Page 115 of Hard Rock Muse

“For what?” I asked. “The sex? Believe me, there’s some mutual appreciation.”

Julian chuckled, then turned solemn. He cupped my cheek with his hand and propped himself up on one arm to look down at me with those soulful dark eyes.

“Thank you for being so patient with me,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m so bad with words.”

“Words aren’t everything.” I brushed the hair from his eyes, finding them soft and tender. “Your actions speak louder.”

“But I’ve hurt you with my words, before,” he said. “I called you my muse. I meant it to be something good. I meant it to be something wonderful. But you didn't see it that way.”

“Then tell me,” I said. “Tell me how you meant it.”

“It’s… hard to explain,” he said. “When I say you’re my muse, what it means is that…”

He stopped, looking pained and struggling to string together a single sentence.

“Tell me,” I said gently. “Tell me what it means for me to be your muse.”

“You make me want to express myself,” he blurted out. “For once, I actually want to tell someone what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling.” He paused, eyes wide, looking shocked at himself, as if he hadn’t planned on saying any of that. Then the shock melted away and was replaced by an oddly serene expression. He met my eyes, his own full of something like wonder.

“It means, I don’t want to keep it all locked in anymore,” he said. “And it’s all because of you.”

“I don’t know if I really did all that much,” I said.

Julian sat up and flung the blankets aside.

“I need to show you something,” he said.

He left the bed and rummaged around in his dresser. Taken aback, I sat up too, pulling the sheets to my chest.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Remember that night on the roof?” he asked.

My mind immediately thought back to the previous evening when I’d been up there alone and crying, but realized he meant that time we’d both been there.

“You told me to write down what I was thinking, what I was feeling. Then you told me to burn it.” He stopped and smiled, picking up something from inside one of the drawers. He turned around and brandished it.

It was a small square of folded paper, a little bit singed at the corners.

“You didn’t burn it?” I asked.

“I couldn’t make myself,” he said. “I couldn’t bare to destroy it.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Do you remember what we were talking about up there?” he asked.

I furrowed my brow, trying to think back. Julian saved me the trouble.

“We were talking about our song,” he said. “I had been worried about it, and wondering how we’d find inspiration. Do you remember what you said?”

“Not really,” I said. “Do you?”

“I remember all of it,” he said decisively. “You said we were going to make our song heartfelt. We were going to make it powerful and meaningful and authentic. Our song was going to speak to people’s souls.”

He came to sit back down next to me on the bed. He put the paper in my hand.

“You said we were going to change lives with our song,” he told me. “And then I wrote this. Read it.”