“I don’t mind hearing about stupid things. The more stupid, the better.”
Grace laughed softly and was relieved when the expression on Ryan’s face relaxed a little.
“Come on, Ryan. I thought we were learning about one another, finding stuff out, and getting to know each other.”
“We are. That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
“So, tell me about the ‘stupid thing’ that’s stopping you from sharing those lyrics with me, lyrics I’m sure must be incredibly beautiful.”
Ryan frowned, mulling it over. “It’s an old story from my past. I don’t want to clobber you over the head with ancient stuff, or my dumb insecurities.”
“I clobbered you over the head with my ancient stuff when I told you my reasons for chasing after a promotion at work. I shared my sad story. Now it’s time for you to share yours.”
Her voice was quiet as she spoke, and tender, too. A long beat passed as Ryan’s eyes gazed into hers, as if searching for something there. At length, he sighed and gave an unhappy shrug.
“Okay, well, here goes,” he said, still cradling the acoustic guitar across his body as if it was a shield. “The song I just played, I wrote it for you, Grace. I wrote itaboutyou.”
Grace hadn’t expected him to say this. She thought he was about to dive into some awful story from his past. Instead, he’d uttered words that stole her breath away.
“And the reason I’m too much of a coward to sing the lyrics I wrote for this song is because of something that happened a long time ago and which I never really got over.”
Her mind was still caught on what he’d said a moment ago, about writing the song for her. After hearing the music he’d just played, the romance of it all left her speechless.
“You wrote a song for me?” she said, finally finding words somewhere in her brain.
“Yes,” he said simply. “You inspired me to write a song that could be the best thing I’ve ever created in my life.”
Grace thought she might fall off the edge of the sofa if he said anything else, or if he kept looking at her the way he was looking at her right now. But she understood that now wasn’t the time to feel overwhelmed by his admission, even if it did launch her stomach into a series of crazy somersaults.
He’d written a song for her?
Okay, yes, that’s what the man just said. But she needed to focus on what else he’d said, too.
Grace drew in a deep breath and assembled her scattered thoughts.
“I’m speechless and amazed and I can’t think of anything to say that makes sense,” Grace admitted. “You wrote that song for me, that song you just played, and…” She held up her hands. “We’ll come back to that once my brain is functioning properly again.”
Ryan laughed, and the soft sound of it reminded her of why she was here, why she was drawn to him, why she couldn’t seem to stay away from the man. Rising from the sofa, she walked around the coffee table and sat down beside him on the other side, and slipped her hand into his.
“Tell me what happened in the past,” she said. “Tell me about the thing that happened that you never got over.”
He set aside the guitar, leaning it against the coffee table. “It will sound so stupid when I explain it.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
Ryan nodded, as if willing himself on. “When I was eighteen, I was a contestant on a television music competition programme. It was calledThe Next Big Number One. Do you remember it?”
Grace thought about it. “It vaguely rings a bell, but I don’t remember it exactly.”
“It only ran for one season. It was pretty terrible, to be honest, and it was done on the cheap. It didn’t have the huge budgets of the other big music competition format shows of the time, and it never produced any big number one songs, either, which, considering the name of the show, was a bit of a problem.”
Ryan laughed and then continued with his story. “Anyway, I was a contestant on the show during its one and only awfulrun. I’d just turned eighteen when I auditioned, and when I was chosen to go through to the finals, I thought it was the beginning of my big break in the business. The televised finals involved the contestants performing on stage for the judges and the studio audience. It wasn’t broadcast live, because there wasn’t the budget for that, but we all performed live on stage for the filming. There were eight finalists in the running, a mix of groups and solo artists. It was incredibly exciting to be part of something like that.”
Ryan smiled and then rolled his eyes.
“I was young and dazzled by it all. None of it was as professional and polished as I remembered thinking it was at the time. The judges were a bunch of D-list celebrities who didn’t really know what they were talking about, and the production team weren’t really interested in music so much as they were interested in creating waves with a television show and making money from the sponsors and the voting phone lines. Like I said, I didn’t see any of that at the time. I just wanted to play music.”
“Of course you did. Why else would you go on a music competition show?” Grace said kindly. “Were you there performing as part of a group or as a solo act?”
