“Like… closure?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Whatever you want to call it.”
I went silent, thinking it over. Most of the songs I’d ever written had been about Harper. Before his death it was all passion and love and desire. After his death, heartbreak and turmoil and loss.
When comparing the songs between my first band and Cherry Lips, it was like they’d been composed by two completely different people.
And they had been. The current me was nothing like the old Cerise.
Or, at least, I hadn’t been until recently.
Something inside me changed as soon as Liam walked back into my life.
I felt… whole.
“Think about it?” Morris said to fill the silence. “I want to write that song with you.”
I nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”
Even as I said the words, my chest ached. That small, miserable part of me kept remembering awful things. I wished I could banish it forever, but it felt like it had been with me for so long. I didn’t know how to make it go away.
Morris held out his hands. I stepped into the circle of his arms. One large palm cupped the back of my head. I pressed my face into his chest.
I tried not to feel the absence of Harper's presence in his embrace.
“Morris.” Liam’s flat voice spoke from the doorway.
I stepped back from the hug, blinking back tears.
“Natalie wants you,” Liam told him.
Morris patted me on the shoulder and, after eyeing Liam carefully, went back into the main bar.
“What was that about?” Liam asked.
“Morris wanted to—”
“Write a song with you,” he interrupted. “Yeah. I heard.” His green eyes, normally so good-natured, were narrowed in suspicion. “I thought you didn’t write songs with people.”
“I don’t normally but—”
“I asked you to write a song with me and you wouldn't,” Liam cut me off again. His tone was oddly heated. And not in the good way. “But you’ll write one with him.”
“I’m thinking about it.” I frowned at him. “Why are you acting so weird over this?”
“Why do you think?”
“You’re upset because of a song?”
“I’m upset because I walk in here and see my girlfriend with another man,” he growled. “An engaged man, might I add.”
A shot of disbelief went through me. “And what exactly do you think was happening between us? If you’re trying to insinuate something—”
“You won’t write a song with me, you won’t tell the band about us—”
“Are you mad about that?” I asked, still taken aback by the turn of our conversation. “I thought we agreed to keep it to ourselves for now.”
“And how long isfor nowgoing to last?” he snapped. “Are you just biding your time with me? Are you just waiting for their relationship to fall apart so you can be with him?”
