It’s just how I work,” he explained. “Once I have that down, the words usually come on their own.”

“Okay,” I agreed with a shrug. Picking up my guitar, I began to strum the chords for a few moments. From across the room, he did the same, our melodies so out of sync they got lost in one another.  

We continued to goof off for a while until another idea hit me.

“Why don’t we begin it like this?” I asked.

Colton stopped playing as I played a few notes for him. I repeated them so he could hear them again.

He nodded. “Yeah, let’s go with that. I like that.” His fingers moved over his own guitar strings as he taught himself the melody. Then, he added a few notes of his own. He glanced up at me. “What do you think?”

“Sounds good,” I agreed.

And so we fell into a pattern; he would come up with a few notes and then I would add a few of my own.

Surprisingly, working with him so far wasn’t too bad. The melody came effortlessly and I was pretty sure Jimmy would be happy with what we had done with it so far. It was pretty upbeat and with the right lyrics, I was positive it would be one of those catchy songs you just can’t seem to get enough of.

After we had the melody completed, Colton glanced up at the time on the wall. “We just spent two and a half hours working on this.”

“Wow.” Time apparently flew when you were having… fun. Wow, I’d just admitted to myself that I’d had
fun
with Colton King—and it was the type of fun two people had when they were both fully clothed. Who would’ve thought
that
could ever happen?

We both put our guitars back in their cases and then stepped out into the hallway. As we headed for the front door, Skylar was just stepping out of the bathroom. Her hair was wet and she had a towel wrapped around her body.

“Oh, em, gee,” she squealed when Colton came to a stop a few feet away from her. “You’re Colton King!”

“It’s nice to meet you.” He bit his bottom lip, obviously trying to suppress a laugh. Then, his eyes darted over at me as he added, “Viola didn’t mention she had a roommate.”

“Well, I do,” I replied with a shrug. I knew I was probably overreacting, but his comment sort of annoyed me. He made it sound like he knew everything there was to know about me, when really that wasn’t the case
at all
. He didn’t know the first thing about me.

“Yes, she does
and
her roommate thinks you’re amazing,” Skylar blurted. “I love all of your songs—especially ‘Fly Away With Me’.”

“Thanks. I’m glad you like it.” He smiled at her. “I really need to get going, though. It was nice meeting you.”

“Not as nice as it was to meet
you
,” Skylar cooed, batting her eyelashes at him flirtatiously, before she headed into her bedroom.

I narrowed my eyes at her back in annoyance. Did she not realize she was flirting—or
whatever
it was she was doing—with the guy I’d slept with? She couldn’t go there with him if she wanted us to stay BFF’s. It was just basic Girl Code to never go after a guy your best friend was involved with first.

At least, I assumed that rule applied to one night stands, too. I’d never really been in a situation like this, partly because I didn’t have many girlfriends but also because I’d never had a one night stand. All I knew was if Skylar was the one who’d had the one night stand first, I wouldn’t have gone there.  

At the same time, I knew I couldn’t really blame her for the way she’d reacted too much. It was nearly impossible to be in the same room as Colton without wanting to drop your panties. He was just
that
hot. It was a fact.   

“Are you free to write again at the same time tomorrow?” Colton asked, glancing over in my direction.

“Yeah, sure,” I agreed with a shrug. I figured we would take a day off in between sessions, but I was already starting to adjust to the routine of seeing him every day. Plus, the sooner we got this over with, the sooner we would be done with each other for good, I reminded myself again.

“Okay, cool. I’ll see you then.” He took a few steps toward the front door. I stared at his back until he slipped out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.