Page 8 of Hard Rock Muse

“It’s called professional attire,” I replied.

“This is the music industry,” he said. “You wouldn’t be out of place if you still wore your leather pants and hot pink hair.”

“I’m not a rocker anymore,” I said. “I’m working behind the scenes now. Maybe you can pull off that emo artiste look, but I have to give off some sense of professionalism.”

“Emo?” Julian looked offended.

I did laugh out loud then. He grumbled and looked away. I forgot how much fun it was to tease him.

Julian took his place at the piano, settling in.

“So you didn’t write any lyrics at all when you were coming up with the song?” I asked, just to clarify again.

“I’ve never been good with words,” he said.

When we’d written songs together, Julian had always left the lyrics up to me. It made sense, since I was the one who had to sing them. The words had to sound authentic and heartfelt coming out of my mouth.

But this song was supposed to be about Julian. The lyrics had to be authentic and heartfelt for him.

I knew how hard it was to drag out Julian’s thoughts and feelings. We’d always relied on a sort of unspoken understanding. But if I said yes, I was going to need to put his vision for the song into words.

This job was starting to sound like more than I could handle.

“All right,” I said. “Have at it.”

Julian placed his fingers on the keys without another word. I sat and listened as he played the song. It was good. Very good. Maybe not as good as I might have expected from someone of Julian’s caliber, though. Or maybe I was just being conceited, thinking that the music he wrote by himself wasn’t as good without me there working with him.

When he was done I clapped loudly.

“That was beautiful,” I told him. “I had almost forgotten how talented you are.”

“It’s not finished,” he said. “More like a rough draft.”

“If that’s rough, I can’t imagine how good the final product is going to be.”

“It’ll be amazing because you’ll help me.”

“I still haven’t decided whether to say yes,” I told him.

“You liked the song?” he asked.

“I did.”

“Then work on it with me.”

I knew it was a bad idea.

I knew I should have said no.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll work with you.”

The relief on his face was unmistakable. He really must have been prepared for me to turn down the offer. It would have been the smart thing to do.

But ex-boyfriend or not, I needed this job. Despite my misgivings, there was no way I could have walked away from an opportunity like this.

Besides, it wasn’t like we were writing the entire song together. All I had to do was write some lyrics. That wouldn’t take too long, surely.

“So that was the song,” he said. “Now you write the lyrics.”