Page 35 of Code Word (The Atrous #3)

SIXTEEN

I woke up half expecting Luke to be out of bed. But he wasn’t. He was on his stomach, arms splayed, the sunrise casting beams across his back, golden skin, and tousled hair.

His eyelashes, stubble, and pouting lips . . .

My heart bloomed at the sight of him. Utter perfection.

It made me feel giddy. Which was the most ridiculous thing ever. And I had the burning urge to hold him, snuggle in, and never let him go.

I wanted to touch him forever.

He opened his eyes, barely, saw me watching him, and cracked a smile. He mumbled something I didn’t quite catch. So freaking adorable.

“Stay here,” I said, leaning in to kiss his forehead. “I’m gonna cook us breakfast.”

I don’t know why I suggested that. I was hungry, sure. But I had a sudden and strong urge to do things for him. All the things. Everything.

I wanted to make him happy.

I got out of bed, testing my knee. It was actually pretty good. So I took a pit stop in the bathroom first, pulled on some boardshorts, then took the stairs one careful and slow step at a time.

I made us coffee first, found some eggs and bacon, and opened the patio doors to let in the fresh morning salt air and the sounds of birds and waves.

Is this what love is?

I felt so ridiculous. Like a freaking Disney princess. Except I was a Disney princess that sucked at cooking. The bacon was a bit too crispy, the sunny-side-up eggs became scrambled eggs in the pan, and the toast was mistimed.

But Luke came down, walked straight up to me for a hug. He was still sleepy and so fucking cute. “Smells good.”

“I wanted it to be perfect,” I said. “But?—”

“It’s all perfect,” he said, picking up a piece of bacon and biting into it.

I held a piece of toast up to his mouth and he bit into that too, smiling. Then he sipped his coffee and studied me for a second. “What?” he asked. “You’re looking at me weird.”

I shook my head, feeling all kinds of stupid. “I fucking love you,” I said. “It’s absurd, being this happy. Like honestly, what the fuck.”

He laughed, his cheeks pink. “It doesn’t feel real.”

“Well, it is,” I said with complete certainty. “Now, eat your cremated bacon and cold toast.”

He snorted. “Ah, there’s the reality.”

We ate between shy smiles, and damn, if that giddy feeling didn’t go away.

“What did you want to do today?” he asked as we finished cleaning up.

“I want to sit out on the patio and write songs with you.”

He grinned, his gaze holding mine for a beat. “Sounds good. How’s your knee feeling?”

“It’s feeling a bit better. Another day of rest will do it good. Maybe we could look at some real estate websites. ”

He nodded slowly; a flicker of uncertainty flashed across his face. “Here or back home?”

I shrugged. “Both. I dunno. I want to have both. With you.”

Now he smiled, heading to the stairs. “Okay. I’ll get my laptop.”

“Can you grab my phone too, please?” I asked. “It’s... somewhere up there, I think I plugged it in.”

I was carrying his guitar out to the patio when he came downstairs. I planted myself on the lounge chair as he dumped his laptop and our phones, his notebook, and pen.

“Thanks.”

He went for a quick swim in the ocean and came back with wet hair and droplets of water running down his skin. He was a sight to behold.

I was strumming on his guitar, and he grinned as he fell onto his chair.

I strummed out a few random notes and sang, “If you could see yourself right now, you’d know why I never want to leave. The sun kisses your skin, saltwater in your hair, the way you smile.”

He laughed. “That was terrible.”

“That,” I declared, “was a potential Grammy-winning song right there.”

He grinned and closed his eyes. “The water’s nice.”

I strummed out a few more random cords until it wasn’t random. I tapped my foot for the beat, and when he opened his eyes to watch me, I began to sing “The Reason” by Hoobastank, one of his favorite songs.

I never really grasped the lyrics until I sang them for him, but god, help me, I meant every word.

He watched me sing the whole song, his soft smile and glassy eyes telling me he understood what I was telling him.

When I strummed out the last note, he got up and planted a kiss on my lips. “I know. ”

Then he took his notebook, and for a few hours, we wrote music and lyrics, we sang, we laughed, and my god, it felt good.

This was the old us—the us who loved music, who wrote songs we wanted to hear before the industry stole our voices—but it was the new us as well.

This was us, closer to thirty than I ever thought we’d get, finding our reason to sing again. Finding us again, only better. Free now from the binds that held us down—the company, the expectations, the contracts—free to be us.

The songs were raw and probably terrible, but it was a start. It was something to work with, to build from.

Something just for us.

My god, I’d missed this so much.

“Whatcha smiling about?” he asked.

“This feels good, huh?”

He grinned. “Yeah.”

“I’ve missed this. I want this for us. I don’t know what your plans are regarding music.

The industry’s changed so much and we have so many options.

Are we gonna sing them? Give them to other artists to sing?

Start our own production company?” I shrugged.

“Our possibilities are endless. We can do whatever we want now. It’s awesome and a bit scary, to be honest. But fuck it. We get to choose now.”

He blinked in surprise. “I just... I just assumed we’d sing them.”

