“As long as you’re going into it with optimism and an open mind,” Chance said, not looking up, his fingers still gliding over the guitar strings.
When he looked like that, distracted, at peace with his music, Jolene was overwhelmed by how hot he was. She should be sexually satisfied after all the loving he’d been giving her the last few days, and she was, sort of. But there was that whole emotional and physical cocktail of loving him, wanting him, never being able to get enough of him. She just wanted to lie on top of him and tangle up all their bits and waste yet another day.
It was a problem.
Then she became aware of what Chance was actually playing on his guitar. That was not their sound. This was a new direction, bouncier, with a hint of pop music in it.
“I’m not sure about that,” she told Tennyson. “I don’t think there’s enough Jolene in this melody.”
Tennyson gave her a searching look. “Well, what is Jolene? I mean, it’s one thing for you to feel like this isn’t your sound, but if you want it to be you, who are you?”
The question took her aback. “Um…” She looked to her sister for help. It wasn’t something she’d straight-up been asked before, and she wasn’t sure what the hell her answer was. “I’m not a pop star. This sounds pop star.”
“But that’s not actually what you said. You said it’s not Jolene.”
“She can’t just give you a description of herself and have you toss it into a song,” Elle said. “You need to capture her emotions, and frankly, those are universal. She was angry and sad when she and Chance broke up. What’s so hard to interpret about that?”
Exactly. “Our sound isn’t perky and upbeat. It never has been,” Jolene added.
“I did say we were doing a breakup album,” Chance said. “We should focus on that arc.”
“I’m out of here,” Elle said. “Because this is about to get messy, and I don’t want to be anywhere around when it does.”
“It’s not going to get messy,” Chance protested. “We’re all professionals here.”
That was met with dead silence from Elle. And Jolene, for that matter. She considered herself kind of a fake professional.
Tennyson was scrawling on a notepad. For some reason, Jolene was even jealous of her being left-handed. When she was a kid, that had seemed so cool, and now she wanted to repeatedly smack herself in the head for being so ridiculous. Maybe the negative comments online had affected her more than she’d realized, because she was being lame. Totally. Lame.
All she could do was wave to her sister. “Thanks for the bag. I’ll talk to you soon.”
Elle looked like she wanted to shake her. Instead, she shook her head. Chance gave Elle a distracted goodbye, then turned back to Tennyson. “So what do you suggest? A classic breakup song?”
“I want to dig into the aftermath,” Tennyson said.
Yay. That sounded fun. Jolene plunked herself down onto a chair and put her feet up on the chair opposite her. She might as well be comfortable being uncomfortable. “What do you mean?”
“Like, for example, Jolene, did you sleep with anyone else in the months after you and Chance broke up?”
The gate slammed behind Elle.
“Excuse me? I don’t see how that is relevant.” Her cheeks burned.
“Everyone does, of course. I don’t mean it as a judgment. Just that I was thinking I could play around with your numbers and write a rebound song, how that’s always a mistake.”
“Go ahead and say it,” Chance said. “I don’t care. It’s not going to bother me. Water under the bridge.”
Was he for real? She wasn’t sure whether to be offended or not that he wouldn’t care. She just knew this was something they didn’t need to be discussing. “Nothing good comes from telling the truth about stuff you don’t need to be honest about. There is such a thing as too much information.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you racked up double digits or something.” His nostrils flared.
Oh, no, he hadn’t just said that. “But you do know better,” she retorted, and everyone heard the steel in her voice. Apparently he did care, despite his initial nonchalance. But his caring wasn’t going to be put on her as slut shaming. He knew her better than that.
“See, this is genuine emotion,” Tennyson said, sounding pleased.
Jolene kind of wanted to throat-punch her, but she was trying to stay right with the Lord. She breathed out of her nose, slowly. “If you’re trying to piss me off, goal accomplished.”
“No, no, of course not. I’m trying to dig deep, get a song out of you that’s raw and real.”
“I’ll tell you my number if you tell me yours,” Chance said.
She wasn’t falling for that. “I don’t need to hear about your mattress-hopping, thanks.”
“I slept with two guys after my divorce,” Tennyson offered. “In rapid succession. It was stupid, but I was feeling lonely and vulnerable. Does that help?”
Not really. For all Jolene knew, she was lying. Besides, she didn’t know Tennyson or her ex-husband or anything about their situation, and she found it odd that Tennyson had tossed that out so casually.