Tomorrow, any time you need.
* * *
It could have been better…but he wasn’t going to let perfectionism paralyze him anymore.
As he listened to the recording, he knew he would never show it to her or sing it for her, because he wasn’t going to make her feel like she had to give him a chance. He’d already blown it, but it felt better to get it all out.
And writing that song inspired him to do something even more important, something that might actually mean something to her: he was going to put together the final track for her album. The label was still waiting and had perhaps given up…but he and Raine had been working on one last song that they couldn’t make work.
He was going to figure it out if it killed him.
Pulling up the session files, he archived the earlier, safer versions—and then he played her voice from their very last recording session. It was a song that had potential, but the ideas were too scattered and they hadn’t been able to get the music to work.
But he knew he could make this into a hit for her.
Closing his eyes, he listened to her raw voice coming through his headphones.
* * *
There was a little girl; she had a dream
Of being a princess on a field of green
But as she grew, the dream became more
No rescue in an ivory tower beside a stormy shore.
* * *
She picked up a guitar and wrote down all her fears
And people listening let those words fill up all their ears.
* * *
On the recording, Raine’s spoken voice cut through. “No, that’s fucking stupid.” Then there was quietness, no doubt when Quentin was talking to her from the control booth. He could see the memory in his mind, of her holding her notebook in her right hand and a pencil in the left, making notations—and then, seconds later, she started again.
* * *
She picked up a guitar and wrote down all her fears
Through the rage, through the pain, and through all the tears.
People told her they loved her, that her words helped them through their pain,
And before you knew it, big men stepped in and created an icon named Raine.
* * *
“Goddammit. So lame,” she breathed.
Although his voice wasn’t on the recording, Quentin remembered telling her, “No, it’s good. Just keep going. We’ll cut out the stuff that doesn’t work later. It’ll be fine.”
But she’d been frustrated. She took a big drink of water and then said, “Okay. I’m gonna stop worrying about the rhyme and just start from the top.”
And she did—her voice achingly sweet, cracking at times, raw, sometimes thin and reedy, strained, with breaths…but it was good shit.
* * *
