Pulse: A Stepbrother Romance (12 page)

My head pounded. Fiercely.

Water.

I struggled to sit up and looked around. Thankfully I was in my room in my apartment, and drunk and high me had even left a glass of water untouched on the bedside table.

It disappeared in seconds, chugged down to soothe my dry, burning throat.  Only when I put the glass back did I notice the blood on my knuckles.

I felt them. “Ow!”

I flung myself back into the pillows and stared at the ceiling, willing the pain to subside.

There were only flashes of the night before. Hanging with the crew escalated as it always did, and it wasn’t long before the drugs came out. Compounded with the alcohol, it was a mixture that never failed to shred my memories to bits by the morning after. But it couldn’t make me forget the woman haunting my dreams.

Did we go to the strip club?

If not, then we must have raided a craft store. Glitter covered my chest.

Phone?

It lay beside me on the bed, almost dead. I plugged it in and went through the call and message history, relieved when there was no evidence that drunk me had embarrassed himself and tried to get a hold of Leah.

The phone beeped to signal an incoming e-mail. I sat up straighter when I saw it was from Kevin. It had been a couple weeks since I’d given my tracks to him and his friends and had heard nothing since. I’d just about given up.

“
Hey, man, sorry for it taking so long. Didn’t get a chance until I finished my exams. Here are the notes. Killer beats. There’s a lot of great potential here.”

The starting line of the e-mail from Kevin was far more upbeat than the rest of the notes.

There were a lot of them, and as I read, my enthusiasm deflated like a balloon with a pinhole leak.

00:03—First note is out of place compared to the rest of the opening sequence. Might be better as a B-flat.

00:05—The bass line drowns out the higher notes in the melody, think of a way to change these around a little.

00:09—I like the basic flourish here, but it feels awkward. Make these more aligned with their major to come across as light as I think you want it to.

There was a suggestion every couple seconds. I didn’t even have the background to know what Kevin referred to in a lot of his comments. I’d picked up scraps of knowledge as I got more into creating music and sewed them into a makeshift patchwork, but had no reason to pick up any of the classical terminology.

Or so I thought.

Kevin had given detailed notes on all six of the songs I’d given him—it must have taken him a few hours to write everything down. It flattered me, but it also destroyed me.

I thought I was good.

Every time I went out to the clubs, I listened to the club DJs play their mixes and sneered at their amateurishness, smug knowing that my music was better than theirs. What the hell did I know? If the track had been printed on sheet music, it would have been awash in Kevin’s red ink—a bloodbath.

There had always been a part of me, deep inside, that was sure I would make it big one day. Become a household name among those who followed electronic music, make major money, get paid to show up at clubs, and play at festivals in front of tens of thousands of people. That part, if not dead, was knocked flat on its back with a dagger to its throat.

Mom was right.
I was in over my head. Dreaming of success that wasn’t ever going to happen.

Which was better—living your life with big dreams always just out of reach, or coming to terms with reality and the mediocrity of life?

Only one thing was certain.

I’m too hungover for this shit.

It wasn’t that early in the morning, though, and I needed to at least scrape myself out of bed and try to do something productive. A simple pair of gym shorts was all I bothered to put on—it was hot in the apartment. I’d blocked off the day to work on the latest track that was giving me trouble, but I couldn’t bear the thought of working on music. Not if it would be tragically flawed right off the bat.

I answered a knock at the door without thinking twice about my shirtlessness or who it could be.

“Leah.”

She stood there like a damn beam of sunshine, holding two coffees. Her eyes traced my torso, lingering on my shorts before coming back to my face.

“You look like shit. Nice black eye.”

My hand went to my face and I winced as it came in contact with the tender area around my right eye.

I guess that ties in with the bloody knuckles.

“What are you doing here?”

She brushed past me and set one coffee on the kitchen counter. “You’ve been ignoring my messages. I haven’t heard from you in weeks.”

“I thought I was doing you a favor,” I said. “You didn’t want to talk anyway.”

“Your mom’s worried about you. She asked me to check up on you.” Her eyes kept flicking down to the tattoos on my chest. She’d only seen me shirtless once before, and it had been dark.

And we’d had other things on our minds.

I had to stop the train of thought before it became obvious what I was thinking through my gym shorts. There was nothing I wanted more than taking Leah on the living room floor, music building around us and connecting us again.

Except my music is awful.

“That’s nice of her. You didn’t have to come here.” It was hard having her there, feeling the need flaring but knowing I wasn’t right for her. She had someone else. “I’m not a good person to be around, these days.”

“It looks like you’ve been getting into trouble. I don’t want to know what kind.” She was still looking at my chest. “But I have to ask—is that glitter?”

“What?” I looked down. “Oh. I guess so. I don’t know what that’s doing there.”

The tension eased as we shared a laugh, and I took a sip of the coffee. It helped a little with the headache that pounded against the insides of my skull.

“There’s another reason I’m here, too,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “I’ve missed seeing you around.”

It was as if a pile of gasoline-soaked wood had been lit in the apartment. The look that Chris gave me almost pinned me to the wall the way his hands did when we left the club the night we met.

I shouldn’t have said that.

“Is that right?” he said, his voice low and rough. “I thought you had more than enough boys around to occupy your time.”

I needed to get off the topic, quick.

“How’s your music coming along? I heard you would work with my friends on it.”

The muscles in his arm and chest jumped and bulged as his hand clenched in reaction to my question.

“I don’t know if I’ll keep doing the music thing.”

“What?” I stared at him. I knew so little about him because every time we got close our bodies got too worked up and I had to push him away. The only thing I knew with any certainty was that creating music and mixes was his passion. “What the hell are you talking about?”

His lips drew tight and he walked to the living room and dropped into a couch. I followed behind and sat beside him.

