He stares at me.
I stare right back.
He hasn’t shaved. He has light brown scruff coating his chin and jaw and upper lip, and he looks like he belongs in a movie where he’s the reluctant hero who has to save us all from an alien invasion.
I would watch the crap out of that movie.
“So why did you leave the party yesterday?” he asks.
Because nice holidays and I don’t get along, and being by myself is safer. “I do weird things sometimes.”
He gives me the eyebrow tilt ofI don’t believe you.
And here’s the thing.
This could be Cash Rivers’s ego—of course you leaving was about me—or it could be observant friend Cash Rivers—you can trust me. Haven’t all of our text message conversations this past year taught you anything?
Either way, all he’s getting is what I’m telling him now.
“I felt like writing songs, and I do it best when I don’t have distractions.”
Yeah, that’s a total lie.
The part about feeling like writing songs, anyway.
What’s weird though, is that I think he knows I’m feeding him a line.
He shouldn’t.
We don’t know each other that well.
Correction: weshouldn’tknow each other that well.
But between the mountains of texts we send each other and the vibe when we’re in the same place, it feels like we know each other that well.
And that’s what sucks about being his tenant.
If I were any other up-and-coming entertainer, I could absolutely bang this out with him.
But he’s my landlord.
And he’s also my friend.
I don’t want to mess up either.
“You just suddenly needed to be alone and write songs?” he says.
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Release a Christmas album, my manager said.It’ll remind people you’re here while we work on your next album.
Twelve songs.
Eleven written by other artists and licensed.
One written by me in a moment of weakness early this year when holiday decorations were still up everywhere and I’d just surrendered my pet to a better home and broken up with a guy who was using me for my connections to Waverly.
