The girls skipped into an open studio. I brushed off the seat and watched the glitter flutter in the air around me. “Did you pick a song yet?”
“I’m still looking through the options of self-humiliation. I can’t believe you are getting me to sing again. Can we skip this part? Why don’t you record something and I’ll listen on this side of the glass?”
“That’s no fun. Sing with me. It’s exactly like the Love Match date, only this is a sure thing. I promise to give you a rose if you sing.”
He placed the binder next to him and leaned dangerously close to me. I felt my heart race when he stared at me with an intense, lustful gaze. “Sure thing?”
I bit down on my lip. Beau was making me come undone right here in the studio waiting room. “Yes. Sure thing.”
“Next! Your studio is waiting. Room B.” A large man appeared from the control room and pointed us in the direction of the padded room.
Beau casually strolled into the studio, leaving me to regain my composure. I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull off the second part of the date he really wanted, but I did know there was no way I was going to let him down.
“London? You comin
g?” He stood in the doorway.
“Yep.” I hopped up from my seat and met him in the recording booth.
“I have the perfect song for us.” He pointed to one of the titles in the binder.
The man on the other side of the glass flipped the microphone switch so he could talk to us. “Ok. I have your song cued. You can do two run throughs and then we record it. Any questions?”
I pulled the headphones on over my ears and gave the operator a thumbs up. We were ready.
Beau adjusted his headset and winked at me. I was glad he was having fun with the date. We stumbled through the first take. I kept trying to match the pitch in his voice, and he was trying to keep up with the lyric placement. Singing without backup vocals is hard to do. By the third take, we nailed it.
“That’s a wrap. Wait in the lounge and I’ll have your CD ready in five minutes.” The voice boomed in the quiet studio.
Beau reached for my hand and led me to the waiting area. He took any chance he had to touch me.
“I have an awesome idea for the track.” He looked excited.
“What do you mean?”
“I can put it on the blog with this week’s post. Before you know it, we’ll have ten thousand downloads.”
That damn blog. I didn’t really want to share the song with the whole campus or as Professor Garcia had mentioned, the country. I still hadn’t mentioned my conversation with our wacky professor to Beau. She canceled class Thursday, claiming she had the flu. It bought me another few days before I had to give her an answer about publishing the research. I was going to have to approach the impossible situation with him later tonight, before he distracted me with all his seductive tactics.
“London? Hello? You look like you’re a million miles away.”
“Sorry. Thinking about the blog.”
“We don’t have to post the song if you don’t want to. I thought it added another element for us.”
“No. No, it’s a great idea, but I do need to talk to you about class.”
“Ok. What’s up? You look serious.”
The door opened to the control room and the burly man shoved a CD in Beau’s hand. “Here you go. It’s a good song. You two aren’t bad together.” He patted Beau on the back before shuttling another group into Studio B.
“Can we get out of here? I want my rose now.” His hand found the curve above my hip and he planted his arm around my waist.
“Yes. I have more planned.” I smiled at him. “Let’s go.”
I couldn’t believe how dark it was at Kenan Stadium. It was the beginning of spring, so the football stadium wasn’t being used for anything, but still I thought there would be some kind of lighting.
We pushed on the chain-link gate and walked into the concrete corridor. It was eerie how quiet the complex was at night.