“I got feedback on it from Kevin. The short version is that it’s terrible. Not even worth salvaging. There’s no point trying to continue with it if I can’t even put together a single good track.” He looked to the side. “I’ll just keep on with the warehouse. It’s a safe, solid job. I’m lucky to have it.”

I’d never seen him anything other than cocky and sure of himself. Chris wasn’t a guy to get dejected about anything. At least, I didn’t think so.

Besides, I’ve heard his music. It was fantastic.

Something was off in the picture. “Can I see what Kevin gave you?”

“I don’t want you to see it,” he said. “I’ll just delete everything—all the music, the notes, everything. I don’t want to see it anymore.”

“Fuck off,” I said. His head snapped around to look at me. “I’ve heard your music, remember? It was good—really good. The way it wrapped around us that night and brought us closer together. When we danced, and moved to it…”

I had to stop. It was turning me on too much to think and talk about the night we had slept together. And being turned on around Chris was dangerous.

“The point is, Chris, your music is good. Great, even. And it could get even better. If you delete it and stop working on it, you will be the biggest coward I’ve ever known.”

He’d sat up a little, but still looked stubborn. “The only musical person who’s told me anything about it disagrees with you. I don’t need to justify my decision to you.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Chris. Just let me look at Kevin’s e-mail.”

Wordless, he leaned over to snag his laptop and passed it on after flipping to the e-mail.

I was still clueless after reading the notes on the first track.

“Did you even read this?” I asked him.

His voice hardened, and he gained a touch of his attitude back. “Of course I read it. It’s not like I’m illiterate.”

“No, did you
really
read it? This entire e-mail is full of just little hints and suggestions. He’s not saying there’s anything majorly wrong with the track. Hell, half of these aren’t even criticisms, just suggestions for things to try to see if they work out better.” I flipped through the rest of the notes and they were similar. “How did you think he was saying anything different?”

“I didn’t even have five seconds in the song where he didn’t say something about it. If I can’t string together a good five seconds, how can I ever put together a great song?”

Chris’ words echoed in my memory.

“Let me tell you something,” I said. “When I was little, I loved acting. I played make-believe all the time and made Dad and Steph watch or act along with me. It was the only thing I wanted to do. When I was eight, dad put me into a couple classes so I could have real structure and instruction.”

“So?” Chris asked. “What does this have to do with music?”

“Just listen. I thought I was the best actress ever. The only performances I’d done were for Dad and Steph, and they only ever gave me praise. I was daddy’s little girl, and Steph’s idolized older sister. When I got to an actual class, the teacher gave me a whole list of things to work on. Everything from breath control to inflection and facial expression. It’s not that I was bad before, but I had a lot of areas to improve on.”

“So you’re saying I have a lot of areas to improve on?” he asked. “Which is just another way of saying I’m terrible.”

I shook my head. “That’s not it at all. I’m guessing since you dropped out of school to work you’ve never been on the receiving end of much constructive criticism. It’s not a bad thing, Chris. It’s how people get better. Even those at the top of their field are always striving to get better, to improve themselves. What did you expect would come out of getting notes from Kevin?”

He winced. “I guess I expected him to just like it. Maybe give a couple suggestions. Not to tear it apart so much.”

I pointed to the first line of the e-mail. “He does like it. He says so. That he went to so much effort to give you options to experiment with things and make it better is just a testament to how highly he thinks of you and the music. If it was truly awful, I can guarantee you he wouldn’t have done this for you.”

“You think so?” He sat up and took a closer look at the e-mail, rereading it. “I don’t even know what he’s saying in a lot of these comments. He’s using all this music speak that I never learned.”

“So learn it. There’s no reason not to. Ask Kevin, and ask Sean. Ask the others. They’re good people. They’ll be more than willing to help out when they have the time.” I took his hand. “You can do this, Chris. I know you can.”

He smiled and squeezed my hand back. “Thanks, Leah. I’ll give it a shot, anyway. Maybe you’re right—maybe it’s not that bad, and I can make it even better. No, I
will
make it better. I’ll make it flawless.”

The fire had come back into his eyes. In its absence, I could ignore that this was Chris I was talking to. I was just helping out a friend.

That fire, though, changed him. I hadn’t even realized what was missing until it rekindled. It was what set him apart from anyone else I had met. He had such passion inside of him, such drive. It was what made him irresistible.

Uh-oh.

He still held my hand, and suddenly I was aware of the electricity that arced between us. From the look on his face, he felt it too.

He stood and pulled me to my feet. We were close. His lips were right there. I knew if I went for it, he would give me what I wanted.

I felt a thrill rushing through my body.

Is this going to happen?

It was so wrong, but it felt so right. Would it be the end of the world if I gave in, just this once?

I leaned forward to kiss Chris, but he turned his head away and drew me into a hug instead. Confused, I let my head rest on his bare chest as we wrapped our arms around each other. I could feel him against the outside of my pants between my legs, only the thin layer of his shorts restraining him.

I know he wants this as much as I do. Even more.

With my right hand, I grabbed a hold of the back of his head and brought his head down for a kiss. It lasted for a couple glorious seconds before he pulled back. I felt him twitch against me, and I flooded with need for him.

“Leah,” he rasped, “you don’t want this.”

“I do,” I said, looking up into his eyes. His dark, fiery eyes. “I want this, Chris.”

He pushed me away.

“You aren’t thinking straight. You should go, Leah. I have work to do.”

He’s kicking me out?

I hadn’t intended on making a move on him when I came to his apartment. It had just happened. But once I made my decision, I wanted nothing more than to jump his bones.

“Are you going to answer my messages?” I asked. I had to at least keep seeing him.

He smirked. “I’ll see you around, Leah.”