Dangerous Hearts: Rock Star Romance, 1 (Lyric & Wolf) (6 page)

“I should get to bed,” I say after
throwing cash on the bar.

His eyes move to my half-empty plate and
then to me. He hands me back my
money
. “I got
this, Lyric. I love your name, by the way.”

I refuse the money, and his eyes, with a
wave of my hand. “Keep it for the tip.”

“Good
night,
Lyric.”

“Good
night,
Wolf.”

Wolf

After
dinner I take my drink to the pool and slip my bare feet into the water.
Am I lonely?
Lyric asked the question and
I
keep
coming up with excuses as to why I’m
not. I’m busy constantly. These past few weeks
, I've had
more downtime than I’ve had in years. Usually, not even a holiday passes
without some type of obligation. I’ve gotten good at going with the flow and
not asking for time off, because what would I do? Where would I go? I’m seeing
the world on tour. I have my fans. My bandmates. My crew. The latter two
groups
are more than employe
es
.
I consider them my best friends. Lyric’s assumption that I’m lonely is way off.
I just happen to love this life and take nothing for granted. Vacation isn’t
something I want or need.

A whistle of wind blows through the air,
rustling something near me. I look to find a small piece of notebook paper fluttering,
wrapped around a nearby chair.

The wind picks it up
,
and the loose paper is carried through the air
until it skips across the cold cement. Right toward me.
M
y first instinct
is
to reach for it.
And then the words on the page catch my eye.
At a closer glance
,
I
realize that it’s a poem. Or maybe a song. I’m already rereading it at least a
dozen times, reconstructing the flow of the words in my mind.

I look around to see if someone nearby
could have dropped it
, but
n
o one but me is outside at this hour. Pulling my
feet from the water, I
stand
and walk to my
room,
where I
set the sheet of paper on my
dresser.

After showering and climbing into bed, I
flip on the television, hoping to drown out the addictive words that I just
assume are lyrics at this point. I can hear the unwritten melody in my head. It’s
the same feeling I get when I’ve just written a great fucking hit.
The problem is
I didn’t write this. It’s not mine to
claim.

Eventually, I throw the remote and walk
to my dresser. With a glare, I snatch the words up and sit back down.

It’s not like I can actually do anything
with these lyrics, but maybe I could use this as a healthy exercise. It’s been
a while since I’ve written a great song. The inspiration hasn’t been there. I
could edit these lyrics. Put them to music. Maybe then I can get back into the
writing groove. Harmless.

I’m up for hours debating, searching online
for the lyrics or anything similar. It’s possible someone copied the lyrics of a
popular song onto paper. I did that when I was little
if
I wanted to commit a song to memory.

Results come up empty. My brain is fried.
And the lyrics are still reverberating through me as if they’ve already come to
life.

I succumb to the craving. And like with
my own songs, I take a pen to paper and start editing.

It’s
days later when I leave my room. That’s what happens when I write a song
—
except I didn’t write this one. I edited it and put
music to it, but it’s not mine. It belonged to a chair leg
before
the wind stole it and handed it to me.

Guilt rumbles through me at the thought
of claiming it as my own, which is unfortunate. These lyrics are embedded in my
soul as if I did write them.

I’m not a cover artist. Even purchasing
songs from our producers is something I stay away from. That’s not who I am.
I’ve climbed the charts because I enjoy writing and performing original songs.
No other song could possibly fit Wolf’s sound. Except this one; this song
haunts me.

It’s noon
,
and I’m meeting the band at the studio we’re renting for the day. We’re having
our first practice since our last tour ended
,
and it’s much needed. The longer a band is together
,
the bigger the tendency to neglect the work that brought on the fame. I don’t
want that to happen to us.

We kick
off
the tour with a local show in one week, which gives us enough time to go over
our set list and a new hit contender I wrote over break.

“It’s too easy,” Hedge complains after we
play the new song. It’s not a surprise, unfortunately, my heart wasn’t
completely in this one, but Crawley liked it. And Hedge is a perfectionist.
He’ll be the first one to tell me something is a piece of shit, and I love him
for it. I just don’t have a backup plan this time.

“What’s too easy?” Crawley growls,
obviously distracted by whoever is chirping in his ear. It sounds like someone
is asking for more money, which isn’t even his problem to deal with.

“The set. We’ve done it a thousand times.
Let’s give this crowd something new. Something good.”

“We’ve got
‘
Hidden
Road,
’”
I respond halfheartedly, still trying
to salvage my poor runt of a song. It’s not a hit. Not even close. We all know
it, but the guys have been keeping their mouths shut up until now.

Hedge pierces me with his stare. “Oh
yeah? You might be the face of this band
,
but
we have a say
,
too
,
and we’re not performing that piece of shit.”

