I set the notebook and pen beside me on the bench. There wasn’t much room left with Rory crowding me. He was a bigger guy than he’d seemed at first, or maybe it was the force of his glare.
So much for believing a dude’s smile. I should know better.
“I’m not really sure yet. This is my first…well, everything. I do have songs.” The hesitation in my voice royally pissed me off. I could do this. “Quite a lot of them, actually.”
Gray leaned forward. “But not with you.”
“No. Sorry. I’m just unprepared. It won’t happen again.” I wouldn’t let it. “But I know a lot of them by heart. I can write them down for you, play some on the piano so you can get a feel for them. And me. I usually play guitar, but I’m almost as comfortable on the keys.”
Deacon nodded and glanced at Gray. “That works for us. Rory?”
I wasn’t surprised he didn’t consult Simon. They had to know Simon couldn’t be thrilled about being assigned to work with me. He had to have been strong-armed into this situation, just as I had been.
He would never want to do this voluntarily. Not with me. I knew he didn’t see me as in his league.
If he knew what I’d agreed to do to save my own hide, he would hate me even more. I was everything he’d accused me of being, despite how I was trying to make good.
But someday, I would be better. I would be worthy of this.
No matter what it took.
Rory nodded and jutted his chin at the keys. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Twenty-Five
Simon rubbed at the tension sitting between his shoulder blades. He’d played fly on the wall as his baby bro—Ian learned the studio ropes with two of his best friends. Deacon had been ever patient and Gray…well, he’d been fucking friendly with the little shit.
Did they have no loyalty?
And the Rory dude was an anomaly as well. He seemed to be everyone’s bestie, but there was a bit of something else lurking behind the hint of Ireland in his voice. Simon wasn’t sure if the dude was from there or simply had family from there. His little research expedition hadn’t given up much beyond an impressive array of artists on the producer’s credit sheets.
But it had been the wide-eyed Ian who dominated his thoughts on the drive home. Excitement thrummed underneath the kid’s frustration. Ian truly didn’t like being so clueless. Some of it reminded Simon of his time in the studio. When the vocal isolation booth had felt like a coffin instead of a tool to do his job.
“Babe?” Simon tossed his car keys in the bowl on the little table just inside the door to the penthouse. They would be leaving again in a few minutes, but somehow he’d lose his keys in the space between the door to finding his wife.
“In the bedroom.”
“You almost ready?” He halted in the doorway. Margo had her fingers twisted behind her back as she tried to do the clasp on her bra. “Well, hello.”
She turned to him, her eyes shiny with frustration. “Don’t ‘well, hello’ me.”
“Ah, babe.” He crossed the room to her then brushed her fingers away. “I’m better at undoing this thing than hooking it, but let me help.”
She sighed and dropped her hands to her sides with a sniff. “My boobs are getting too big for every bra in my damn drawer.”
He left the hooks undone and tucked his hands under the lacy lilac cups. Her skin was like the softest water and was his favorite thing in life.
Well, next to the whole impending baby thing. He’d been sure he couldn’t love anything as much as his wife until she’d told him about the baby.
She leaned back against him. “What are you doing?”
“Well, you keep insulting these beautiful breasts. I just needed to give them a little loving.”
Margo snorted as she smoothed her palms over his forearms. “You gave them plenty of loving this morning.”
“They deserve it.”
“I’m just feeling blah and my clothes are starting to not fit.”