In Your Dreams (Falling #4)(24)

“Is it going to hurt?” I ask.

She breathes in slowly through her nose, eyes coming to mine once more before glancing away.

“Most certainly,” she whispers, her mouth serious, and her eyes lost somewhere between worried and maybe a little sad.

“Ready?” she asks. I shake my head no lightly against the touch of her hand, and our eyes meet. For a small second, I think we might be talking about something else—I think we might both be talking about the same thing.

Without warning, she begins to pull the strip away, and the tug burns a little. It also wakes me up and helps me focus—my sample, her music, the point of coming here. I need to remember that, but then, she’s done with the strip, and her hands have left my face feeling cold. Her touch is gone and I miss it.

I shake my head, rattled by feeling something other than ambition and drive. It’s not that I’m attracted to her. Of course, I’m attracted to her. I’m attracted to lots of girls. It’s that I’m more than attracted to her.

“Well? What’s the verdict?” I ask.

She steps over to her trashcan and pulls her original strip out and lays them both on the small desk near her window and calls her brother over.

“What do you think, Lane? Is his worse than mine?” she asks. I step up behind them, my heart beating hard, because now I’m not so sure I can lie my way into bending the rules, into sticking around longer than she’d like. Even though now I want to more, for even greedier reasons.

“His is gross,” Lane laughs. I laugh, too, but it’s fake. I’m gross…okay, fine…whatever. Does that mean I lose? Does that mean I don’t get time to feel that hand on my face again?

Music. I’m here for music. I close my eyes as I stand behind them both and try to clear my head.

“Yeah, it is,” she agrees with her brother, sweeping the evidence into her palm before I can see. She throws them both away in the trashcan and thanks Lane, opening the door for him to leave. I’m panicked, because I now have to leave, and I haven’t accomplished a damn thing I set out to by coming here. If anything, I’ve only dug a bigger hole in my chest and made my craving for her that much larger. My hands stuff into my pockets, and I grip my phone.

“Mine was still worse, though,” she says, her voice light and unsteady.

“I swear you’ll like it. Please, just listen…wait…” I stop my begging. “I win?”

I’m all awkward and flustered, and I hate feeling this way. This chick is like my antidote, only the opposite of an antidote. I guess that makes her my poison. Shit.

“Give me the damn song, Casey,” she says, her mouth a hard line. I don’t question her, and I slap my phone into her palm, my eyes on her while she pushes her headphones into the jack on the bottom, pulling them around her ears. Her lip ticks up, and I catch her working to hide it under a different expression. But I catch it—it’s there. She wants to hear this song, and she’s playing me, too.

Let her play. I know she’ll love what she hears.

She holds my phone out for direction, and I swipe to the app and open the file—the one I love best. I can tell by the small flickers in her eyelids that it’s playing, and I can tell she’s reached the best part when her gaze moves up in short ticks to meet mine. The volume is loud—I did that on purpose. She can’t hear me, and she can’t hear the sounds she’s making. Her breathing changes, and it hitches when she gets to the best parts—my favorite a tiny break in her voice where I cut out everything in the background completely, just to leave her sound out there bare and vulnerable. If I hadn’t heard it a thousand times in editing, it would give me chills right now.

Damn, it still does.

Her bottom lip pulls loose from her teeth with a tiny puff of air, and her eyes sweep shut. I’m standing in front of her and I feel like I should touch her, hold her hand or dance or…I don’t know. I also feel a little voyeuristic—like I shouldn’t be watching. She’s listening to herself, but she’s also hearing me—the real me. She’s hearing what I’m capable of. The reason I found courage to tell my father no, the reason I let my family down to choose my own path, the reason I don’t care how much it disappoints them. This girl is the key to everything I want to do. She’s barely swaying in front of me, her eyes closed and my phone clutched in her palm, my dreams held right along with them.

“I know you like the song, Murphy. Please just trust me,” I whisper. I know she can’t hear me, but her eyes fly open and match mine. My fingers twitch, and I press my thumbs against each fingertip one at a time trying to work out the sensation.

A full minute passes, and I know the song is almost over as she moves her hand up to the cans of her headphones, cupping them and sliding them down against her neck. Her eyes blink slowly, her gaze off to the side, and her lips not giving away a damn thing. She’s an enigma.

She’s beautiful.

If my music had a physical form, I think it might just be her.

“This label, or studio, or whatever it is,” she says, eyes flashing to mine. She knows what it is. She’s pretending to be aloof. I’m going to let her.

“It’s both. John Maxwell—he’s both. He’s…he’s big,” I answer fast.

“And you work there?” she asks, her expression still unchanged.