“I want to feel it.”
The right side of his mouth curved up. “It’s better than sex.”
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Well, maybe they’re equal.” Zane licked his lips. “What madeyouwant to do this?”
Shrugging, she said, “I could never imagine myself doing anything else. From the time I was little. My mom would put on Aretha Franklin or The Beatles, and I would dance and sing until I was overheated and exhausted. I’d ask her to play my favorites over and over. When I was three, I’d used my skipping rope as a microphone. I’d fake plug it into the couch and belt out Elton John and Kiki Dee. I didn’t know many of the words, but I went for it anyway.”
Zane grinned, imagining her as a little girl, singing away into a skipping rope. He put his hands on the keyboard and played the first few chords of ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.’”
Claudia joined in and they sang a few verses, grinning and laughing through it while she pretended to hold a microphone up to her mouth. When it was over, he said, “Pure joy. That one is pure joy.”
Zane stared at her, feeling a hum of excitement. Heknew they were on the edge of something huge. He didn’t know what, but just like the day when they performed for the producer who gave them their start, he knew things were about to change. Permanently.
CLAUDIA
Claudia gazed at Zane, her heart racing. “That’s the best kind of song. The pure joy kind. Or … ones filled with raw heartache. I love the extremes.”
“Me too.”
“It really is a special kind of magic, isn’t it? The way a single stanza and a few notes can make you feel something that would take an entire novel to do. How the perfect song lets you forget everything and lose yourself in it, even if it’s just until the last note plays.” Her love for music surged as she spoke, waking her up despite the late hour. “When I write, it feels like I’m taking all these big emotions and thoughts bottled up inside and releasing them. It’s cathartic.”
“I totally get that,” Zane said, glancing at her mouth. Or maybe that was her imagination… “So, show me what you’ve got, Claudia. I want to know what’s inside you.”
Claudia bit her lip, her cheeks heating up. “I have been working on something, but I’m sure it’s not worth listening to.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
Claudia released a shaky breath. “Oh, God, the stakes are way too high. It would kill me if you hate it.”
Zane stared deep into her eyes. “Why? I’m just a man. A desperate one at that.”
“You’re not just a man,” Claudia tilted her head. “You’re Zane McCreight.”
“I promise I won’t hate it.”
“You can’t promise that.”
His eyes flicked to her lips again. “Yes, I can.”
“There’s no way you can know how you’ll feel before you even hear one note of it.” Claudia turned from him, making a slow loop around the grand piano, her fingertips gliding along the edge of the glossy black instrument. “What if it’s awful, but you feel obligated to pretend it’s good, and the entire world hates it, and it becomes the tragic downfall of a once-great rock band?”
“Won’t happen.”
Knowing she shouldn’t, she sat down on the stool and stared up at him. “But what if it does?”
“We’re The Vows. Nothing can take us down.”
“That’s some Titanic-level bravado.”
Zane chuckled, then his face grew serious. “How about this? I promise if it’s not for us, I’ll say so, and we’ll go back to how things are right at this very moment.”
Claudia looked up at him but said nothing. Instead, she swallowed hard, searching for the courage to share her soul with him.
Zane leaned in until he was dangerously close to her. “What if your song would’ve been the biggest hit of our lives, only you were too scared to take a chance?”
“That would be a tragedy.”
