In Your Dreams (Falling #4)(21)

“I’m sorry, Murphy,” Lane says, sounding worried and sad.

“He was just helping me find you,” I say, holding a hand up and glancing from Lane, who’s leaving her room. He looks upset.

“Yeah, well, you did. Imagine that; you found me in my own house,” she says, her voice super pissed off and irritated.

“Hey,” I say, leaning with one arm over her doorway, blocking her escape. She still has her hand over her nose, but I can see her mouth. It’s a straight line. I look into her eyes, and they are definitely on fire, but I glance over my shoulder again—to where Lane has now rounded the corner—and look back at her to find a hint of sympathy creeping in.

She steps on her tippy toes and looks over my arm, sighing at the empty hallway.

“I’m sorry, Lane!” she shouts. “You just scared me. I’m not mad.”

Her eyes come back to me, and she deflates a little more.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, bending her pinky finger up so she can speak under her hand.

“I came to find out if you’ve listened yet. To the demo? I haven’t heard from you, and I’m kind of anxious. Plus, I made a few more…” She cuts me off.

“You made more?” she sighs.

“Wow, so…you must have really hated the first one?” I question, frankly a little surprised. Even if the dance vibe isn’t her taste, that cut was good. There was something in there for everyone to like.

“I haven’t heard it,” she finally responds with a shrug before switching the hand that covers her nose.

“Are you kidding me? That’s it; you’re listening now. And instead, I want you to hear this one,” I start, pulling my phone from my pocket. “Headphones?”

I hold my hand out, but she only crosses her arms over her chest.

“I guess I could just play it, but it sounds better right in your ears. The sound is richer,” I say, thumbing to the file on my recording app.

“Casey, I’m not interested. This thing I do, it’s not like you think. It’s a hobby, and really…I don’t want anything more from it,” she says.

Her words stop me. Not because she’s rejecting me or my help, but because of the tone in her voice. She’s lying. I recognize it—I spent a lifetime pretending I was all right with my path, and my voice sounded the same way when I told people I was going to be an engineer. Music was my hobby too. Because I was afraid to say I wished it was more out loud. Her words sound just as painful and rehearsed. I bite the tip of my tongue and engage her in a stare off, and eventually she nods her head slightly and blinks her gaze away from mine.

“What’s up with your nose?” I ask, changing topics. I’m going to try Houston’s advice and be a little less me.

“I was cleaning my pores,” she sighs, taking a few steps back into her room, away from the door. She’s wearing this old-fashioned dress that looks like something from a barn dance in the fifties, and as she falls back to sit on the edge of her bed, she reaches with one hand and tucks the plaid ruffles of the skirt under one knee. She’s like this jazzy little Dolly Parton mixed with Adele. God, I want to make her famous.

Keeping my eyes on hers, I tilt my head to one side and smirk. I stare at her until she grows suspicious of me; I look at her until she feels me looking at her and has to turn away again.

“I use soap and water,” I say. It makes her laugh once, quietly. This laugh sounds almost as nice as the notes she sings. Probably because for once, she isn’t laughing at me.

“It’s a Bioré strip,” she says, finally pulling her hand away from her face to tap on her nose. The surface sounds solid, so I hold my hand up cautiously and raise my chin, asking permission to touch her face. She scrunches her brow, but eventually shrugs.

“Sure, go ahead,” she says. I take my finger and touch the very tip of her nose, running it up the bridge and then down one side. The band is hard like plastic.

“Those things actually work?” I ask, quirking a brow.

“You’d be shocked,” she says, her lips curved in a tight and timid smile. She’s so damned cautious around me. That’s why she won’t listen to the recordings—because they came from me.

“So that’s like…what? A sticker?” I ask, moving closer in small, planned steps until I’m able to sit on the floor next to her bed.

“It’s more like a cast, but yeah—sticker works too. It yanks all the crap out of your pores,” she says, tugging on the corner of the one stuck to her nose lightly, peeling slowly until her skin is free, leaving only the pink outline of where the strip had been on her face. “See?” she says, holding it toward me in her palm.

I lean forward and glance at it. It doesn’t look like much to me, so I shrug.

“Believe me, there’s a ton of dirt on there,” she says, holding it up to her eyes and glancing at it from the side. “Come look.”

I do as she says, sitting up on my knees, and I look out over the surface of the small strip and see a few raised bumps of dirt, but it doesn’t take long for my eyes to meet her gray ones across from me. Her pupils flare, and she glances away, dropping her hand.

“No way my nose is that dirty,” I say, trying to hook her and make her forget how uncomfortable she is all at once.