In Your Dreams (Falling #4)(55)

“Are you trying to make me stutter?” she giggles.

“Maybe,” I smirk.

She breathes in slowly, rolling on her back and stretching her arms over her head. The black T-shirt she’s wearing rides up enough that I see her sides and bare stomach above her low-slung jeans, and I think to myself how far I’ve come. Any other girl, some other place and time, and I would be switching gears right now, capitalizing, because I always get the girl. I just don’t always keep the girl. They learn things, grow tired of me, or, more often, I am bored and done before anything has a chance. It’s never been the right girl, really. But Murphy…she’s a keep kind of girl. And this whole thing started because she hates me, so patience is necessary. But I have had my hand on that stomach. I’ve felt how warm her skin is through layers of fabric. I bet her skin is searing bare.

Patience isn’t a virtue. Patience is a murderer of six-foot-one fools desperate to kiss girls who sing like angels and look like my dreams.

“I pretend it’s all a performance,” she says finally.

“What’s a performance?” I ask.

“Life,” she says, falling to the side again.

Her eyes—they’re tired. I see it now.

“I think that’s true for all of us,” I say, exhaling and sliding down enough that only my head is propped against her wall. She throws a pillow to me, and I tuck it behind my neck. “Thanks.”

Every fiber of my body wants to crawl up next to her. But I can’t. Because she would think it’s all about the seduction. For once…it’s not. So, instead, I’m content staring at her, imagining how her lashes feel on my cheek, how her lips feel when my teeth tug on them, how her body reacts when I drag my hand from her bellybutton to her neck.

“I slip sometimes,” she says. I wait for her to explain. “Like in the studio, when we were recording. That’s why it was so hard. My nerves. And it’s why I only play at Paul’s. It took me forever to be able to play there. It still happens, though. I know you’ve heard it.”

“It’s not bad,” I say, and I mean it. It isn’t. If she hadn’t told me, I probably would have just always thought it was part of her quirkiness, cute nerves that get the best of her sometimes. Stage fright, maybe.

“It’s bad enough. Who wants to hear a girl sing and sound like a skipping record,” she says, and I hate that she’s frowning.

“I don’t know,” I say, lifting myself up on my elbows again. “But that’s not what people hear when they listen to you.”

“What do they hear?” she asks, her mouth crooked in question.

“God. Faith. Soul. It’s spiritual,” I say.

She laughs my words off instantly.

“You’re corny,” she says.

I laugh with her, because yeah…I get how that sounds. “I know, but seriously,” I say, “you’re a gift.”

Her laughter fades. She sits up again, her legs dangling from the side of her bed. Gray finds me fast and holds me hostage. I submit with nothing but the truth.

“And you’re beautiful,” I say. No smile, no pursed lips. All I do is look at her, because she is.

“Casey,” she breaths.

“You are.”

Silence falls over us again, more comfortable than before. I could sit like this for hours, just looking, and it’s so strange how content I am.

“Murphy? Murphy!”

Lane’s voice echoes from a few doors down, breaking up what might have been my favorite full minute of breathing ever. It was definitely my most honest minute ever. And I didn’t have to say a word.

“Sorry, I’ll be right back,” Murphy sighs, flashing a bashful smile as she gets up from her bed and steps around me. I pull my legs in and crane my neck to watch her walk down the hall, doubly pleased when she shakes her fingers loose at her sides. I look at my own hands and see that I’m clenching my fists too.

With a silent laugh, I pick up her photo book and move to my knees, gliding over to her small bookcase and sliding the book back into it’s spot. She has a few songbooks in here, and I wonder if each is full, or if there are more gems waiting for someone to read them and declare them as worthy of her voice. As beautiful as her singing is, her writing is even more. Hell, there are artists I hear working all day at the studio that don’t hold a candle to her writing ability. But they have swagger—and it gets them anything they want, even million-dollar contracts and the attention of all the right people in the industry. This business is ninety-nine percent confidence, and that’s what’s killing Murphy.

I let my finger trace along a few more spines, stopping at the final four set of books, which I recognize immediately, because I just looked at the yearbooks in Houston’s house a week ago. I tip the first one out and flip through a few pages until I find her freshman picture. It’s young and barely recognizable, her cheeks rounder and her hair pulled back tightly in a ponytail. I skip through a few more pages without seeing her, and put her yearbook back, taking out the senior one I’d looked at before.

My hand knows right where to go, because I look at the picture so often, and I push down on the crease, exposing all of the image so I can take in her eyes. There are a few notes scribbled on the page with arrows pointing to other people in the drama club picture with her.