“Whoa
.
”
Derrick steps in. “Calm down, dude.” Then he turns his gaze on me. “Do we have
anything else to try? Maybe we should explore other options. We’re not going to
win
’
em over with
‘
Hidden
Road.
’
Sorry
,
Wolf.” His apology is unnecessary. I’m right there with him.

Crawley’s face grows red
,
and he
pull
s his
phone away. We all cover our ears in anticipation. We’ve seen him this irate
before. Even beyond our muffled ears we can hear him scream, “Tell those sons
of bitches we have a contract
!
We are one week
until show time and they’re going to stick us with an empty stage?”

I groan. A cancellation
—t
hat’s what this is about. Crawley specifically
requested this band and now they want to get greedy. “Let the tour company deal
with that shit and get your head in this studio,” I grumble at him.

Crawley is the best
b
and
m
anager we
could have asked for, but sometimes I’m afraid his heart will explode when he’s
dealing with a crisis. He takes on too much and is the worst delegator,
thinking he can do everything better if he does it himself. Which is probably
true, but not great for his mental
or physical
health.

He glares in my direction
,
pushes buttons on his phone,
and
then waits for someone to pick up. Trying to
tune him out is impossible when he says Lyric’s name. Something happens in my
chest.
Shit.

I haven’t seen her since the night we had
dinner at the bar. Not by choice. The mystery song quickly became my new
obsession. The arrangement I composed has a dark but hopeful tone to it, which
is what our sound is about. The writing is simple but plays well to an awesome
melody. It could earn us another number one. I can feel it in my bones. For
once, something took precedence over women and sex.

The itch I was trying to suppress comes
back full force. I reach into my back pocket and pull out the flash drive with
“Dangerous Heart”
on it. I laid down the demo track
yesterday to see how it sounded. I
wasn't going to
play
it for anyone else, knowing I didn’t write the original lyrics myself, but I
can’t keep this to myself any longer.

I hand the stick to the sound engineer
and place myself at the front of the room to speak to my band. “Do me a favor
and take a listen to something I just laid down. I think you’ll dig it.”

This gets their attention and the
frustration turns to anticipation. Hedge has everyone riled up. The guys are
too hard on themselves. We played the
W
est
C
oast on our last tour, so the
E
ast
C
oast isn’t
expecting anything different, but the guys get bored easily.

Apparently
so do I because I’m stealing lyrics from the hotel pool.

When the intro pours
out of
the speakers
,
Crawley walks back in and collapses on the floor. His eyes are closed and the
excess
blood
is draining
from
his face. He’s listening. I watch the eyes of everyone in the room,
entranced by their reactions. The song is a bit slower than the ones they’re
used to, but that’s a good thing. The label has been requesting something slow
and catchy
,
and I’ve promised it to them. It’s
just not something I’m great at writing, come to find out.

But
this .
 . .
this might just be good.

Two
wrongs don’t mend hearts like ours

I
give, you take, nothing feels right

Two
wrongs can never break our fall

We’re
in too deep, losing sleep

Trying
to forget what started it all

Angry
eyes and brick wall armor

Lessons
learned, paths paved, shield unyielding

A
heavy weight, you’ll never penetrate

And
you won’t be at the end of this story

Stay
away, with your dangerous heart

That
damaged our love, that damaged me

Crushed
to pieces, shredded flowers making art

You’re
dangerous, your soul is black

Dangerous
heart, and I want none of it back

Can’t
rely on second chances

Since
the first ripped me apart

You’re
not welcome here anymore

Cause
there’s no going back to the start

Stay
away, with your dangerous heart

You’ve
damaged our love, you’ve damaged me

Crushed
to pieces, shredded flowers making art

You’re
dangerous, your soul is black

Dangerous
heart, I want none of it back

After the last line
,
the guys are staring at each other, excitement
written all over their faces. They heard it. What I heard. A hit. Hedge begins
laughing. Crawley’s eyes are wide as he leaps up from the floor as if it’s
bitten him. “This is yours?”

I hesitate for a second and wrinkle my
face. “Not quite.”

The excitement in the room falls, and I
quickly jump to my defense. “I edited the lyrics, barely, and put it to music.”

“Who wrote the
words
?”
Lorraine asks.

My face twists as I reach into my bag and
pull out the sheet of paper. “No clue. I found this at the hotel pool,
fluttering around and lost.”

“One man’s trash is another man’s
treasure,” Stryder
says with a
grin. “Sounds
like you claimed something someone didn’t know what to do with.”

I wince. “Not necessarily. Lost is
different than tossed, man. We can’t do anything with this yet. It’s not mine.”