Gray flashed a smile. Then he grabbed his guitar and inclined his head in invitation. “Come this way.”
If the house was a fraction of its size, I would have been impressed. The modern architecture, breathtaking views, and the pervasive sense of solitude were awe-inspiring. I didn’t think it could get any better, but I was dead wrong. Gray’s in-home studio was the stuff of dreams. It was chock full of more instruments and sound equipment than I’d ever seen in person, outside of a music store. I didn’t know where to look first.
The far left side was set up like a stage in front of a wall of acoustic and electric guitars. Any band could walk in and be ready to rock at a moment’s notice. An elaborate drum kit sat in the far right corner near a collection of bass guitars, and a series of keyboards. A gorgeous grand piano anchored the space. On the opposite end of the room, a massive array of computer screens and engineering equipment were positioned in front of a real live sound booth. I noted the acoustic panels on the stone walls and the comfy sofas along the perimeter as I turned in a slow circle, taking in as many details as possible. The studio was clean and orderly but had a lived-in feel lacking in the rest of the house. It was fucking incredible.
“This might be the coolest place on the planet. Do you work here? Stupid question. Of course you work here. Wow. Just fuckin’ amazing,” I blabbered.
“Thanks.”
He crossed his arms, fixing me with an amused chuckle as I moved around the room like a kid in a candy store. “Do you play all these instruments? You probably do. That’s another stupid question. Wait. I think you told me. Guitar and piano.”
“Right. The rest I can fake with varying degrees of success.” Gray met me in front of an elaborate wall of guitars and pulled a beautiful mahogany Gibson down. “Try this one. She’s got a true sound. Clear and strong.”
“That’s okay. I don’t want to mess it up.”
Gray scoffed. “Unless you smash it against the wall, I don’t see how you can mess it up.”
“Uh, all right…”
I held his gaze in a strange standoff of sorts before taking the guitar and sitting on the stool next to the drum kit. I settled it over my knee and fingered the strings idly, hoping something amazing would come to me. I drew a blank. When in doubt, start at the beginning.
The first song I ever learned to play on the guitar was Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.” It was an inspired choice because it was easy to learn, and everyone loved it. If you could fake it well enough on a popular song, people tended to fill in the rough patches and not notice the guitarist needed a tune-up. However, I’d never played an instrument that belonged to a real songwriter and potentially cost more than everything I owned put together.
I liked to think of myself as a fairly confident guy, but nothing felt familiar. I was a nerve-wracking combination of edgy and horny around Gray. This would have been a hell of a lot easier if I didn’t know how rough and tender he could be and how amazing it felt to have him inside me.
I sucked in a deep breath and strummed the first few chords. When I flubbed the intro, I covered it up by singing. Loudly. It was a habit I’d developed to cover my mistakes when I was in Gypsy Coma. If I sang above anyone else, they might overlook my amateurish guitar skills. It had worked in my favor. For a while, anyway.
My philosophy applied to everyday life too. If I distracted someone with a laugh, I could temporarily make them forget the color of my skin, my lack of education, my sexuality, my social inadequacies, and the fact that I didn’t have a dime to my name. It was a perverse kind of magic. I could fake anything for a short time, but I wasn’t a comedian and I wasn’t much of a musician. The one thing I did pretty well was sing. Hopefully well enough to distract Gray from my fumbling fingers. Fuck, I was nervous.
I powered through the song, then flattened my hand over the strings when I reached the chorus and belted out, “So good, so good, so good!” like I would in a karaoke bar.
“That was inspired,” Gray enthused. “You have an amazing voice.”
His smile morphed into a wide, luminous grin that stopped me in my tracks like a car skidding off the road into a brick wall. Cue sound effects—screeching brakes, metal-on-metal, glass shattering, and boom! My heartbeat reverberated in my head, making me feel dizzy and dopey. I felt warm and then hot. Too hot. And maybe a little punch-drunk, ’cause wow, I’d never seen a smile quite like his. It started in his eyes and took over his face, radiating from him like sunshine.