Page 83 of Hard Rock Tease

You Are My Heart

"There's something written here." Noah held the last page in his hand.

I took it from him. There were three words in my mother's handwriting. I mouthed the words, but couldn't speak them out loud.

Noah said them for me, murmuring them quietly.

"Please forgive me." His eyes met mine. "Those were your mother's last words."

Tears fell from my eyes.

"Playing music with me, writing music with me, was the only thing that made my mom happy," I told him. "And even that wasn't enough. She still killed herself." I looked down at my lap, my vision blurry with tears. "I always felt like I would never be good enough. I wasn't good enough to save my mom."

Noah enveloped me in a flurry of arms and blankets. "You're mother killing herself hadnothingto do with you. Nothing. It's not your fault."

"She finished our song," I murmured thoughtfully. I leaned back into his embrace. I let the letter fall from my hands onto the mattress. I rested my head on Noah's chest and wrapped my arms around him. He pulled me into a tight hug.

"Can you?" Noah asked quietly. I knew what he was asking.

Please forgive me.

"Yes," I said simply. "I think I can now."

Chapter Twenty-Six

With the helpof my mom's music, we finally finished our song.

Noah had the brilliant idea of using parts of my mom's song to complete ours. The result had been amazing. The personal, emotional parts of Noah Hart that I'd managed to drag out of him, kicking and screaming at times, melded perfectly with the work my mom and I had done years ago. It was as if the two songs were made to compliment each other. All those missing pieces I hadn't been able to put together suddenly meshed.

Of course, our song still needed to be properly arranged into a a real rock song with guitars and drums and bass, but for now we at least had the actual melody composed. The rest could come later.

"I'm proud of you," I told Noah as I finished making a few last notes on the music sheet. We were at Etude Entertainment headquarters, practicing one last time before our meeting with Naomi.

"Proud of me for what?"

"For opening up. For letting your guard down. Your fans will love it. I think it will really speak to them. It's meaningful. Between the two of us, we've written a song that feels more like a Noah Hart song and less like a Darkest Days song."

"No." He shook his head. "It feels like a Jennifer YoungandNoah Hart song." He wrapped his arms around me. "I couldn't have done it without you," he murmured in my ear.

"Are you getting sappy on me?"

He grumbled. "I'm Noah Fucking Hart. I don't do sappy."

I just smiled to myself. "You want to practice a few more times?"

"I think I need some more inspiration." His hand slid down my back to cup my ass.

I batted his hand away. "Stop it. We're at work. In public."

"Never stopped us before."

"I think you've had enough inspiration to last you a lifetime."

He tugged me to his chest. "You're wrong. I can never get enough of you."

"There you go, being all sweet again." I rested my head on his shoulder. "We really do need to practice, though. Naomi's going to expect something magical, considering how long this took us. We need to be ready."

"We are ready." His voice was full of confidence. "And it's all because of your hard work." He pulled back and looked me in the eye. "You may doubt yourself, but once this album drops and sells millions of copies, you're going to realized how talented you are."