Melody of the Heart (Runaway Train, #4)

Brayden gave me a sheepish grin. “Oops. Sorry about that.”


“It’s okay,” I replied. On shaky legs, I slipped inside my car. Brayden waited until I cranked up and started down the street before he got into his car. I couldn’t think of anything but him the entire forty minutes home.





LILY


THE PRESENT


Giovanni furiously scribbled on his notepad before looking up at us. “That was quite an interesting story about how you two first got together. Although if I had to argue that from the sound of it, it truly was love at first sight.”

I laughed. “I guess you’re right. At least it was for me after our first kiss.”

Brayden held up his hands in defeat. “Trust me, I was pretty much a gonner from the moment I laid eyes on her.”

“And you were pretty much inseparable from the day you met, correct?” Giovanni asked.

With a grin, Brayden said, “I couldn’t let her out of my sight. I mean, you see how gorgeous she is. I didn’t want her running off with anyone else.”

I gave his thigh a playful smack. “We just got a long so well that we didn’t want to spend any time apart. We had our separate interests, but luckily, we were able to support each other in those.”

Giovanni nodded as he chewed thoughtfully on his pen cap. “Now Brayden, during her story, Lily touched briefly on your first band, The Benders. How long were you with them?”

Scratching his chin, Brayden became contemplative. “Let’s see I was a junior in high school. And then we broke up when I was twenty.”

“What happened there?”

Brayden remained silent for a moment. I knew the sordid details from being in the thick of everything with him, but it wasn’t my place to talk about it.

He drew in a ragged breath. “Tom and Grayson had issues with addiction. Lots of alcohol and some drugs. It derailed the entire creative process for them, but they never wanted to include any of my songs. We weren’t getting anywhere on the music scene, and then things just seemed to be spinning out of control personally with them. So I left.”

Giovanni nodded. “Do you ever see or hear from them?”

“Grayson died from an overdose about a year after I left. I think after that, they just dissolved the band.” After looking down at his hands, Brayden shook his head. “No, I don’t hear from any of them. You know, the guilt is hard sometimes. I’ve heard different artists talk about how you have this guilt about making it. Kind of like survivor’s guilt. Like, what was it about me that deserved to make it, but Tom and Grayson didn’t?”

Tapping his pen on his pad, Giovanni smiled. “I think that shows a great depth of character. So many artists lose their hearts and souls with fame and fortune.”

When I tensed at Giovanni’s words, Brayden sighed dejectedly. “Trust me, I went down that road. It wasn’t pretty.”

“We’ll come back to that one in a few minutes. I’m trying to keep to the timeline of your relationship, and I have a feeling that comes during the part when the two of you were broken up.”

“Yes,” I murmured. When I had first agreed to the interview, I hadn’t envisioned having to relive some of the darkest times of Brayden’s and my relationship. It was even harder knowing that it would be documented in a magazine for everyone to read the sordid details. I guess in the end, our breakup didn’t come from anything salacious like I caught him having an orgy. To some it might not even seem like that big of a deal. But for me, it was life altering.

“Lily?” Giovanni asked.

I jumped. “Yes?”

He smiled. “From those early days together, what is the most romantic thing Brayden did for you that truly cemented your feelings for him?”

Glancing over at Brayden, I found that he was giving me a concerned look. I knew he wasn’t thrilled about having to dig up the past either. I smiled reassuringly at him. “I know some people will think that this was a planned response, but the truth is the most romantic thing he ever did for me was write me a song.”

“Ah,” Giovanni replied, scribbling something down. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that song was the first of Runaway Train’s hits.”

“You are right. It was the first song of ours to ever be played on the radio. Our first Billboard hit,” Brayden replied.

Giovanni smiled. “And it’s all because of Lily.”

Bobbing his head, Brayden said, “You got that right.”

“So where did you first play it for her?”

Brayden glanced over at me with a sheepish grin. “I guess you could say it was a very acoustic performance.”





LILY


THE PAST


I bolted upright in my bed out of a dead sleep. Just when I thought I had been imagining things, something scratched against my window, and it wasn’t a branch caused by the wind. With my heart beating wildly in my chest, I threw back the covers, poised to run down the hall to my parents’ bedroom for help. But then a hushed voice outside stopped me.