In Your Dreams (Falling #4)(90)

And for the next hour, I sit in my parked car next to the north side’s king of pot as I cry my f*cking eyes out because I just threw away my dream.





Casey


I knew the minute she walked in. Murphy wears her emotions. Her eyes were puffy and her mouth was a hard line, her jaw working and her nostrils flaring. She got to the club when I was setting up—no text for a warning. I heard her arguing with security at the front, and I ran over to rescue her. She flew at me with fists and beat my chest for about five full minutes. I’m pretty sure I’m bruised because I didn’t stop her.

“Did you know?”

She asked that a thousand times. She hit me and cried, and I watched her fall apart. She only stopped a minute ago, and I’ve managed to calm her and convince her to sit here by my gear, away from ears I know should not hear my girl right now.

“Did you know?” she asks again.

I hold my tongue in my teeth, no honest way to answer this without her hating me.

“Not for sure,” I say. That’s a * answer. Deep down, I knew. I only hoped I was wrong.

I can access everything. It’s probably not a good idea, especially given how close I’m sure they’ve come to realize I am with Murphy. But dumb-asses will be what they are, and I got curious about the progress a couple weeks ago and started poking around the edit files. I found the cut I played for her that night at the club, and I was blown away. I’m willing to admit it’s better than mine. That cut, it was all Gomez and his years of finely-honed skills. It was the right ear making the right choices, and the result was magic.

But I also saw the short clips with the sound cut out in the background. I’d heard other projects they’ve been working on lately, mash-ups with rap and quieter artists they label not-so-kindly as background. Those edits I found of hers—they were in that pile.

“I found different versions, and the one I brought to the club—it was the best one,” I say, keeping my eyes locked to hers, breaking under the scrutiny of her grays. “I just thought…”

I sigh and let my head fall to the side. She’s so beautiful. I’m so mad that they broke her. Fucking fools.

“You thought what,” she chokes out, still holding on to some of her anger. I understand.

“I just thought…how could this not be the one they go with,” I say.

She sucks in her top lip, and I see the tears coming miles before they reach the well of her eyes. I lean forward and cup her quivering face in my hands, wiping them away one at a time as they fall.

“But you played it,” she pleads. I know she’s hoping for a loophole, something I can say that will make that moment—the one where a roomful of people heard and loved her song as it was meant to be—the only one that counts.

“I stole it,” I say through a small guilty laugh, shaking my head. “I knew I had to be right, but just in case…I wanted you to hear it.”

Her chest fills slowly, so full that her shoulders lift and her neck strains for air. It’s the panic attack, the ones she fights when her mouth quits working. There are a million things I’ve learned about what I would do differently if I had my own studio. Top of the list is not make beautiful girls cry.

Hands fisted in her hair, her eyes fall to my knees and she takes long draws of air to calm her demons and fight against her body’s instincts.

“I called him a prick,” she says through a chuckle. She looks up at me, her eyebrows high on her head and her mouth flies into a manic smile. “Ha! He’s a f*cking billionaire, and I called him a prick!”

“He is a prick,” I laugh with her. “And I’m pretty sure he’s only worth millions, so joke’s on him!”

We laugh like crazy people for thirty seconds straight, until the distraction leaves her system and she falls limp again, her head in her hands in front of me. I pull her close, and eventually to my lap where I hug her and lock my fingers with hers to kiss them.

“I still have the song with me,” I say in her ear. “The one I played last time. I have it here. I could play it again.”

She shakes her head and closes her eyes, leaning into me, her face nestled into my neck and shoulder.

“I don’t ever want to hear it again,” she breathes, and I die, because her voice in that song is about as close to heaven as I think I’ll ever get.

“Okay,” I say.

I sit with Murphy on my lap for the rest of the hour, and I let her pick songs for the night that fit her mood—her tastes run from borderline death-metal to James Brown. I mix it all, and the drones on the dance floor don’t notice. I work in beats like a chef with spare ingredients he needs to get rid of, and they eat it up—grinding and pulsating until it’s two in the morning and Murphy is fast asleep on the line of chairs I set up for her behind me.

I carry her to my car, and I wait for her to wake up so I can ask her if she wants to go with me or let me take her home. When her hand grips mine tightly, I don’t even bother to ask. I drive her to my apartment, show the middle finger to Eli when he opens his bedroom door and I hold her until Saturday’s highest sun is in the center of the sky.

“Your father is going to pull out the ax again,” I say, my nose on hers. She runs hers back and forth.

“Eskimo kisses,” she giggles.