Forbidden lyrics, p.8
Forbidden Lyrics, page 8
What was I thinking?
This was a terrible idea.
Biting my lip, I rush out, “I don’t have to––”
“Okay.” His voice is quiet. Resigned.
“Wait.” Convinced I’ve heard him wrong, I pull my phone away from my ear and look at the screen before clarifying, “You want me to come?”
“Yeah,” he breathes out. It isn’t exactly convincing.
“You sure?” I ask.
“The front door will be open. Let yourself in.”
The call disconnects, and I grab the first outfit from my closet without even registering its color as I slip it over my head.
I’ve always prided myself on being reliable. And right now, Gibbs needs me.
CHAPTER TEN
DOVE
The haunting melody echoes from the second floor as I close the front door behind me. The place is pitch black except for a single light glowing at the top of the stairs. It only adds to the eeriness, leaving goosebumps along my arms.
“Gibson?” I call out, but the music doesn’t stop.
With a deep breath, I slip off my sneakers, tiptoe up the stairs, and peek through the cracked door to Gibson’s room. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, cradling his guitar in his lap, with his dark hair a mess and a pen hanging from one side of his mouth. But he doesn’t notice me. He’s too enveloped in the song. The melody. The poison as it seeps from his veins onto paper, one note at a time.
His fingers strum a few more chords before his brows pinch in concentration, and he tries the same set of notes in a different octave. Satisfied, he stops playing and takes the pen from his mouth before jotting down the sequence on a pad of paper lying on the floor.
I feel like I’m intruding on something special. Intimate. But I’m too mesmerized to leave. He’s beautiful like this. Wounded. Vulnerable. But brave, too, as he faces the monsters in his head and fights them the only way he knows how.
And in this moment, I see him. The real him. With all his demons, all his strengths, on full display. And I’ve never been more attracted to someone in my entire life. More desperate to close the distance between us. To peel away a few more of his protective layers the same way he’s managed to shed mine.
“I can feel you watching me,” he mutters, though he doesn’t bother to look up at me.
Crap.
I clear my throat. “Hey.”
“You can come in.”
I push the door open quietly and inch into his room while ignoring the overwhelming feeling that I’m trespassing. Because I am. I invited myself here. I practically forced my way in.
I should leave––
“Take a seat,” he orders, dipping his chin toward the carpet beside him.
Without a word, I do as I’m told and kneel down. “Any updates?”
“Riv woke up. Reese is staying with him in his room. Milo feels like shit. Aaaand, that’s about it.” He strums his guitar again. “Tell me what you think about this.”
He plays back his song from the beginning, each note building on the last until the chorus hits like a sledgehammer of emotion, leaving me breathless.
He stops and looks at me with bags under his eyes. “What do you think?”
I think it’s amazing. Gorgeous. Gut-wrenching. I think it’s beauty and pain rolled into a cataclysmic explosion of heartbreak. And that’s without lyrics. Without drums. Or Fender’s flair. It’s…
“That bad?” he jokes, taking my silence as confirmation that I hate it.
He has no idea.
Looking up at me with those stupid hazel eyes that are glazed with vulnerability, though I know he’d never admit it, he waits for me to agree with him. To tell him it’s crap when it’s the opposite.
“I think it’s good,” I tell him, trying to keep my emotions in check when all I want to do is pull him into a hug.
“Thanks.”
“What are your thoughts for the vocals?” I ask.
“I can’t decide.”
“Hmm.” I purse my lips, scoot a little closer, and lean my back against the side of his bed, ignoring the onslaught of butterflies attacking me from our almost touching knees.
Get a grip, Dove.
“Play it again,” I order him.
So, he does.
Closing my eyes, I get lost in the smooth but sad melody, slowly humming along until a break in the rhythm pushes me to hit a higher string of notes instead of the low ones he’s been messing with.
The playing stops.
I open my eyes and peek over at him to find his heated gaze staring back at me.
“W-what? Bad idea?” I whisper, my cheeks feeling like they’re on fire.
His attention drops to my mouth before dipping to the guitar in his lap. “No. Let’s try it again.”
The familiar chords echo throughout his bedroom, and I close my eyes again, getting lost in the melody he’s created while adding my own harmonic element that I hope adds to the emotion he’s trying to convey.
And it’s beautiful. Or at least, I think it is. Then again, what do I know? I’m a newbie when it comes to this kind of thing. But it doesn’t stop me from singing, and only spurs Gibson’s playing, his low husky voice humming along during the verses until the last note is strummed and vibrates throughout the otherwise silent room.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“I think it’s good.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He smiles softly. “Now, we need lyrics.”
“That’s your job,” I remind him.
“After hearing your version at SeaBird the other day, I think that’s debatable.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re giving me too much credit.”
“And I think you’ve never gotten enough credit,” he counters. “You’re used to blending in, aren’t you, Dove Walker?”
I shrug one shoulder and tuck my white-blonde hair behind my ear without bothering to answer him because what am I supposed to say to that?
