“Okay,” he told her, then slung his guitar strap over his shoulder and gave the strings a quick tune.“Should we record it on one of our phones?” he asked. “So we can listen to playback and see how it sounds?” And then he started to play.
She smiled. “Great idea. How about yours since I’m using mine? That way we can put it midway between us so no one’s voice overshadows the other’s.”
Ash dragged the chair close enough to the foot of her lounger that his shins were touching it. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, set it at her feet, and hit Record on the voice memo app. “Ready?” he asked, and Willow nodded. Then he sang the two verses they’d already written…
Didn’t feel like the right time to unpack
With the whole damned world cracking a whip at my back.
So I hopped on a horse and rode until dark,
Knowing with each step I’d never recapture the spark.
Everyone wants me to fix what I broke,
But it took me this long to get in on the joke.
Maybe I’ll sit in my life, give it time to soak in
’Stead of letting ’em clean every mess I get in.
He almost stopped playing until Willow’s voice cut in, so he did his best to follow her lead as she built from the melody he began with and took it to the chorus.
Starin’ up through the clouds, nothing seems to have changed.
Beautiful and ordinary, my life rearranged.
Notes on the mirror still making me cry,
Collecting ‘I’m sorrys’ like stars in the sky.
Should have known from the start we’d still end in goodbye.
She sang the last line again, eyes closed and nodding her head to the soft rhythm as he played a few more bars. Finally, when they’d both gone quiet, she looked up at him with a tentative smile.
It was beautiful and haunting, his melody with her voice. He knew right then and there the song would be exactly what her label wanted. He knew for it to be considered a duet, he’d have to come in on a verse or two. But the chorus was all hers. It had to be. The words were hers. The words were the truth, or at least the version of the truth Willow Morgan believed.
“The melody is perfect,” she told him. “I love it, Ash.”
He pressed his lips into a smile because she was right. Their collaboration worked seamlessly. And yet he couldn’t ignore the sort of prophecy they’d fashioned, wondering if—or rather,how—it would come to fruition.
“That’s how you think it’s going to go, isn’t it?” he asked, keeping his voice even. He motionedbetween them with his guitar pick still pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
Willow rolled her eyes. “It’s just a song.”
He laughed. “Wills, we both know that is the biggest lie any musician can tell.”
She froze for a second and stared at him.
“What?” he asked. Did she remember what he’d said the night she was drunk? Would it even matter if she did? Just because a guy wrote some songs about the one who got away—the one heletget away—didn’t make it all better. She didn’t trust him, and he didn’t blame her. It still stung to see her put it in their song.
Willow shook her head. “Nothing. Just déjà vu, I guess?” She dropped her phone in her lap and crossed her arms. “But if you want the whole truth, fine. Your note on the mirror got the creative juices flowing, but that doesn’t mean I’m predicting the future with it. If you disagree, then just vow right now never to leave me a sticky note on the mirror that saysI’m sorry, and voilà! Crisis averted!”
He groaned, and Willow sat up straighter in the lounger, leveling him with her gaze.
“Ashton Elias Murphy, I did not write that chorus as a premonition, prediction, or prophecy. The only nugget of truth was the note on the mirror. The rest is fiction.”
Ash’s cheeks warmed. “You remember my middle name?”