“Okay.” I grinned at him. “Then let’s sing them. Just us, a guitar each. Totally unplugged, stripped back, no dance routines and crazy tours.”

His smile faltered a bit. “What about the guys?”

“What about them?” I asked, not sure what he meant.

“We’ll have to tell them.”

“Of course, yeah,” I replied. Then it dawned on me. “Did you... did you want to include them?”

He shrugged. “Well, I dunno. I love this, just you and me working on these. It’s perfect. But I don’t know if it feels wrong not to include them.”

I looked out at the ocean as I chose my next words carefully. “I know we always said it was the five of us. But we’re not those guys anymore. Maddox has been writing songs and working on a lot of different stuff behind the scenes. Did he think to include any of us?”

Luke sighed. “I know . . . I just . . .”

“Don’t feel guilty. Don’t, babe. There’s no guilt, no responsibility. It just is what it is.”

His brows furrowed. “You know that whole production thing Maddox did was a charity thing,” he said quietly.

Yes, I knew that.

But still.

“I know you’re mad at him, and I can understand why. I can,” he said, meeting my eyes. “But this rift between you both is my fault. It’s because of me.”

“No it’s not,” I said. “It’s deeper than that.”

“What do you mean?”

I sighed. “I’ve been thinking about it. About why I’m so mad at him, and even before he chose to help you over me, all that aside. I think I was mad at him before.”

“What about?”

“For pulling the plug on Atrous.” He was about to argue but I put my hand up. “I know, I know. It’s not his fault. It’s not Jeremy’s fault either. They went through hell. I’m not disputing that. But...”

“But it was Maddox who basically decided we should end it,” he said quietly.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

He inhaled deeply and sighed, frowning. “We all decided. We all agreed. We were all so burned-out.”

I kept my eyes on the ocean. Maybe he was right...

“But he was pretty quick to leave us all behind, wasn’t he?

” I added quietly, almost embarrassed to say that out loud.

“ I dunno. That’s not fair either. I just.

..” I groaned, frustrated. “I just feel like we got shafted. Like he wanted Atrous to end because he was ready to start a new life with Roscoe. And Jeremy had Steve. Wes had Amy, of course, and everyone was moving on and they were happy about it. But I feel like my choice was removed. The whole ‘if one of us wants out, we’re done’ thing was fine in theory.

And at the time, I wanted a break too, but then it was all over forever.

And none of them seemed to care. They were happy about it. ”

“Oh, Blake,” he murmured. He came over to sit on my lounger and take my hand.

“And I know none of this is fair. I know it’s not what actually happened, but it was how I felt. Like Maddox took that from me. That it was his fault, and I had someone I could blame.” I shrugged. “Fuck.”

Luke sighed, kissing my shoulder, but he didn’t say anything.

“Fucking hell,” I mumbled. “I was having the best day of my life. Writing songs with you, being with you. Now I feel like shit.”

“Don’t feel bad,” he murmured. “You’ve done a lot of soul-searching and you’re in a much better place now.”

“Because of you. And music,” I said, searching his eyes. “My god, I’ve missed music so much.”

He put his hand to my face. “You want to take back what was taken from us.”

My gaze fixed on his, my heart stuttering again, but this time not in an overly pleasant way. I sighed and smiled out at the ocean. “I guess the problem when someone knows you so well is that they know you so well.”

He gave my hand another squeeze. “I get it. I get where you’re coming from and why you feel that way.”

I nodded, knowing there was a but coming. “But what?”

He shrugged. “No buts. I get it.”

God fucking damn it .

“I’m mad at him,” I murmured. “At Maddox. And Jeremy. I dunno. At the whole mess.”

“I know.”

My gaze shot to his. He knew. Of course he did.

“I know it’s not Maddox’s fault,” I said. I let my head fall back and I groaned. “Fuck.”

“It wasn’t just his decision,” Luke said. “We all sat around that table and said we were done. One more album, then it was over. It was time.”

“I know.” And I did know that. Fucking hell. “And then you chose him to talk to instead of me, and I was so fucking mad.” I relented because that wasn’t true either. “Okay, I was scared. Fucking terrified, and I had someone I could pin it to.”

“It wasn’t his fault.”

“I know.” I held up a finger. “But—” He smiled and waited. “—he still chose you over me.”

“I asked him to.”

“And I begged him to help me. He saw me, literally on the floor, sobbing over photos of us, and he still said nothing. So I’m allowed to be mad at him. Even Becca yelled at him.”

“I didn’t know who else to talk to,” Luke whispered. “I was losing my mind at the cabins that day, and he turned up and I... I had to talk to someone, and I couldn’t tell you.”

I sighed. I understood, I really did, but gawd.

“Blake, you need to talk to him.”

I groaned, though it was more a whine. “I know.” We both sat in silence for a while, everything settling around us. I was adamant about starting this new life with Luke. I wanted it to be me and him forever. New house, new music, new life.

But that meant letting go first.

“We need to go home, don’t we,” I said. Also not a question.

He looked at me, slid his hand over mine, and smiled. “Yeah.”