Page 34 of From Drummer to Gamer

I placed a soft hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me everything if it’s something you don’t wish to share. But any little information could help us brainstorm more efficiently.”

A few beats of silence passed.

“I had a friend once,” he started in a low tone. “He helped me a lot—taught me a lot.” He swallowed. “All he wanted to do was create music. He loved it so much that it was all he talked about.”

The heaviness in his tone suggested that it was not all.

“What happened to him?”

His breath hitched. “He died.”

A heavy slice of hurt ached my heart. I could tell that his death took a part of him that never got replaced, and somehow, maybe that was the reason he was this formidable, strong man today.

He looked so sad, vulnerably so that I wanted to hold him in my arms and tell him that everything was going to be okay.

But I had to remind myself why we were having this conversation in the first place.

“So you want to do this for him?”

“Yes. For the unsupported artists and the actual talents. I want to create music like he did.Realmusic.”

I nodded. “Why don’t you rest for the night? You’ve exhausted yourself enough. I’ll come up with some possible names in the morning. And you can pick whichever one you like.”

“That easy?” he mumbled. An unwavering glint in his blue-green eyes made them softer than they usually were.

“Yes,” I whispered, smiling softly. “That easy.”

MATT

Instead of silence like I’d expected, a flurry of sounds crackled through the air when I entered the apartment the following morning after the gym.

Frowning, I headed in that direction, with the sweetness of the caramel latte still lingering in the back of my throat.

I came to a halt by the threshold when a vision of a perfect ass in the tiniest shorts leaped to stick a bubble-shaped sticky note on the kitchen wall next to the fridge, which was already covered full of colorful notes of different shapes.

Sensing my presence, she spun around, and her round hazel eyes flew right to me. “Good morning, Matty.” She beamed so wide that a dimple in her right cheek popped.

A sharp pang pierced my heart at that sight.

Fuck, she had dimples now?

“Morning,” I muttered, nodding toward the wall. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, this…” She was still beaming as she waved a hand like she was presenting. “This is the wall of names.”

“Wall of names?”

“For your label, duh.”

My eyes widened as I actually looked at the wall. There were probably a hundred notes, if not more. When the hell did she have the time to do all this?

I had no idea what came over me yesterday when I told her about Truman. I never spoke about him to anyone. But something about the softness in her eyes had me spilling. Or maybe it was because she didn’t prod or try to pry it out of me, or perhaps it was the fact that it washer. I seemed to have the uncanny ability to do unusual things when it came to her.

“Did you sleep?” When she mentioned it in the morning yesterday, I thought she meant around noon when she usually woke up, not around eight, which normal people considered morning.

“No, but don’t worry,” she assured, smiling. “I’m like a cat. I can sleep for twenty hours or stay awake for two days straight.”

She was up all night, doing this forme? I didn’t know how I felt about that. No one had done anything for me like that before without wanting something in return.