As his raspy voice fills the studio, all the distress I felt in the bathroom starts to fade away. His music is that powerful. Every time this guy sings, it’s like time stops and you’re sucked into his world.
The lyrics are angrier than I expect, until the bridge, when they become kind of melancholy. I can see why he wants to slow that part down. It’s so different in tone from the rest of the song.
“So?” King prompts when Oak is done.
They both eye me expectantly.
I give a sheepish smile. “Um. I disagree with you both, actually. I don’t think it works either fast or slow. The lyrics in that part sound like they’re from a totally different song. I mean, sometimes that’s a good thing, but in this case, it’s kind of...jarring.” I stare at my hands so that neither one of them can glare at me.
“Yeah...I can see your point.” King sounds thoughtful. He grabs the pen from Oakley and starts jotting something down on a notepad. “What if we tweak these lines to this?”
Oak instantly leans over to look, and the two of them start brainstorming again.
I curl up on the sofa and listen to their soft murmurs. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have, because my eyes suddenly pop open to the feel of a warm hand on my cheek. I blink, realizing that King is gone and it’s just me and Oak.
He’s perched on the edge of the couch, his fingertips stroking my cheek as he looks down at me with those gorgeous green eyes.
“You fell asleep,” he tells me.
I sit up with a yawn. “Oh. I’m sorry. It’s the hangover, not your music. I swear.”
He laughs before his expression goes serious. “What happened to your shoes?”
“I threw them away,” I confess.
“Any particular reason why?”
“They’re part of my past.”
Oak nods slowly. “All right. Can I buy you a pair of new Vans?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m going to get my own. Color a new story for myself.”
He settles into his chair and picks up his pen. “Hope you have room on there for a tree or two.”
“A tree?” I ask, puzzled.
“You know...maybe an oak tree?”
I feel a smile tug on the sides of my lips. “Yeah...I probably do.”
*
Later, we go to Oak’s house. Not because Claudia says we should, but because by mutual, silent agreement, that’s where we want to be. We order pizza and eat it outside on a pair of lounge chairs in front of Oakley’s gigantic pool. By the time we finish eating, the sun has already dipped below the horizon line, but that doesn’t stop him from popping into the pool house to change into swim trunks.
My breath catches when he reappears. This is the first time I’ve seen him with his shirt off. Well, in person, anyway. I’ve seen his chest in pictures, but the real thing is so much...yummier. And his tattoos are hotter than hell. He’s got a cross on his arm with his mom’s name underneath it. A swirl of music notes and what I think is a guitar fret on his other arm. Black rows of dates and coordinates between his shoulder blades—I gave in and Googled him again the other day to figure out what the back tattoo meant, and it turns out it’s the dates and coordinates of some of his favorite tour stops.
Sometimes I forget that he’s nineteen. He’s so tall and muscular and masculine that he looks older. Actually, he’s looking more and more like his movie-star father, but I keep the comparison to myself because I don’t think Oak would appreciate it. He hardly ever mentions his dad, and it’s obvious they’ve got some kind of beef.
“Always checking me out, huh?” he teases. “Careful, babe, or you’re gonna give me a complex.”
“You already have a complex. It’s called egomania.”
“Ha.” He marches over and tugs on the braid hanging over my shoulder. “Maybe if you quit staring at me all the time, my ego would be normal-size.”
“Nothing about you is normal-size,” I shoot back, and then blush because that sounded like a double entendre, and I totally wasn’t trying to make one.
He waggles his eyebrows. “You saw the Vogue spread, huh?”
I blush harder. “Just shut up and do a cannonball or something.”
“You’re really not going to join me?” Oak looks disappointed. He told me there were spare bathing suits in the pool house, but swimwear isn’t my issue. I’m just not in the mood to swim.
“I’m so lazy today,” I say ruefully. “Seriously. This hangover kicked my butt.”
“Note to self—lock up the liquor cabinets next time Vaughn comes over for a party.”
“Please do,” I beg.
Chuckling, he drops a towel on his chair and walks to the edge of the deck. Rather than dip a toe in to test the temperature, he dives cleanly into the water and swims all the way to the other side of the pool. His blond head pops up near the shallow end, and then he does a slow backstroke while I admire the strong lines of his body.
I lie back and look up at the dusky sky, marveling about the drastic upheaval of my life. Two months ago I never would’ve dreamed I’d be lying on a chaise longue in Oakley Ford’s luxurious backyard, while the pop star I’d once crushed on swims laps in his pool.
Oak’s life isn’t normal, though. The bodyguards, the money, the fans, this house on the beach with its blue tiled pool, his friends—although for someone so famous he doesn’t seem to have very many friends. Or, at least, not good ones.
“You’re thinking so hard I can hear your gears grinding. What’s bothering you?”
I contemplate him for a minute. There are tiny drops of water on his long eyelashes and they sparkle like jewels in the late-afternoon sun. “I don’t know. I just...” I trail off.
He levers himself out of the pool and throws his wet self down next to me.
I toss him a towel so he can cover up his perfect body. It’s way too distracting.
He rubs the towel over his head and swipes it haphazardly down his torso before tossing it behind him. “Come on,” he coaxes. “Tell me what’s twisting you up inside.”
“Are you going to turn this into a song?” I’m beginning to suspect that the music he’s making is all about himself—a confessional of sorts. That kind of bravery is stunning and powerful.
“Maybe.” He tilts his head toward me. “It’s kind of a hazard of dating a songwriter.”
Hmmm. I hadn’t considered that, but weirdly I trust him. As in, I don’t believe he’d write a song that would hurt or humiliate me.
I fix my gaze on the fading light in the sky.
“My parents died two summers ago,” I say softly. “Dad had taken Mom out for date night. They were coming home from the Cheesecake Factory—my mom’s all-time favorite place. She loved the meat loaf there, of all things.” I shake my head over that memory. “Anyway, something happened and Dad lost control of the car. It crashed into the concrete barricade and they both died on impact.” The sharp pain of loss forces me to stop and catch my breath. “I hadn’t planned on taking summer classes. Dad wanted me to. He said if I graduated early, I could take a year off before going to college. He thought I could spend the year backpacking across Europe, getting educated in the school of life.”