The weight of her claim lay heavily on him, but he shook the stupid feeling aside and smiled, running a finger down her bare back until she shivered.
“For now,” Jimmy said. “Chantel is thinking about giving up the drums and pursuing singing.”
If his tactic was to drive Dawn’s attention away from Kellen, he succeeded.
“But you love the drums!” Dawn said.
“A front man—or woman—needs to be out front,” Chantel said. “Drummers shouldn’t sing.”
“Phil Collins probably wouldn’t agree with that,” Kellen said.
“That’s one success story.” Chantel lifted one finger in the air. “One!”
“There are others. Don Henley. Uh . . . David Grohl.” Kellen struggled for more names. There really weren’t many successful drummer singers.
“David Grohl doesn’t play drums anymore,” Chantel said.
“I don’t even know who David Grohl is.” Dawn cringed when Chantel gasped.
“Heads the Foo Fighters?”
Dawn shook her head.
“Originally the drummer for Nirvana?”
Dawn brightened. “I’ve heard of Nirvana. They did ‘Smells Like Teen Spearmint,’ right?”
Kellen snorted on a laugh but didn’t correct her.
“We tried to get her to live in the twenty-first century,” Jimmy said, shaking his head, “but she insists on staying in the sixteenth.”
“Sheesh. I’m not that old-fashioned.” Dawn slugged Jimmy in the arm. “There were some greats in the Baroque period—like Bach and Vivaldi—but I’m much more into the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries.”
Kellen snorted on another laugh and hugged her tight. Nope, the eighteenth century wasn’t old school at all.
“So you forget what’s usual and become the next Phil Collins,” Dawn said to Chantel. “Sing from behind your drums.”
“But jazz,” Jimmy added.
“It will have to be pop.” Chantel released a deep sigh. “No one listens to jazz anymore. Like I said, I have to broaden my horizons. Or narrow them.”
“No one listens to classical either,” Dawn said. “You have to make your own niche, girl. Get out there. Let your soul shine.”
Chantel squeezed Dawn’s hand. “I’ve missed this. Missed you. You always did make me believe I was capable of anything.”
“Because you are.”
Apparently his Dawn wasn’t just the beacon in his darkness. Her light shone brightly on all those she touched.
Chapter Four
“Road trip!” Dawn shouted as she climbed into the car beside Kellen the next morning. She’d been in a great mood since she’d woken to find Kellen watching her sleep as if she were the world’s greatest treasure. And then it occurred to her that they got to spend the entire day alone together, and she doubted anything could knock her out of the clouds and back to earth.
Stifling his yawn with a laugh—Chantel and Jimmy had kept them out late even by rock star standards—he started the car. “We need snacks,” he said.
“And good tunes.”
“I’m not sure our ideas of good tunes are the same.”
So the stuff she listened to wasn’t last decade or even last century. As far as she was concerned, excellent music was timeless.
“What kind of music do you listen to in the car?” she asked.
“Classic rock mostly. And you?”
She lifted an eyebrow at him. “You have to ask?”
“A different type of classic,” he guessed.
“We should share our favorite playlists,” she said. “I can listen to some of your favorites and you can do the same with mine. It’ll be fun.”
“Fun? I’m pretty sure classical music will put me to sleep while I’m driving.”
She slapped at his arm playfully. “It will not. It will stir your soul.”
“And classic rock will stir . . .” He grinned. “Something else.”
“I’m game for all sorts of stirring.”
He laughed and pulled into a gas station that had a convenience store. “Snacks first. Get all your favorites and we’ll share.”
This was fun, she decided as she hunted for pizza-flavored Combos, a corn dog that had been rolling on a heating plate for at least seven or eight days, and her favorite Starbursts. Few knew of her addiction to any of those things. She also got a bottle of cranberry juice and a second of orange juice, and then picked out a travel mug in which to mix the two.
Kellen had already checked out, his food treasures hidden in a concealing bag. She tried blocking her own purchases from his sight so she could surprise him with her finds as well.
When they reached the car, she mixed her orange and cranberry juices and offered him a sip.
“That’s actually really good,” he said.
“And healthier than whatever soda you pulled off the shelf. Wait, let me guess . . .” She closed one eye and assessed him as if reading his mind. “Mountain Dew?”
He pulled out a bottle of peach-flavored sparkling water. “Do not tell the guys I drink this stuff,” he said. “They’ll take my man card.”
She laughed and took a taste. “Not bad,” she said. Not good either, but if she were stranded in a desert, she’d drink it. After she ran out of her own urine maybe.
They laughed when they discovered they’d both bought Starbursts, though he’d gotten original flavors and she favored the tropical ones. He was aghast to find she actually liked the lemon chews.
“Gross. I usually throw the yellows away.”
“Save those for me, then.”
She was nibbling on her corn dog after chomping down half of his taquito as she began to compile her playlist on her phone. She really needed to put some lesser-known compositions on the device. Her digital collection couldn’t compare to her at-home collection in either size or diversity. And as a purist, she preferred vinyl, but she had yet to ride in a car that boasted a turntable.
“So the trip will take, what, six hours?” she asked, offering him a bite of her dried-out corn dog—just the way she liked them.
“About that long,” he said, making a face of disgust and spitting the corn dog into his hand. He dropped it out the window for crows or seagulls or whatever kind of birds scavenged convenience store parking lots in these parts.
She flicked through her list of songs, the title of each composition making her fingers long for a keyboard as each played through her thoughts. “Some of these symphonies are over an hour long.”
“An hour? For one song?”
When she glanced at Kellen, his mouth was turned down and his nose was crinkled up. Okay, so maybe she should stick to shorter pieces for now. She didn’t want to turn him off her genre by overplaying one composer. When he stuck his tongue out and shuddered, she said, “An hour isn’t that bad.”
“Give me another drink of your juice.”
She handed over her travel mug grudgingly. She didn’t usually have to share. Especially not with someone who drank in enormous gulps. When he handed the mug back, her drink was nearly gone. She scowled at the too-light mug.
“Had to wash the taste of ass out of my mouth,” he said.
“Corn dogs do not taste like ass.”
“You sure about that? I’ll run in and get you another drink,” he said.
“It’s okay.”
He grinned. “But I want more. I’m officially changing my favorite beverage to yours.”