Mister Dick

This was what it felt like to be connected to another person in such a way you didn’t have to look to know they were there.

I turned slightly and watched as she walked across the room. She was dressed the way I liked, a stripped-down version of herself in old jeans, a simple T-shirt, no makeup, and her hair all loose on top of her head. She didn’t look my way and tossed a notebook onto a table covered with books and music sheets.

Marta had sent out a basket of sandwiches, three apples, a couple of bags of salt-and-vinegar chips, along with a small container of cut-up cucumber and carrots. The container had a sticky note—eat your veggies—attached to the lid.

I had eaten my veggies first.

Echo peeked into the box and grabbed a bag of chips before ripping them open and finally glancing over.

“I’m here,” she said softly, munching on a large salted chip.

“I see that.”

“What are we doing?” It was a whisper, and I think she was surprised she’d said it out loud, because when I answered, her eyes widened.

“We’re going to make magic.”

She licked her bottom lip, and I set my sandwich aside. I was hungry, but it wasn’t food I craved. I got up and crossed the room, liking the way she trembled, the way she bit that bottom lip and stared up at me.

“Do you trust me?”

“I don’t know,” she answered haltingly. “I want to.”

It took everything in me not to reach down and claim that mouth. Not to slide my own across hers, to sink my hands into all that shiny soft hair, to pull her close until every inch of her was pressed against me. To claim Echo in the most basic way there was.

But I was strong. I had to be, dealing with her. I pulled back because I knew she was like one of the fillies out at my place in Tennessee. She needed time to absorb, time to get comfortable, time to surrender to this thing between us. This thing that had never gone away.

“Pick up a guitar,” I said, nodding to a group of them in the far corner. She chose one of her dad’s older acoustics and settled onto the chair across from me. I had my own across my lap and started to play one of the songs we’d written together at the cabin.

She watched for a few moments, her head nodding slightly, her body moving into the instrument as her fingers began to pull notes. We played a good ten minutes, finding our rhythm and gathering the joy. When we hit our stride, I began to sing, and Echo joined in. At first, she sang softly, but as her confidence grew, so did her voice. It was a thing of beauty. I couldn’t even compare her to anyone else because she was that original.

I can’t describe how it felt to sing with her. How it felt for our voices to melt together in a way that was familiar and right and so damn good, it rocked my world. We played all the tunes we’d worked on in the Catskills. We played them several times and nailed down vocal runs that would make the president of my damn label hard.

This was gold. This was a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration, and I needed to run tape. I needed to get this down, because if the shit hit at some point, and I knew there was a pretty good chance it would, I wanted something to remember. Some form of media I could listen to over and over and over again.

I have no idea how long we played, but when we finally stopped, both of us were out of breath. I was about to set down my guitar when a slow, methodic clapping drew my gaze from Echo to the door of the studio. Zach stood there, and if I had looked closer, I would have seen the odd expression on his face. But I didn’t give a crap about the guy, and here I thought the bastard had left.

I scowled as he walked toward us, but he didn’t stop to say anything. He headed to the control room and snapped on the lights once he was inside. I looked at Echo, but she was focused on him, slowly shaking her head, her face pale.

“What the hell, Gilbraid?” He walked toward us with microphones and boom stands. He ignored me at first, placing a couple near Echo and then headed my way. He was encroaching on my turf and the he-man inside me roared to life. “Seriously. What the fuck?”

“Relax, Appleton.” Zach’s face was a study in concentration as he angled the boom on the mic stand a bit and then slid one of the mics into the holder. “You’re going to thank me one day.”

“For what?”

He nailed me with a look I knew all too well. It was hunger and excitement. It was ecstasy on steroids. Who the hell needed the chemical version when you had this? When you had something so real and honest and so fucking sweet, you wanted to lose your mind?

Zach stood back and glanced over to Echo. “Seems like I might be sticking around after all.”

He headed into the control room once more. “Okay, let’s do a level check.”

Say what you will about Zach Gilbraid, and Christ knows I’ve said a lot, but the one truth no one can deny is that the guy is a genius in the studio. And this recording session had just ramped up big-time.

He got the levels he wanted and then joined us, sitting down with a slide guitar on his lap. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

First off, if someone had told me a month ago that I’d be in a studio with Zach, I would have told them they were crazy. If they had said Echo would be right there in the thick of it, I would have told them they were not

only crazy but on crack.