“Wouldn’t it?”
Nodding, she inched ever so slightly closer to him, and they both knew what could happen if they let it. But then, right when she was ready to abandon all her morals, Claudia forced herself to look down at the keyboard. She put her fingers on the keys, and began to play a slow,tortured tune that said everything she’d been feeling for two long years. “When I look into your eyes, all I see is a future that can never be, a world where I’m finally blissfully, painfully happy… a world where I wake up with you next to me, your arms around me, your chest bare,our bodies intertwined, our souls locked together forever… And if I didn’t have him, and you didn’t have her, we could be everything to each other, if you didn’t have her and I didn’t have him, I’d be your sun, your moon, and your stars, I’d be the light you come home to at the end of the day, I’d be the holder of all your secrets so deep, I’d be the woman you’d love and the one that you’d keep… If I didn’t have him, and you didn’t have her, you’d be the woods I get lost in, the ocean that fills me, the tide that brings me to shore…”
She stopped abruptly, taking her hands off the keys and tucking them into the long sleeves of her cable-knit sweater. “That’s all I’ve got.”
Zane swallowed hard, looking dumbstruck. “That is maybe the best thing I’ve heard in years.”
Her heart pounded, and she shook her head. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is, Claud. It’s… a perfect song. Raw heartache. We should turn it into a duet and add it to the album.”
She lifted her hands to her mouth and let out a sound that was part sob and part scream. “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “It’s our lead single. Do you have the lyrics written down somewhere?”
“Yes.” She jumped up and ran over to her purse, grabbing her notebook and rushing back to him. Sitting down, she flipped through the pages until she found it. Then she placed it on the music stand.
Zane scrunched his eyes to see the words. “I’m going to write it out for myself. My old man eyes can’t read your tiny writing.”
Claudia laughed and sat next to him while he transcribed her words onto a yellow pad in his big, loopy printing. She felt as if she were watching the whole thing from outside herself. This was it. This was the moment when all her dreams were about to come true. When he finished, he replaced her book with the pad, then said, “Here, I’ve marked whose stanzas are whose.” He grinned at her. “Okay, let’s take it from the top.”
She started to play, and soon he joined in, mirroring her chords in a lower octave. The sound of the music coming from the piano was rich and full and perfect, and she wished they had a sound engineer to record it. She wished her mom could be there to witness it. Her daughter, now lean and pretty, was also a brilliant artist about to get her due. Their voices rang out, tangling up together like lovers in the sheets. They smiled at each other when they reached the final round of the chorus, and she knew by the look in his eyes that part of him wanted her. Not all of him. She could never have all of him. But she could have this.
When the last note played, they sat, arms pressed together, both panting a little as if they’d just made love. Claudia grinned at him. “Wow, that was…”
“That’s what it feels like to write a hit.”
Pride swelled in her chest. “You really think it’s a hit?”
“There’s no question about it,” he said.
“Oh, wow.” Tears filled Claudia’s eyes, and her voice cracked when she spoke. “This is everything I’ve dreamed of my whole life.”
“Just wait, Claud. Wait ‘til you hear thirty thousand people singing it back to you. It’s the greatest drug there is.”
Without thinking about it, Claudia wrapped her arms around Zane and hugged him tight, whispering, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. It’s yours.”
She let him go and stared at him, her entire body humming with an excitement she’d never known before. She longed to kiss him, hold him, rip off his clothes and act on her feelings.
Zane looked down at her as if she were the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. Then he said, “Listen, Claud, there’s onetinyproblem with using your song.” He squinted at her. “The label won’t use it if it’s not mine.”
Her heart sank, and she narrowed her eyes while she tried to understand what he was telling her. “I don’t get it. What does that mean?”
“It means we have to pretend I wrote it. It’s either that, or it’ll get buried. I wish it wasn’t the way it is, but that’s the deal we have with them. It sucks though.”
Her mind raced back to the day of her audition, when Mike said Zane was the only one allowed to write for the band. She didn’t have enough experience to understand how these things worked, only that it felt wrong to give up her rights without even asking someone else for advice. But who could she trust? The only people in the business that she knew were all part of the band.
Zane’s gaze grew desperate. “Don’t let them bury your song. We’ll always know the truth. Even if no one else does. It’ll still be yours.”
She nodded, knowing she either agreed to it now or she’d be choosing to let her dream die on the vine. “Okay.”
“Good girl,” Zane said, tucking a lock of her chestnut brown hair behind her ear.
“What the fuck is this shit?” Mike stood at the door to the studio, his arms folded, a scowl on his face.
Panic overtook Claudia, and she jumped up, her brainscrambling for something to say that would placate her boyfriend.