Of course, I’m used to blending in. I’m Dove Walker. I’m the chorus singing, rule-following little sister to the infamous, hell-raising, gorgeous Madelyn Walker. A girl like me doesn’t stand out. I never have, and I never will. It’s simply a fact.
“Why is that?” he wonders aloud. “Are you naturally this shy, or was it pounded into you as a kid? What with the religious zealots and all that.”
Again, I shrug, uncomfortable with all of his attention that’s laser-focused on lil’ ol’ me.
“You should play the song again,” I suggest.
He tilts his head to one side and nods. “Only if you sing for me.”
I’ll agree to anything if he’ll stop looking at me like this. Like I matter. Like he sees me. Like I’ve piqued his curiosity the same way he piqued mine all those weeks ago.
I fidget with the sleeve of my baby blue hoodie that I’d thrown over my head before speeding over here, avoiding his gaze like it’s the plague before I give him a subtle nod. “Okay.”
“What song do you want me to play?” he asks.
“Anything.”
“Singer gets to choose.”
“Um…” I peek over at him. “But you have to play it––”
“So? Don’t underestimate my guitar skills, Dove. I might not be Fen, but I do know how to put my fingers to good use.” He winks.
With a light laugh, I challenge, “Cocky much?”
“Pick a song,” he orders, not giving me an inch.
“Fine. Do you know anything by Taylor Swift?”
He scoffs. “Do I know anything by Taylor Swift.”
The intro to “The 1” vibrates from the guitar strings, and I close my eyes and start to sing. At first, I’m quiet, my voice nothing but a whisper. But I can’t help it. I can feel his eyes on me. Taking in every inch of exposed skin. Peeling back my layers, one by one, until the real me is all that’s left.
My nerves settle as he slowly transitions to “Lover” before the other even has a chance to finish. Like he can tell that I’ll throw in the towel as soon as it ends. Like he knows my thoughts before I even have a chance to dissect them myself. Over and over, he strums the guitar, and I’m left keeping up with him until my throat is raw, and I’m convinced his fingers are too.
With a final stroke of the strings a little while later, he stops. “Do you need some water?”
I smile. “How could you tell?”
“Just a hunch.” He reaches onto his nightstand and grabs a black refillable water bottle that’s still half full and offers it to me.
“Thanks.” The cold metal presses against my lips, and I take a long pull while trying to ignore the fact that his mouth has been on this very bottle.
I shouldn’t find something as trivial as drinking from the same cantine intimate, but I do.
I so do.
Again, I can feel him watching me. Studying me as I swallow the icy cold liquid. Like I’m an enigma when I’m the opposite. I’m nothing but an ordinary girl with a crush on a guy who can have any woman he wants. A guy who hasn’t made a move on me, when I know this wouldn’t be his first rodeo, even though it would very clearly be mine.
The question is… Why?
When I first showed up for my job at SeaBird, he insinuated that I looked like an average girl. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to write home about. But when he looks at me like he is right now, a small part of me wonders if he was lying.
Or maybe I’m crazy.
“Thanks again,” I murmur, wiping a bit of moisture from my lips with my thumb.
He grabs the bottle from my grasp and takes a swig, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallows. The butterflies in my stomach go haywire at the sight before I force myself to look away and fidget with the sleeves of my sweatshirt. Again.
I’m acting ridiculous.
A few seconds later, he stretches his arms over his head and lets out a yawn. “We’ve been going at this for hours.”
“We have?” I blink slowly and check the time on my phone. He’s right. But I’d been so lost in the moment that I hadn’t noticed.
“You succeeded, by the way,” he adds.
I flick my gaze from my phone and back up to his warm, penetrating eyes. “I succeeded in what?”
“Distracting me.”
“Pretty sure it was the music that did the trick,” I counter.
“Yeah, but it sounds prettier when it comes from those lips.”
I suck said lower lip into my mouth, praying to keep the blood from rushing to my face at his compliment, but it’s no use. My cheeks are burning up. And it’s all because he gave me an offhanded compliment. One that he’s probably given a dozen times to a dozen different women.
Could I be any more pathetic?
His calloused palm tickles my skin as he cups my cheek and brushes his fingers back and forth along my pale complexion without any regard to how his simple touch is wrecking me.
“Do you always blush this much?” he murmurs.
“If I say yes, will you make fun of me?”
His chuckle is throaty and deep, threatening to destroy me. “No, but I might be jealous.”
My breath hitches.
Jealous?
Gibson?
Pretty sure he doesn’t know the meaning of the word. Why would he when he can have any girl he wants?
“And why would you be jealous?” I wonder, unable to hide my curiosity.
He licks his lips and leans closer. Closer than a friend should lean. Closer than anyone should lean unless they have not-so-innocent intentions. And for the first time in my life, I’m all for them. The not-so-innocent intentions. The tension before the final snap. The moment where he finally puts me out of my misery, and we kiss.
Holy crap! I might actually kiss Gibson Hayes.
His smile is cocky as if he can read my mind as his calloused thumb gently brushes over my cheekbone a second time, sending tingles down the nape of my neck. It takes everything inside of me to not lean closer to him. To not close the final inch of distance that separates us. To not take what I’ve been craving since the moment we first met.
His breath fans across my cheeks as he whispers, “Maybe I wanna be the only one who makes you––”
My phone dings in my lap, and I flinch in surprise. Maddie’s name flashes across the screen.
Mads: Where the hell are you? You can’t just up and leave in the middle of the night, Dove.
Annoyed, I flip the phone face down in my lap without bothering to reply, then peek up at Gibbs. “Sorry. My sister texted. What were you going to say?”
The warmth in his gaze disappears, transforming into indifference before he drops his hand back to his side. As if the spell’s been broken. As if I imagined the whole thing. As if I’m going crazy if I honestly believed he was going to kiss me.
“Nothing.” He pushes himself to his feet, sets the guitar on its stand near the door, and turns back to me.
“Thanks for coming today. You’re a good friend,” he decides.
My heart plummets to my stomach.
Friend.
Pretty sure I’ve never hated a word more in my entire life.
Frozen in place, I try to steady my breathing, but it feels like the ground has completely fallen from beneath me. Am I really that naive? That crazy? That desperate to think he was actually going to kiss me?
Disappointment swells in my lower gut at the cold reminder of where Gibson and I stand, no matter how confusing his actions have been lately. Sure, I offered to come over, but he’s the one that accepted it and left his front door open. He’s the one who wanted to hear me sing. The one who offered his water bottle for me to drink from.
But he’s also the one who hasn’t kissed me, no matter how many opportunities he’s had tonight.
“You okay?” he asks, staring at me like I belong in a freaking zoo. Because I haven’t moved an inch. I’m still on the stupid floor in his stupid bedroom after getting lost in my stupid emotions and stupid insecurities.
Snap out of it, Dove!
I clear my throat and force myself to my feet. “Yes. I’m fine. And anytime. I’m glad I could help. I should probably get going.”
“Okay. I’ll see you later, right?”
“Yes.” I step around him and head for the door, desperate to escape my embarrassment, even when I know I’ll be drowning in it for the foreseeable future. “And good luck with those lyrics,” I add over my shoulder, taking the stairs two at a time.
I need to get out of here.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DOVE
“Hello?” Reese answers. I’ve wanted to call her since I found out about the accident, but I didn’t want to be a burden and stress her out until she had time to let her situation settle for a bit. Then again, I’m crappy at relationships in general, so…
“Hey, Reese,” I reply, pinning my phone between my shoulder and ear as I get ready for work.
“Hey, Dove.” Her voice is scratchy. Almost hollow. Like she’s so overwhelmed that she can barely tell what’s up and what’s down anymore.
“Hey,” I repeat. “Gibson told me about the accident. How are you? I wanted to stop by the hospital but figured you had enough on your plate right now without having to worry about me, so I figured a call might be better. Are you doing okay? How’s your wrist? How’s Riv?”
“It’s…it’s fine, I guess. Riv is okay. He’s…” She sniffs. “He’s still doped up on pain meds, but he’s coherent enough to know what’s going on, so that’s good. The doctors say it’s going to be a long road to recovery, but…we’ll get through it.”
“I know you will. I already spoke with Ashton and told him to give me your hours. I’m happy to help with whatever I can until you’re ready to come back. Focus on you and Riv right now, okay?”
“Thank you. And yeah. We will.”
“Good. Can I bring you caramel popcorn or anything?”
Her laugh is pathetic at best but still eases the ache in my chest. “I think I’m okay for now. Thank you, though. You seriously are the best. How are you? You said you talked to Gibbs?”
“Yeah.”
“And how’s that going? Any flirty news?”
The girl’s been dying for us to hook up since the moment Gibson and I met. But she doesn’t get it. He isn’t interested, which he made abundantly clear all over again last night.
I frown, refusing to get lost in the memory. “Not really. I thought we might’ve had a moment, but…”
“But what?” she prods.
“It’s nothing. Besides, you have enough on your plate right now without listening to my super anti-climactic drama.”
“Trust me, Dove. I could use the distraction. So, please give me all the anti-climactic details, will ya?”
With a sigh, I flick off the bathroom lights and head to my car without bothering to say goodbye to Maddie. She doesn’t want to talk to me anyway.
“Seriously. There’s not much,” I mutter, my shoes scuffing against the metal stairs as I make my way to the parking lot. “He was freaked out about the accident, so I suggested that he should write a new song to get his emotions out, and he invited me over to listen to him play. We ended up spending most of the night and into the morning together, and I thought he was going to kiss me. But…” I shake my head and unlock the driver’s side door of my car.
“But what?”
“He said I was a good friend.” I emphasize the last word like it’s a curse.
“A good friend? That’s it?”
I nod even though she can’t see me. “Yup. A good friend. That’s it.”
“Well, that sucks.”
I laugh. “Pretty much.”
“But he almost kissed you?”
“I mean… I thought he was going to?” I shake my head and roll my eyes, trying to keep my self-deprecation in check when it’s already been going haywire since I left his house. “But maybe I’m crazy,” I continue. “I’m a sheltered twenty-two-year-old, remember? How am I supposed to know what it feels like before a guy goes in for a kiss?”
